After sharing soul-baring singles like “juno,” “reverie,” and the Topaz Jones-assisted “chuu,” French-Senegalese artist anaiis has shared her 12-track debut album, ‘this is no longer a dream’. The project sees her reflecting on the emotional turmoil of the last few years of her career, inviting listeners to the tortured thoughts of an artist on the path to self-healing. “I want to share with others a very vulnerable experience that can inspire them to indulge in a process of introspection that will allow them to reconnect with their intuition,” she explained about the album in a press release. The album is a surreal, ethereal, and conceptual journey through a range of deep and complex emotions. Boasting features from Chronixx, who appears on the single “cry in your sleep” which also dropped today, Topaz Jones, Sjava, Jay Prince, CKTRL, Onyx Collective, Jesse & Forever, and Azekel, creating the project was a deeply cathartic experience for anaiis as she made her way through the hardships of leaving her previous record label, launching her own imprint Dream Sequence Recordings, and finding herself homeless in the middle of a pandemic. “It’s a sign that healing is never linear. I had to externalize my thoughts and emotions to process and let go of them. Essentially I was spewing out the poison invading my body,” she continued. “In any hurtful situation we find ourselves in, there’s a way we can interpret things in hindsight– How can I change my perspective and shift to an empowering and enlightening meaning? … It’s about finally realizing you are good enough. Be free, you don’t need to justify yourself. Let yourself transcend. Let go.” Watch the visualizer for “cry in your sleep” above, and stream the album below. Thumbnail image by Alexandra Waespi.anaiis shares debut album this is no longer a dream
