In Memphis rap lore, there are eight cassettes widely known to be sigils: haunted with the soul energy of murder victims, likely to put a severe hex on listeners. It might initially seem surprising that these horrors would inspire singer, rapper, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Zora Grey, a.k.a. ZORA, given the innocence and wonder of her breakout 2022 debut LP, the self-written, self-produced Z1. But her landmark follow-up BELLAdonna — also self-produced and self-written, created over a seven-year period in her bedroom — is the result of some true personal horrors.
A month after ZORA released Z1, she was sexually assaulted at a nightclub. This assault wasn’t her first — her father had previously sexually assaulted her. After a brief period following the nightclub assault in which drugs and alcohol were her only refuge, she realized this wasn’t working, and she decided to face her trauma head-on.
“The indifference of bystanders, and the realization of the precarious safety of trans people, led me to confront my own experiences of abuse and exploitation,” ZORA says. “In response, I created a narrative that is as haunting as it is empowering.” Enter BELLAdonna, a revenge concept album and tale of personal transformation that marks ZORA’s entry into the storied Black gothic horror canon (influences include the horror films Nosferatu and Ms. 45, and persona-driven albums such as Tyler, the Creator’s IGOR and Beyoncé’s I Am… Sasha Fierce). It’s at once a stark left-turn and ZORA’s most compelling work to date by an order of magnitude.
Atop beats equally indebted to SOPHIE’s harsh, rubbery sound design and hip-hop’s gritty core, ZORA weaves the tale of Belladonna, a scorned supernatural woman who takes on a disguise to avenge all harmed women. She later realizes her father is her greatest adversary, a direct parallel to ZORA’s own relationship to sexual assault. “A lot of people don’t know my background and the things that I’ve had to do and been through,” ZORA says. “This album goes into a lot of details about myself.”
To tell Belladonna’s story and, by proxy, her own, ZORA leans into fearsome, abrasive production and vocal performances that turn from inviting to sneering on a dime. The music, a sea change from the atmospheric and spacious Z1, conjures Belladonna’s rage-filled spirit and grants ZORA a much-needed personal exorcism. On “ANGEL/GHOST,” searing guitars and demonic choral vocals lead to an eerie back half on which Belladonna speaks as ZORA’s assaulter. “It’s gon’ take some years till all my doing can be undone / What we had was short and sweet, the aftertaste is killing me,” the narrator sneers over minimal instrumentation. When ZORA’s mind goes quiet, her trauma shouts loudly.
On the dour yet glistening, “Nikes”-esque “LUV LETTERS 2 MY STINK,” ZORA works through her father sexually abusing her, often pitch-shifting her vocals upward to evoke her child self: “I’m a kid again, I can’t scream / Black it out, don’t talk back / Kissin’ on me, hearing lips smack / Age 9, having panic attacks.” After this track, though, things get brighter.
“Sex and love are used as positive tools after the halfway mark, changing the album to be more positive and uplifting,” ZORA says of the notable sonic and narrative shift following “LUV LETTERS 2 MY STINK.” In BELLAdonna’s back half, as ZORA puts it, the titular character “renounces her path of revenge” and embarks “on a journey of healing and love, finding peace and a kindred spirit.”
Sex is unbridled ebullience on the aptly named “sick sex,” which features fellow trans women Jaemy Paris and Duhgreatone, both of whom ZORA raves about as “prominent culture drivers of our community.” “We’re having sex!” goes the simple hook driving the pop-inflected chorus, and atop the Neptunes-esque bass and creaking, honking synths, this line sounds like someone completely experiencing the joy of sex for the first time in far too long. Flutes guide “head2toe” into a party track that sounds like Southern rap tossed into a Gravitron as ZORA fully embraces carnal ecstasy: “My slime gon’ fuck me right / Gon’ satisfy from head to toe.”
ZORA’s arc on BELLAdonna — leveraging sex to come off threatening on hyperpop-meets-rap lead single “VIDEOGURL,” then relishing in sex during the album’s home stretch — is equally gratifying and hard-won. “While this album is dark, I want to also make sure it ends on a positive note,” ZORA says, especially because BELLAdonna’s narrative is more than hers.
“I discovered that many others shared eerily similar experiences of violence and exploitation,” ZORA says. “This album became more than my story; it became a collective voice of resilience and empowerment.” BELLAdonna is a life vest for anyone who’s been abused — and for everyone else, it’s a milestone in hip-hop, pop, Black gothic horror, and everything in between.
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