Nandi Rose Plunkett is the daughter of an Indian refugee from Uganda, and her mother’s heritage and her family’s history of displacement and the continual search for a home informs a lot of the music she’s made as Half Waif over two full-lengths and her form/a EP, which was released earlier this year. That background makes her an apt artist to introduce So Many Singing, an upcoming compilation to benefit immigrant rights that features songs from LVL UP, Ratboys, Forth Wanderers, Cassandra Jenkins, Trace Mountains, Strange Ranger, Hand Habits, and more. Proceeds from the compilation will go to the International Refugee Assistance Project, a New York-based non-profit that mobilizes direct legal aid and systemic policy advocacy to serve refugees and other displaces persons around the world.

Half Waif contributed the lovely new song “Cary,” which Plunkett wrote with her band during a writing retreat they did in the Catskills last August when starting work on their upcoming new album. It’s a soft but icy track that’s built around the central question, “Cary, why’d you let me grow up?,” that breaks down into a confident and self-reliant spoken word outro: “I was lost but not forgotten/ I’m a disappearing woman, I’m the last one of my kind/ My body’s always wasting, but you cannot take my mind.” It’s the sort of haunting declaration that makes this project so powerful. Listen to it below and pre-order the So Many Singing compilation here.

The So Many Singing compilation is out 7/7 via Ruination Record Co.. Pre-order it here. All proceeds will go to the International Refugee Assistance Project. There will be an accompanying benefit show on 7/8 at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn with proceeds going towards Make The Road New York. It starts at 2PM and features EZTV, Tall Friend, Poppies, Sam Kogon, Adeline Hotel, Ben Seretan, Lightning Bug, and Ian Wayne.