Solange celebrated the healing power of music in honor of the two-year anniversary of her critically acclaimed 2019 album, When I Get Home.
“When I first started creating ‘When I Get Home’ I was quite literally fighting for my life…in and out of hospitals (s/out park plaza on Binz! 🙂 with depleting health and broken spirits asking God to send me a sign I would not only survive, but that if he let me make it out alive, I would step into the light whatever that meant,” the R&B singer, 34, wrote via Instagram on Monday, March 1. “He begin speaking to me. Half the time I didn’t know where it was coming from. I only knew I had to open the door and honor it.”
Solange admitted that she “didn’t know who I was speaking to” while writing and recording the record’s closing track, “I’m a Witness,” which included a prayerlike message about growth.
“When I listen back, I hear a woman who had only an inkling of what the journey entailed, but didn’t have a clue of why or what the journey would look like,” she continued. “This project has shown me, once you open that door, you can’t go backwards. Believe me I’ve tried saying ‘nah I’m just playing’ so many times, ha. I’m not a big fan of talking about s–t I don’t know yet. I didn’t do much talking during this time because of that.”
The Grammy winner explained that she makes music “to answer questions within me, for survival,” but it is not always an easy process.
“Sometimes I am asking myself that same question many ways. Sometimes it takes me years,” she wrote. “I have to honor that time. This Houston ting moves slow y’all. One day, I’ll tell y’all about the days I’ve had since I opened this door. The things I’ve uncovered. The life long healing I’ve begin. The great divine joy and love I’ve experienced. The stories of my past I’ve survived that I had stored all up in my body…. till it said…. no more. The re-learning. The reckoning. This album led me to all of it.”
Solange concluded her contemplative post by telling fans that she now separates her life into two chapters: the one before When I Get Home and the one after.
“I’m so grateful for you guys allowing me the space and time. So so so grateful,” she wrote. “Ima be celebrating all week long the coming of home.”
On top of her health issues, the Texas native suffered heartbreak during the When I Get Home era. She announced her split from music video director Alan Ferguson in November 2019 after nearly five years of marriage, writing in a since-deleted Instagram post that she hoped the transition would be “filled with incredible love and light.”
Solange has since sparked dating rumors with jazz composer Gio Escobar, with whom she shared a photo via Instagram in November 2020.
The Criterion Channel released a remastered director’s cut of Solange’s interdisciplinary performance art film for When I Get Home on the second anniversary.
