Anne-Fay celebrates momhood on her new album +1

Anne-Fay will release her new album 1 on 10 May. The album was composed and produced in collaboration with Jeremia Jones (Damian Marley, Stefflon Don), with contributions from Morgan Avenue (S10, Willem), Elisha Amonoo-Neizer/EAN Music (Frenna, Nana Fofie), Timothy Banchet, Adje, Gerson Main and Typhoon. The new single Waka Waka Uma is out now.

On 1, Anne-Fay offers an alternative take on motherhood. No sweet pastel images or dreamy guitar songs, but heavy ballads and raw dancehall rhythms that make the intensity, struggle and beauty of momhood tangible. The album shows that motherhood is not only romantic and tender, but also confrontational, physical and full of sharp contrasts. Anne-Fay transforms momhood into something greater: a powerful, honest and often uncomfortable reality that radiates beauty in all its rawness. It is also about the bond with your own mother, it is about all the friends and aunts who are your ‘village’, who care for you and help care for your child. Nightly app contact while feeding, sending memes to cheer each other up or to reassure each other that you are not alone and not the only one who sometimes gets it wrong or does something wrong.

A year after her debut album Reaspora, Anne-Fay became the mother of a daughter in 2022; in 2025 she completed her new album 1. She wrote the first song, Where do all the children go?, during her pregnancy. A close friend lost her child. Why do we lose children, through miscarriages but also through wars and genocides? And what impact does that have on people? During her first years as a mother, it was also a quest to be creative; how on earth do you do that with a baby or toddler? Slowly but surely, she wrote the songs and an entire album came together. About the hormonal journey, about the uncertainties, about the break-up with the father, about the fears of raising a girl in this world, and especially a girl of colour. About how not to dim her fire and anger, but to channel it in the right direction.

“The example I want to set for my daughter was central to the creation of this album. I grew up with a mother of colour who completed three degrees, attended university while pregnant, and was eventually sworn in as a lawyer when I was six years old. The example I have always had is that women can achieve just as much as men. It was only later in life, when I began to delve into feminism and the struggle for these freedoms, that I realised how precious they are and how we must cherish them. At a time when figures like Andrew Tate are gaining influence and traditional male-female roles are increasingly being revisited, I felt it was urgent to tell this story. This album is an ode to my daughter and her passion, but perhaps even more so a statement about the example I want to set for her as a woman and a mother. Leading by example.” - says Anne-Fay

The new single Waka Waka Uma (both the track and the video) is an ode to mothers. The song is about perseverance, about the resilience of mothers who keep going, keep giving and keep caring, no matter how hard it sometimes is. The video is set up as a video on the block: instead of tough men, mothers take centre stage here. With a rebellious, proud attitude, because we simply do what needs to be done. We provide our children with their most basic need: food, or rather, breast milk. Watch the video, made in collaboration with Stacii Samidin, below. Anne-Fay previously released the singles Reboot, Truth and Never Missed.

On 8 May Anne-Fay and her band will be performing at Paradiso, Amsterdam.