Years back, when I was just starting out as a recording artist, I recorded a song called The Devil’s Mistress, TDM. TDM was a representation of all of the anger and confusion I had experienced as a survivor of relationship rape. Charles Hamilton had sent me the beat, and the words just flowed out of me like water that doesn’t stop running until you manually turn off the faucet.

I had so much to say. I went on for over four minutes, detailing what was going on inside of me on the mic. This was very early on in my rapping career, about 6 years ago, when I was just learning the very basics of the ropes of studio life. It was also only 6 years into my healing process after the sexual assault itself.

As the 12 year anniversary of the rape is currently a week away, I have released a memoir on the subject, and I am delivering a workshop on #MeToo and consent next week for a nonprofit, I feel empowered to finally release The Devil’s Mistress across all platforms. As it uploads across streaming services worldwide, I am overcome with this incredible sense that my rallying cry is about to be heard on a larger scale, and I am so grateful for that.

I want to thank Charles Hamilton for providing the beat to this song, but also for seeing the talent that was within me 6 years back when he originally sent me that folder of beats. Charles believed in me at a time when I still needed to see it for myself, and I am grateful for his vision.

Sexual assault can and does send life off the rails for its survivors and victims. If I were to take a pin and drop it in the timeline of my life, the moment everything changed for the worse was the moment my ex forced himself upon me. To this day I am still building back, healing, recovering, and moving forward from the mess he made. He declared war on my body and that war wages on until this day.

But, there has also been incredible leaps and bounds in healing. Through art, music, writing, deep work, therapy, research, and time, I have been able to heal in ways that I never knew imaginable since the moment I released this track over half a decade ago.

Am I still angry? Sure, of course I am angry. I will always feel anger towards what he did, but I have made sense of what happened in ways that I never thought I would. I have learned about the brain, I have learned about the mind, I have learned about the heart, the body, and soul and about how all of these respond to trauma. I have become trauma-informed, self-aware and awake to realities I never knew existed. I have worked on myself relentlessly, and I have experienced true post-traumatic growth.

Listen to The Devil’s Mistress today and hear the reality of a young woman crying out to the world after experiencing the ultimate betrayal by the man she loved. There is pain, triumph and power in my words. I hope that other survivors feel that power the most and it helps them with their healing and coping processes.

Life is one hell of a journey, but it doesn’t have to be hell.