Yaya Bey

Ten Fold

Yaya Bey

16 SONGS • 39 MINUTES • MAY 10 2024

  • TRACKS
    TRACKS
  • DETAILS
    DETAILS
TRACKS
DETAILS
1
crying through my teeth
E
02:21
2
the evidence
02:41
3
chrysanthemums
02:27
4
sir princess bad bitch
E
02:39
5
east coast mami
E
02:31
6
chasing the bus
E
03:09
7
all around los angeles
E
02:38
8
slow dancing in the kitchen
02:20
9
10
eric adams in the club
E
02:17
11
me and all my niggas
E
01:55
12
iloveyoufrankiebeverly
E
03:02
13
career day
E
02:19
14
carl thomas sliding down the wall
02:21
15
yvette's cooking show
E
03:30
16
let go
01:59
℗© 2024: Big Dada

Artist bios

Writing poetic and unflinching narratives about her life and the totality of Black womanhood, Yaya Bey advances an idiosyncratic form of R&B. It's inspired above all by classic soul and informed by jazz and hip-hop, with audible roots in her Southern and Bajan heritage. The Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and all-around artist gained notice in 2016 with The Many Alter-Egos of Trill'eta Brown. Following a couple additional projects, she has become one of the key figures behind the reactivation of the Big Dada label, starting with the EP The Things I Can't Take with Me in 2021 and the full-length Remember Your North Star in 2022. Another EP, Exodus the North Star, appeared in 2023 and preceded Ten Fold, a 2024 full-length on which the subject matter ranged from the high cost of living to self-affirmation.

The daughter of Grand Daddy I.U. -- a rapper/producer who started his career during hip-hop's golden age on the revered Cold Chillin' label -- Bey was raised in Jamaica, Queens. Her bedroom doubled as her father's recording studio, a convenience that prompted her to write her first hooks during early adolescence. At the age of 18, she moved to Washington, D.C., and immersed herself in the arts and activism, working at museums and libraries, performing in the band Gully Waters, and later volunteering in Missouri as a street medic at the Ferguson protests.

Shaped by her experiences and inspired by the writings of Audre Lorde, Bey debuted as a solo artist in 2016 with The Many Alter-Egos of Trill'eta Brown, an EP of spare and intimate recordings. A multimedia project, it was also presented with a book and digital collage. Bey took her time with issuing a briefer if no less substantive follow-up, This Too.... After a process that included multiple scrapped drafts as she lived through an engagement, marriage, and divorce (to and from her then-primary musical collaborator), she issued it in 2019. Madison Tapes, released the next year, explored a richer sound without losing the spontaneity sensed in her earlier releases. Bey next allied with the Ninja Tune-distributed Big Dada and, in 2021, made her label debut with another EP, The Things I Can't Take with Me.

Bey continued to document her personal and musical evolution with the 2022 full-length Remember Your North Star. Produced almost entirely by Bey herself, the album incorporated reggae and Afrobeat within its mix of contemplative ballads, stimulating slow jams, and supple dance grooves. The 2023 EP Exodus the North Star incorporated reggae, house, and jazz influences with Jay Daniel co-producing "12 Houses Down" and Exaktly featured on "Ascendant (Mother Fxcker)." For the full-length Ten Fold, released in 2024, Bey again involved Daniel and Exaktly, and brought in the likes of Butcher Brown's Corey Fonville and DJ Harrison, as well as Karriem Riggins and Boston Chery. ~ Andy Kellman

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Language of performance
English
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