Why The Caged Bird Sings: From Silence to Symphony, Rise Again in Voice

The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō was a bird species native to Hawai‘i that went extinct in the late 1980s. There’s a heartbreaking video of the last known bird singing to or for a companion that will not, or rather cannot, respond. The call sounds desperate; a desperation born of isolation, a loneliness that comes from being the first, the last, or the sidelined. 

And yet, within that cry, there was an aliveness, a quiet insistence that says: I’ll sing my song. Someone is bound to hear it. The heartbreak lies in the recognition of that isolation. 

Songs are magic. Think of all the music that has moved you to tears, to joy, to the dancefloor, to clarity to climax.
The songs that sent chills down your spine at first listen, or even the ones that felt so discordant you couldn’t bear to hear them again. 

Sometimes, I experience emotion so intensely, so immersively, that language cannot quite wrap itself around it. It feels like a heaviness in the heart and a tightening of the throat. Searching for the right words can feel like drowning in quicksand. 

And when I sing, it feels like letting go of the need for language, allowing pure feeling to pour through me.
It’s belting out Celine Dion with all my heart, mind, and soul; because actually whatever it takes, I’ll sacrifice. 

But someone once told you that you couldn’t sing. And now, no song slips between your lips, because you’ve learned to hate your voice, your sound, your part in this uni-verse. 

Singing is alchemy. It has been used since the dawn of humanity, to heal, to induce, to celebrate. So what if you don’t sound like Beyoncé? What’s so wrong with sounding unapologetically you? 

Unlike the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird, our song will not fall on extinct ears. Out there are the hearts and ears of people who will hear your song. 

How beautiful, to offer your sound to the great symphony—the orchestra of life. How glorious, that you carry an instrument so deeply embedded within you?

So, what would it mean to reclaim your voice, not for performance, but as a sacred act of belonging? To find your voice is to begin finding your place in this life, to root into who you are and how you’re meant to move through the world.

At Nlovu, we honour voice as more than sound it’s an expression of your sensuality, your truth, your power. If something in you stirred while reading this, know that we’re here to support your journey. We create spaces where your voice, your rhythm, your presence can return to you, fully and unapologetically.