“Yemaya” comes from a swim in Bahia that nearly went wrong. Haitian-Canadian singer-songwriter Mélissa Laveaux was in the water next to a red warning flag when she encountered Iémanja, the Yoruba orisha of the sea. As she tells it, Iémanja stole her glasses, brought back her laughter, and brought her back to life. The song, out 9 January, is the second single extracted from her fifth album at my softest, i am most dangerous.

Montreal-born and raised in Ottawa, now based in Paris, Laveaux taught herself guitar and began writing songs at 16. Public attention arrived in 2008 via her cover of Elliott Smith‘s “Needle in the Hay“. She’s spent the 18 years since blending Afro-Caribbean rhythms with indie-folk through a percussive fingerpicking style on electric guitar. After three albums with NoFormat! and the 2018 release Radyo Siwèl, she set up Twanèt, her imprint named after her grandmother, then released Mama Forgot her Name was Miracle in 2022 while taking ownership of her recorded catalogue.

On “Yemaya”, she plays guitar alongside Julien Cavard, with Martin Wangermée on drums and Elise Blanchard on bass. Sébastien Richelieu co-composed; Lister Haussman and Laveaux produced.

The lyrics move in fragments: the wave, the warning flag, the moment of being brought to her knees and getting back up with clearer sight. Laveaux sings in English here, but her catalogue moves between English, Haitian Creole and French, and her work often circles back to forgotten collective histories, decolonial practice, and the vodou traditions of her Haitian heritage. She comes from two northern Haitian agriculture families and has spent years researching Zora Neale Hurston‘s folkloric work in Haiti and the American South, tracing connections between vodou songs and the hoodoo traditions of the African diaspora in the US.

Stream and listen HERE