Premiering today, the music video for Veronica D’Souza’s latest single “Canary Song” is a powerful visual statement in restraint. Shot in a single hour inside a Copenhagen rehearsal room, the stripped-back performance sees D’Souza alone behind a drum kit, no gloss, no frills, just unwavering focus. As she locks into the beat, something begins to build: a quiet, insistent force that radiates strength, autonomy, and self-possession. It’s not just a performance, it’s a reclamation of rhythm, of body, of voice.
The track itself is a feminist anthem rooted in what D’Souza calls “unseen strength,” the kind women carry through care, resilience, and refusal. Written during a moment of personal upheaval and recalibration, “Canary Song” is a meditation on shedding roles and expectations that no longer fit, and stepping fully into your own rhythm. For D’Souza, whose background spans global activism, social enterprise, and sonic experimentation, it’s not just a song. It’s protest music for the soft revolution: deeply personal, politically potent, and driven by an unstoppable pulse. In this conversation, she reflects on reclaiming joy, redefining love, and drumming your own rhythm.
Let’s talk “Canary Song”! This track feels like a personal awakening and a collective rallying cry all at once. Was there a specific moment or experience that sparked its creation?
First of all, thank you for having me! I wrote this song while recalibrating a fundamental relationship into a very different one, which made me pause to examine what I’d been taught life was supposed to look like, what I had internalized without noticing. It felt like a kind of free fall. Like everything was quietly unraveling—and in the middle of that, there was this unexpected feeling of strength. Of freedom.
At the same time, we’re living through a global tightening of control—over women, trans people, over basic rights. So Canary Song lives in both of those spaces. It’s personal and political. A quiet refusal to stay put. And a celebration of the kind of female strength that often goes unnoticed—the one that holds communities together without ever asking for credit.
You’ve said ”Canary Song” is for every woman who’s had to drum her own rhythm and keep going. When in your life did you first realise you had your own beat to follow?
I was raised to be an independent woman. Both my parents had to fight to create their own lives—they took nothing for granted. That shaped me deeply from early on.
I guess it shaped my development into building social enterprises working alongside women who have been left out or pushed aside by the system. With Ruby Cup, we focused on menstrual health and supporting girls to stay in school during their periods—a basic right, which is often neglected. With CARCEL, I worked with incarcerated women in Thailand and Peru—many of them mothers—fighting for tools to break with the systems of poverty that had gotten them there. In both places, I’ve been humbled by the resilience I’ve seen. Women who care for others, who keep going, who find rhythm even when the world gives them none.
Canary Song is a celebration of that kind of strength. It’s an ode to the women who drum their own rhythm, often in silence—but always with power.
The music video is so striking in its simplicity. Just you, drumming, fully in your power. No frills, just focus. What inspired that concept and visual direction?
Thank you. I wanted to show something that feels powerful beneath the layers. The drumbeat, to me, is what holds Canary Song together. I actually made the beat before writing the melody—which is unusual for me. I normally start the other way around. But this time, the rhythm came first. It felt steady, unstoppable. Like a freight train that keeps going. That’s the kind of power I wanted to capture.
It’s also a quiet nod to the iconic pop-rock images I grew up with—where it was always a man, shirtless, behind the drums. I wanted to add to that visual language. For me, it was about joy, rhythm, and focusing inward. Reclaiming the body as a source of strength. And playing just for yourself. And it was so much fun.
The video mirrors the message of ”Canary Song”. You are reclaiming your space, your beat, your voice. Did filming it feel cathartic in the same way writing the song did?
You know, it actually did. There was something liberating about communicating the song this way—just with my body. It felt very personal and honest.
There was also a bit of a Dogma vibe to it. I asked my talented friend Niklas Vindelev if he’d film me, in a rehearsal room here in Copenhagen. We only had an hour. So I just sat down, played the song a few times—and that was it. That also felt pretty liberating. I love how Niklas edited it together.
I always have visuals running in my head when I make songs, and I love bringing them to life. The drums just have this undeniable power. Drumming your own rhythm—that, to me, is everything Canary Song is about.
You call ”Canary Song” a tribute to unseen strength, the kind women often carry without recognition. What would you say to someone still trying to locate that power within themselves?
The power is there—and you know it. But listening to it, and trusting it, is a constant practice. I think of it like a muscle. The more you use it, the more you feel it. And over time, it becomes something you can lean on to be lifted. And that power can’t be messed with.
And we need it now more than ever. There’s a genocide being livestreamed, an ecocide unfolding, and entire systems collapsing—driven by control and profit. It is a heartbreak every moment. So I turn to that strength for hope. We need to live through, and rise and fight for something better. We need all the feminine energy we can find to guide us toward a different kind of leadership—one rooted in collectiveness, care, and empathy.
You talk about shedding roles and systems that no longer serve you. What’s one expectation you’ve completely let go of, and one new truth you’ve embraced?
One expectation I’ve let go of:
The idea that romantic love should follow the blueprint of marriage and monogamy. From childhood, especially as girls, we’re fed this quiet promise: find your prince, settle down, and live happily ever after. It can even seem as if you don’t follow that script, you are failing somehow in life. Religion told that story well. But that story is more social conditioning than truth. Historically, marriage wasn’t created as a celebration of love—it was a legal contract, rooted in property, and the control of women’s bodies and labor. Love, on the other hand, has always existed outside those systems—fluid, rebellious, many-shaped.
Audre Lorde spoke of erotic power as something deeply personal, not just sexual but soul-connected—often erased or suppressed in traditional relationships. Even ancient myths and Indigenous cultures hold space for love that moves in cycles, in community, beyond the binary of ownership or permanence. We need so many more stories represented that reflect the richness of that. Love that expands us rather than confines us.
One truth I’ve embraced:
Re-centering fun as a serious way of living.
Another story dominant in our world is that worth and success should be tied to output or material gain. In that story, fun can seem frivolous, foolish or at best a great sidekick.
Having two daughters shifted that for me. I realised how deeply I want them to grow up centering joy, curiosity, and playfulness—and to see that as a serious way of living. A legitimate compass. So I am trying to copy.
If you could form an all-women percussion band for one night only, who are your dream members (living or dead)?
Hah! I love this question. A percussion-only, all-women band? Alright—here we go:
Kasiva Mutua on djembe—leading with rhythm as pure storytelling.
We’re bringing back Karen Carpenter on drums—for her iconic sass, style, and unmistakable feel—next to Sachiko Fujiyama from The 5.6.7.8’s to bring the party.
Nico on a drowsy tambourine, because mood is rhythm too, Doechii on breathing—we need I badly, Anohni as director of pulse—sensing and connecting all living species in the room, and finally, Prince—channeling feminine energy unapologetically, and breathing rhythm into whatever he chooses.
I’ll be in the audience.
What’s next for you creatively? Is there more music coming?
Yes! Canary Song is part of an album I’m currently finalizing, and I’m really excited about it. I love the freedom of being able to release each track as a story, but they are all part of a larger tapestry, and I’m currently fully immersed in weaving them all together. I can’t wait to share it with you.
Thank you so much for your kind, fun, and considerate questions
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Words: Alexander Williams