From Public Defender to Singer: Danielle Ponder's New Album Tackles Loss and Strength

US singer-songwriter Danielle Ponder says career success does not guarantee a stable life. Five years ago, five days before her 40th birthday, she left her job as a public defender, representing people who cannot afford a lawyer, to focus fully on music.

Her rich, church-trained voice soon found a home in film and television: Ponder wrote and performed the theme for Apple TV+'s Manhunt, and her song Roll the Credits has appeared in adverts, TV shows and video games. Her 2022 debut album, Some of Us Are Brave, was warmly received by critics, and she appeared on Seth Meyers' talk show. Yet in her personal life, she says, everything seemed to be falling apart.

From the courtroom to the microphone

Ponder became a public defender in her native Rochester, in northern New York state, after her brother received a 20-year prison sentence for a robbery in which nobody was physically hurt. She was 16 at the time. On the job she saw a teenage boy held in a cell for riding a bike without a bell, a 76-year-old dialysis patient jailed for driving on a suspended licence, and women, mostly Black, losing their children over what was classed as neglect but was in fact poverty. She criticises a system that, in her view, fails to address the root causes of poverty and crime.

The new album

The title of her new album, Everything Has Changed, refers to the period after her early success: her brother-in-law died, her father's health declined with dementia, and she had a miscarriage. The song Blues documents this sorrow openly, while God of You is a full-bodied ballad with horns. Ponder admits she initially felt ashamed and could not discuss her loss, even when working with Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas.

In her Substack newsletter she writes about how women are conditioned to hand power to men in relationships and religion. Raised by a pastor, she speaks warmly of her father's influence. She says this album is the last time she wants to talk about bad relationships with men, preferring to invest in friendships with women, though she also stresses that men are emotionally fragile.

Her latest music videos were shot in Dakar, Senegal, where she first travelled at 17. Ponder describes them as an attempt to embody the divinity of being a woman.