Nationally touring recording artist and creative leader Akeylah Simone is introducing her powerful new single, “Black Women Feel No Pain,” a cinematic R&B protest ballad centered on strength, vulnerability and survival.
The song challenges the long-standing expectation that Black women must remain unbreakable while confronting the emotional and medical biases that have shaped Simone’s lived experience. Through vulnerability, rage, softness and reclamation, Simone blends personal truth with cultural critique.
“Black Women Feel No Pain” reflects on Simone’s experiences of being treated as an emotional anchor in white spaces, where she felt unable to be upset, overwhelmed or visibly in pain. She describes how those pressures contributed to physical and emotional illness, while also pointing to documented medical biases against Black women.
“I wrote ‘Black Women Feel No Pain’ as a direct response to witnessing and enduring multiple tragedies in my life and the refusal of my so-called peers to not just acknowledge my pain, but to allow me the space to feel, let alone heal from the damage done. It was demanded of me to carry their pain and to place mine to the side. It was demanded of me to “keep going.” I was breaking and my history of resilience, of survival, of strength was weaponized. I’m reclaiming my humanity with this track.”
– Akeylah Simone
The track represents a defining point in Simone’s artistic evolution, transforming personal experiences into a broader confrontation with expectations placed on Black women.
Ultimately, “Black Women Feel No Pain” serves as Simone’s refusal to continue carrying the myth of invincibility.
