London-based French-Senegalese artist anaiis has announced her forthcoming album, ‘Devotion & The Black Divine,’ set to release on September 26. This project marks a significant return for the artist, shaped by profound intuition, personal transformation, and the discipline of trusting life’s unfolding process. You can pre-order the album now.
Recorded live-to-tape at 5dB Studios in London, ‘Devotion & The Black Divine’ openly embraces themes of uncertainty and acceptance. A core influence for this new work has been anaiis’s experience with new motherhood, which deepened her understanding of reacting with grace, creating with freedom, and holding space for change. This internal expansion is vividly audible throughout the record, which navigates a wide emotional range while maintaining a serene core. Rather than striving to meet external expectations, anaiis has turned inward, prioritising resonance over perfection and genuine connection over superficial polish.
The album will feature the newly released single “Deus Deus,” which has already garnered attention with a spot on the BBC 6 Music playlist. This track, serving as the first offering from this new chapter, masterfully sets the tone for the album’s introspective and expansive sound. It follows a series of recent acclaimed releases, including a reimagining of Lauryn Hill’s “To Zion”—performed with a full choir at Chaka Khan’s Meltdown Festival—and two remixes of “B.P.E. (Black People Everywhere)” by Sango and Hagan. The original “B.P.E.” track was part of anaiis & Grupo Cosmo, a live-to-tape mini-album created in collaboration with the Brazilian ensemble Grupo Cosmo, which explored diasporic dialogue and Black musical traditions.
This year, anaiis has been actively touring, including a US run with Mereba and a performance at SXSW London. Her ongoing work consistently reflects a belief in humanity’s shared complexity, creating musical spaces where emotion is given form through both clarity and abstraction. This philosophy is evident in her recent collaborations with artists like Oscar Jerome, Jay Prince, Azekel, and DHANYA, forming an ecology of kin with whom she shares a distinctive creative language.
Anaiis first gained prominence with her self-released debut, this is no longer a dream, a cathartic body of work featuring Chronixx, Sjava, and Topaz Jones, accompanied by striking visuals directed by Ib Kamara and Rafael Pavarotti. Her impressive career has also seen her perform alongside acclaimed artists such as Erykah Badu, Daniel Caesar, and Nick Hakim, culminating in a sold-out headline show at the prestigious Barbican.
