anaiis

London-based polymath anaiis makes the kind of music that speaks to an innate sense of wonder. On her most recent album Devotion & The Black Divine, the songs swell with emotional clarity as she lovingly pushes herself beyond the edges of her comfort zone.

anaiis seems to be in conversation with the reverence of nature, recognizing our own divinity, and therefore our wholeness in both chaos and beauty. New motherhood deepened anaiis’ understanding of how to react with grace, create with freedom, and captures the reality of being human, unposed and unpredictable. That internal expansion is audible across the record. It leans into the idea that selfhood is something in motion; much like Octavia Butler’s reminder that “God is Change. Everything you touch you change, everything you change, changes you.”

Born in Toulouse, raised between Dublin, Dakar, Oakland, and now rooted in London, anaiis’ footholds have shaped a perspective founded in movement, flux, community and personal transformation. From a young age, anaiis was drawn to voice as a vessel for feeling, inspired by artists like Ella Fitzgerald, whose singing she likened to a nightingale, “a singer of infinite song.” This early fascination grew into a broader creative lineage through the sacred work of Black thinkers and artists, not as echoes but as foundations that allowed her to explore her own voice.

anaiis’ visual accompaniments to her music have long been an essential extension of her storytelling. Working closely with her partner Tayo Rapoport and detail-oriented collaborators like Ronan McKenzie, she builds out worlds through film to uncover an artform that invites us to sit between something that feels both fantastical and grounded all at once. Devotion & The Black Divine is soothing and spine-chilling at once, imbued with key messages of self-love.