Kevin Bronson on February 1st, 2021

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Ayoni Thompson — just Ayoni when she’s releasing music — is a 21-year-old singer-songwriter-producer who was born in Barbados, has lived in Singapore, Indonesia and the U.S. and is in the final year of her popular music studies at USC. Of course, in 2019 she released her debut album “Iridescent,” so it’s possible she’s ahead of the curriculum.

The album, and the singles that have followed, have shown the 21-year-old to be an artist unafraid to confront personal, political and societal issues, penning incisive lyrics and using her luminous voice to convey them in genre-melding songs. And no single weighs in as hard-hitting as “The Patriots,” released last week.

“Yes I feel a riot / is better than denying / the knees upon our necks / If hate is what’s required / I don’t wanna be a patriot,” she sings on tune co-produced by Cole Mitchell.

Ayoni calls the tune “a moment of reckoning that is long overdue for me and this nation. It marks an evolution in my artistic intention, as I’ve come to understand my responsibility to facilitate cultural conversations and reflect these times.

“This song has kept me up many nights, scared the living daylights out of me, held space for lifetimes of grief, and it has healed me and given me my power back. I felt my ancestors in the room the profound night I wrote this song, and they have guided me since. This is my national anthem and gospel. The only America I’ve known is very bloody, very white and very blue. To sing a song that has been written many times over generations, has been humbling and heartbreaking, but I proudly take my place amongst my musical ancestors in protest song tonight. … I believe a story can change the world — help me change this one.”

“The Patriots” is the follow-up to “Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth),” released last summer.

||| Stream: “The Patriots”

||| Also: Stream “Unmoved (A Black Woman Truth)”