Focussing on identity and black experience, MHYSA wrote the lyrics for her new album NEVAEH mostly as a method of alleviating stress while touring her 2017 debut Fantasii (Halcyon Veil). She describes NEVAEH as “a prayer for black women and femmes to be taken to or find a new and better world away from the apocalypse [...] a safe space, a sort of negro heaven.

“I wanted to be more vulnerable with my tracks and experiment with vocal range,” she continues. “I wanted to write more complicated vocal melodies that would be harder for me to do.”

Currently based in New York, MHYSA is one half of the Philadelphia performance and sound art group SCRAAATCH.

NEVAEH is released by Hyperdub on Valentine’s Day 2020. Listen to lead track “Sanaa Lathan”.