Washington, D.C., R&B artist Synae to perform at Comet Ping Pong

“All we can do is tell our stories,” says Synae. “That’s a form of activism within itself. I think that sometimes when you try and speak for a lot of people, you end up speaking to no one at all.”

Synae’s story as a musician begins with the backdrop of pandemic lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter protests, which added turbulence to personal strife; the R&B artist was laid off from a job and experienced a death in the family.

“When I was thinking about what kind of songs I wanted to write, nothing came to mind,” Synae says. “Your typical love song or your typical breakup song, your typical pump-me-up anthems, they weren’t really driving my writing. And so I thought to myself, ‘What are the things that have made me happiest in my life?’”

Joy was in short supply, and when it did come, it came from an unexpected source. Nintendo had just released “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” a colorful, relaxing game for Switch consoles where the player travels to an uninhabited island, befriends adorable anthropomorphic neighbors and designs what is, in essence, a perfect homesteading life.

The game served as an inspiration for Synae’s EP “Wild World,” a four-song blend of heartfelt melodies and reflective lyrics littered with game references for keen listeners about catching bees and apple trees. Its standout is the upbeat, self-assured title track. The music video, featuring Synae dancing over clips of gameplay, is quirky and lighthearted, but the lyrics prove that exuberance didn’t come without a fight: “For someone like me, dreams don’t come for free / Before you die you gotta live like you were made for this / It’s a wild world out there, you gotta go for it.”

That seems to be Synae’s thesis: Fight back against a world not made for you with unbeatable joy and self-love. For a Black and queer artist, it’s a notion that takes on a deeper meaning. Where other artists turn outward in expressions of unity and grief and hope, Synae’s poppy songs take a different approach, turning inward to find their own role in the movement.

“Sometimes I’m writing specifically to a Black audience, and sometimes I’m writing specifically to a queer audience,” Synae says. “I write in a way where, not that I’m the main character, but the listener is in this with me.”

March 17 at 10 p.m. at Comet Ping Pong, 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. cometpingpong.com. $15.