Anaiis - Dévotion et Le Noir Divin

Devotion & the Black Divine is anaiis making a record about tenderness as discipline, and it might be the warmest soul album released in 2025.

The Franco-Senegalese singer, based in London, has been exploring the same territory from new angles since 2019: Negritude as an inner life, family, folklore, heritage, all sung in several languages ​​in a voice that never rises to be heard. This one arrived with new motherhood, and the difference is noticeable. Where a previous record might have sought resolution, this album settles into uncertainty and simply stays there, recorded at 5dB Studios in London with Brazil's Grupo Cosmo adding a sense of drift and movement to the arrangements.

Fourteen tracks, ten songs interwoven with four spoken word interludes performed by Ja'Tovia Gary, Sanah Ahsan and Adrienne Maree Brown, transforming the album into something closer to a conversation than a tracklist. Something Is Broken opens with a raw confession before the instrumentation flourishes around it, Deus Deus is the record's most transportive passage, Moonlight moves to the rhythm of the hour it names, and Bright Lights closes things out with the acceptance the whole album was aiming for.

Deep, lush, unhurried soul that invites you to sit with it rather than skip ahead.