Rhiannon Giddens has written a new song, entitled "Cry No More," in response to the tragic shooting of nine parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June. She brought together friends and band members to film a video for the song, which she co-wrote with her sister Lalenja Harrington, at the United Congregational Church in her home town of Greensboro, North Carolina. The video, directed by filmmaker Harvey Robinson, premiered via NPR Music. You can watch it below.

"The massacre at the AME church in Charleston is just the latest in a string of racially charged events that have broken my heart," says Giddens. "There are a lot of things to fix in this world, but history says if we don't address this canker, centuries in the making, these things will continue to happen. No matter what level privilege you have, when the system is broken everybody loses. We all have to speak up when injustice happens. No matter what. And music is one of the best ways I know to do so."

"I suppose, in the wake of the Charleston massacre and after listening to the song I wondered how our perception of entering an unfamiliar church has altered," says director Harvey Robinson.

The song's "genre delineations apply more to the human condition than to music," wrote NPR Music's Katie Presley in the video's premiere. "Grief like a drum, strength like a choir and hope like a single voice rising are the only vocabulary needed—and language anyone can understand."