KeiyaA had been grinding in New York’s experimental jazz and hip-hop scenes for a good six years before her 2020 debut album, Forever, Ya Girl. Self-released on Bandcamp to make some cash while couchsurfing, the record totally shifted her life’s course. A low-key yet potent swirl of bedroom pop, R&B and electronic music that zeroed in on feelings of solitude and uncertainty, it struck a chord with critics at tastemaker sites such as Pitchfork and the Fader and became one of the year’s defining underground records.
It also allowed her to tour the world; at the same time, the 33-year-old producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist born Chakeiya Richmond immediately began to feel the pressure of following it up, stress compounded by the end of a toxic relationship. “I was like, at worst, [the follow-up] has to be just as good. At best, it has to be better. How am I gonna do that? When you put that expectation on yourself, you’re not actually gonna meet that,” she says, sitting on the patio of a London cafe. Having struggled with depression her whole life, she experienced a renewed, debilitating spell. “There was the survival mode loop of like, couch rotting, bed rotting, having to work up [the energy] to take care of myself in general, let alone get to the computer to make music.”
