Yaya Bey is the first big confirmation for WTF Clubbing at NOS Alive’23, on the first day of the festival. first day of the festival that celebrates its 15th edition.
Yaya Bey is one of the most exciting storytellers on the current R&B scene. Using a combination of ancestral forces and her own self-realization, the singer/songwriter seamlessly navigates life’s difficulties and joyful moments through music. Bey’s latest album,
Remember Your North Star
captures this emotional roller coaster with a soulful fusion of jazz, soul, reggae, afrobeat, and hip-hop. Her talent for storytelling gains greater prominence in the album’s first single, “keisha.” It is a hymn to the women who gave their all in a relationship, but that their body or their state of mind was never enough.
Bey’s ability to explore the emotionally kaleidoscopic nature of women, specifically black women, is the essence of the album. With themes of misogynoir (misogyny targeting black women), revealing generational trauma, carefree romances, parental relationships, female empowerment, and self-love, Remember Your North Star proves that the path to healing is not linear-there are many lessons to be learned along the journey.
“I saw a tweet that said, ‘Black women have never seen healthy love or been loved in a healthy way. That is a deep wound in us. So I started thinking about our responses to this as black women,” says Bey about the inspiration for the title of Remember Your North Star, a project written entirely by the artist with main production by herself. “This album is kind of my thesis. Even though we need to be all these different kinds of women, ultimately we want love: love of ourselves and love of our community. The album is a reminder of that goal.”
Their first release The Many Alter – Egos of Trill’eta Brown in 2016, which incorporated a digital collage and a book, was praised by FADER, Essence and other media. Bey followed up with other critically acclaimed projects, such as the album Madison Tapes and the EP The Things I Can’t Take With Me from 2021.
Bey is also a critically acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and art curator, who through her music creates art through intimate photo collages and self-portraits. In 2019, he presented in the District of Columbia Arts Center’s “Reparations Realized” exhibition and Brooklyn’s Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA)’s “Let the Circle Be Unbroken” exhibition. The artist has also completed several artist residencies at MoCADA, curating programs that reflect the same theme that drives her music: the black woman’s experience.
Remember Your North Star continues Bey’s personal and artistic evolution as the artist strives to be a sounding board for black women around the world. “I feel empowered in music because I can turn anything that happens to me into something valuable. Music helps me to see the value of what is happening in my life,” she explains. “There is a spirit in music. It’s a culture and I’m in that community, contributing my story that keeps us connected.”
This is Yaya Bey’s debut at NOS Alive performing at WTF Clubbing, on the first day of the 15th edition of the festival. Tickets are available here.