Ibeyi: Between Change and Connection
Ibeyi’s alchemy thrives on a rhythm found not by chasing an even balance, but by holding space for each other. On their latest album, ‘Offering’, two contrasting personalities and a shared journey inwards shape what may be the sister’s most personal and vulnerable record to date, reinforcing a steadfast unison grounded in self-acceptance.
The past couple of years have marked a period of unwiring and reconnecting for Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz. After more than a decade in the music industry, the Franco-Cuban twins parted ways with their label XL Recordings. Then, in June this year, came ‘Offering’, their fourth studio album and first release under their own imprint, IBEYI Records.
Made with a rotating roster of producers and collaborators, ‘Offering’ took three years to come together. Its gradual emergence over three years unfolded alongside a period of personal transformation for the sisters. Where ‘Spell 31’ looked towards the world around them, ‘Offering’ finds them looking closer to home, embracing new beginnings and documenting a journey between lost and found. Sonically, the LP retains Ibeyi’s sense of otherworldliness and spirituality, while industrial textures, distortion and heavily processed vocals add a more adventurous dimension to their sound.
‘Offering’ reflects a deeply personal pull towards home that Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi also wanted to distil into the album’s visual world. The two knew the campaign needed a place that held memories and a sense of belonging. Naturally, that choice became Havana. Returning to Cuba to honour their culture and late father, Miguel ‘Angá’ Díaz, the celebrated Cuban percussionist and Buena Vista Social Club member, the two captured an intimate glimpse of life on the island through a series of candid, lived-in images and videos for tracks such as ‘Aset’ and ‘Moshpit’.
With their world tour kicking off in Amiens this weekend and reaching London on 24 November, the sisters are deep in rehearsals, putting the finishing touches to the show. Between five-hour dance sessions and reworking material from their earlier catalogue for the setlist, we caught up with the duo to discuss creative independence, the making of ‘Offering’ and bringing the new material to the stage.
‘Offering’ is your first full-length project under your own label, IBEYI Records. When did you know it was time to step into this independent phase of your music journey, and what has changed most fundamentally since?
Naomi: I think it's a question we all ask ourselves. We arrived in this industry ten, or even more, years ago, and it wasn't really a thing back then. Only a few people were doing it. We stayed with XL Recordings for ten years, and it was great, but at one point, we thought that maybe we should be in charge, and that we could be. You need to be able to do it. It's not that simple. It means taking care of everything. A lot has changed because we have a lot of work, but we have a good team with us. Personally, I keep my eyes on everything. It's more work, but at the same time, it's your own responsibility, which I think is also beautiful.
Lisa-Kaindé: We really wanted to own our music, and that was important to us, especially because we write and produce it, so we have a very intimate relationship with it. That part feels very good. What's incredible about being independent is that there's no illusion of a safety net. When you bet on yourself, you know what's at stake, and therefore you need to have quite a lot of confidence in what you're making. Gaining that confidence was really important with this album, and being so proud of what we've made.
The album-making process must have looked quite different this time, too. It took you three years to complete the album, during which you collaborated with multiple producers. How did your sonic journey change over that period? Did you want to experiment more with sounds, genres and vocal processing – things you could perhaps finally explore with this record?
Naomi: We have our own sound, which is amazing. We've tried a lot of things and worked with incredible people. Maybe for the first time, when you hear the album – unless you see us on stage – you can sense who is listening to what and who is who. For a long time, Ibeyi was always trying to find the middle ground between Lisa and me. Those ten years we spent together were more towards Lisa, and I think it's moving more towards me now. But we'll always try things out and have fun. I think art is also for that. We'll always be true to who we are and what we want to do.
Lisa-Kaindé: I think we radically explore ourselves through music. We love music, and we allow ourselves to be a bit in danger, to start something new. Trying different producers for the first time was definitely needed, and it was a beautiful experience. It was a way for us to challenge ourselves, learn and grow. It's honestly been a wonderful experience making ‘Offering’. This album taught us so much.
Given how intimate your approach to music is, how do the dynamics between the two of you work when it comes to writing and producing? Do you naturally trade off roles from song to song, with one taking the lyrical direction and the other focusing more on the instrumentals?
Naomi: There’s no switching, but I think I was much more involved in the top lines this time, while the writing is mostly Lisa's. She always shows me what she's working on, and if I don't like something, we change it. We have our roles, but we also move into each other's. What's really intimate about this album is that, on the other records, we were talking about ourselves, the world and our family throughout our lives. This time, we were writing about the last three to four years as we were living them. That's why it feels so intimate – it reflects the present moment.
