Yaya Bey announces new EP, shares title track, playing NYC with Roy Ayers & other dates

Yaya Bey released one of last year’s best albums with Remember Your North Star, and now she’s set to follow it with a new EP, Exodus the North Star, due March 24 via Big Dada (pre-order). Yaya says:

Exodus the North Star is my most vulnerable work to date. This is how I see joy and love in the world and what I aspire to feel and be. I have become an expert at turning my pain and grief as a black woman into music. Black people have a masterful way of telling our stories and sharing pain, but we’re also masters of joy and imagination. We have always been in a global conversation about how to alchemize our experiences and reimagine our circumstances. From the ties between Lovers Rock and R&B to Gospel and House. Our joy is a collective effort.

I rarely write about what I would like my existence to be in this world. This is a new level of vulnerability for me. Proclaiming my desires. What I’ve come to learn I deserve. This is my thank you to my people: my peers, the elders and the ancestors for being in this work with me. Cheers to the future.

Yaya has just released the title track and its self-directed video, and it’s an instantly-satisfying, reggae-infused R&B song that picks up right where Remember Your North Star left off and keeps pushing forward. Check it out below.

Yaya also has some upcoming shows, including a hometown Brooklyn show opening for the legendary Roy Ayers on March 4 at Elsewhere Hall, with dreamcastmoe also on the bill. All dates are listed below.

Tracklist
1. exodus the north star
2. on the pisces moon
3. when saturn returns
4. munerah
5. 12 houses down
6. ascendent (mother fxcker) (feat. Exaktly)

Yaya Bey — 2023 Tour Dates
2/24 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Multicultural Center @ UC Santa Barbara
3/4 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere w/ Roy Ayers
3/22-3/26 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Festival
4/6 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd