When traditions become feminine power
In the early years of the twentieth century, as China emerged from conflict, a new genre began to take root—one that wove the intimacy of traditional melodies with the rhythmic pulse of Western jazz. Shidaiqu became the soundtrack of a generation rediscovering tenderness after loss. Its songs spoke of longing, of women caught between love and expectation, of cities still haunted by what they had endured. The West has often claimed modernity as its own, but music has never belonged to one hemisphere. Shidaiqu, with its quiet strength and cosmopolitan spirit, told the same story in another key—and Adai Song understands this instinctively. Her latest album, “The Blossom Project”, released in August 2025, reimagines this early Chinese pop form for the present tense.
Imagine a time when melody was the only language left to express both grief and survival. In 1930s Shanghai, songs like “Tianya Genu”, “Rose, Rose I Love You”, and “Mo Li Hua” became beacons of resilience. Adai, a young artist moving between Beijing and New York, draws from that lineage. She carries both the precision of Chinese phrasing and the improvisational curiosity of Western sound. But her reinterpretation is not nostalgic. Where Shidaiqu once reflected a woman’s quiet yearning, Adai turns those stories into statements of autonomy. In “Alone but Resonant, She Builds Her Own World”, she rewrites a song of romantic hope into one of self-determination. Later, in “Rose, Rose”, she flips the symbol of fragile beauty into freedom itself, singing, “I want to grow wild in the wind, not sit in a vase.”
Adai’s approach isn’t simply about gender politics; it’s about reclaiming voice. Through subtle production and sensitive storytelling, she bridges eras without erasing their tension. The album even reinterprets “Carmen”, merging Bizet’s defiant heroine with the tonal textures of the pipa and guzheng. The effect is striking—a dialogue between centuries and continents, where the sensual liberation of 1960s Europe meets the global womanhood of 2025. The record closes with “River Run”, a composition that moves like its title. The river—always a metaphor for transformation—flows here through memories and modernity, carrying fragments of the past into new emotional terrain. Beneath its electronic shimmer and jazz undertones lies an unspoken idea: that renewal is never a rejection, but a continuation.
Produced and mixed under Adai’s direction, “The Blossom Project” unites Berklee alumni and faculty, including sound engineer Rachel Alina and Grammy-winning producers Zach Cooper and Ian Kimmel. Together, they create a soundscape that feels both intimate and expansive—an act of remembrance and rebirth. Adai doesn’t imitate the old Shidaiqu recordings; she translates their essence into the language of now.
In doing so, she reminds us that history’s melodies are never truly finished. They echo through every reinvention, carried forward by those willing to listen differently. “The Blossom Project” is more than a homage to a forgotten genre; it’s a bridge across time, a blossom that refuses to fade.