According to science, all fear is learned – which means it can also be unlearned. Yaya Bey doesn’t choose meditation for this process, but music. On her sixth album do it afraid, she stages the overcoming of fear as a dance move. »If you wanna be brave / First you gotta be afraid«, she declares right at the start – an invitation to carry the trembling with you, not to hide it.
Drawing from soul, R&B, hip-hop and synth-pop, Bey crafts a record that doesn’t suppress internal struggles but renders them permeable. She raps, sings, and speaks – sometimes vulnerable, sometimes assertive – about personal doubts, social insecurities and collective resilience. Her voice floats somewhere between Mary J. Blige and Sade; her sound shifts between intimate loops and club-ready pulses. »Show me a fairytale, and I’ll find the villain«, she quips on the soca-infused »cindy rella«, while »in a circle« invites release with its house-leaning groove.
Guest appearances by BADBADNOTGOOD and Butcher Brown bolster the album’s polyphonic richness without stealing the focus. do it afraid isn’t a concept album in the strict sense, but rather a loosely connected, thoughtfully curated set of 18 tracks that let contradictions co-exist rather than resolve them. Fear and hope, grief and euphoria – all are welcome, all are heard. A street party of the soul with Bluetooth speaker potential. Or, in Bey’s own words: »Seele essen Angst auf« – soul eats fear for breakfast.