If ‘Spell 31’ was about manifestation, ‘Offering’ feels like an exercise in surrender. What shift had to happen to go from protective spells to open offerings?
Lisa-Kaindé: This album really talks about us and what we've been experiencing over the last few years. It's the first time we've been writing while experiencing those feelings. Normally, there's maybe a good five years in between, so you go back to your memories to write. This time, we were writing as we were going through it. The main theme of this album is what happens after failure, after you feel like you've failed. How do you rebuild yourself? It's about going through all the different stages of grief. When you listen to the album, you can hear how the sound and the grief slowly transform into something else. At the end, you arrive at a moment of life is beautiful, and I'm back.
You’ve just released a beautiful video for ‘Baba’. There's one line in the lyrics – “I’m who I was looking for” – that delivers such a strong sense of inner freedom and peace. How does that lyric anchor the broader philosophy of your new independent era?
Naomi: The funny thing, and the beautiful part of life, is that when you think you've accepted yourself and that you are who you are, you're already somebody else. That's what's amazing.
Lisa-Kaindé: Evolving and changing. Another very important thing about this record is self-love, and not the superficial kind, but something much deeper: perseverance, introspection, accountability and all those difficult things you go through that are actually transformative.
Naomi: But also responsibility. As human beings, sometimes we lack the willingness to take responsibility. When you do, it doesn't mean you're the only one at fault. But I think we all have to take responsibility. This album is talking about self-love, but also boundaries and discernment. A lot of people are hurting because they lack discernment. But when you have discernment, you see patterns. And when you see patterns, you love yourself.
Looking at the tracklist, there are no features apart from one collaboration with Sofiane Pamart on ‘La tendresse d’un mot’. Can you talk a little about how that partnership came about, and what it was like creating that track together?
Naomi: It's our first song entirely in French, and writing in French can be difficult because it's either really cheesy or really lyrical. We were all in LA, and we were just jamming, and the song came about. It was really natural.
So it's your first fully French song. Speaking of languages, you weave Yoruba, English, Spanish and French seamlessly throughout the album. Does your choice of language adapt to the emotions you're exploring? Does writing in a particular language unlock a different side of you?
Lisa-Kaindé: It unlocks a different side, a different emotion, and I believe it's dictated by the melody. When a melody comes in, I already know if it's going to be in English, French or Spanish. Some melodies just don't sound right in English or French, or have to be in Spanish. It definitely allows a part of our personalities to shine. Spanish is an incredibly poetic language. French is extremely touching, and English is extremely direct, so all three have distinct qualities. And Yoruba, obviously, is so spiritual and a genuinely magical language. To express the entirety of Ibeyi, we need to weave all of them together. But we never force it. That's also something we promise ourselves – these things have to come naturally.
You travelled to Cuba to shoot the album campaign, with support from friends, family and people you met along the way. The resulting visuals feel incredibly intimate and raw, almost as if the camera simply happened to be there, following you through the day. When in the album-making process did you realise this was the visual language the record needed?
Lisa-Kaindé: Quite quickly, once we started realising what the album was about. We knew that, because it was going to be called ‘Offering’ and dealt with such personal feelings, we needed to film at home. We thought that would be either France or Cuba. But as we were making it, the images that came through seemed to be set more in Havana than in Paris. Then I found the perfect directors, and it all snowballed from there. It also became very important for us to do it to celebrate our dad, and to say thank you to Cuba and the culture that has given us so much. Ultimately, it was the right time. We were ready and confident in our aesthetic and artistic vision, and felt we could film in Cuba.
In the videos for ‘Offering’ and especially ‘Aset’, there's a beautiful visual contrast that highlights your very different personalities. How do you navigate those two energies to create such a powerful but unified presence as Ibeyi?
Naomi: We are, and always have been, really, really different. We're two sides of the same coin. On a larger scale, we think pretty much the same, but in our daily lives, our personalities are very different. I think that, for the first time, we were really strong in who we are. We understood that being fully ourselves doesn't mean we weren't before, but we were also young. We're turning 32, so I think when you're in your 30s, you feel more confident about who you are. We figured out that if we're ourselves individually, our duo will be much stronger. Lisa is who she is, and I'm who I am, and we believe in and trust each other to be ourselves.
Lisa-Kaindé: And to offer the other person the best of our individual energy. I think we stopped borrowing each other's energy and started trusting that there was enough space for both of us to be fully ourselves and to fully commit to doing things differently, because that's the gift of being twins, right? That's the gift of being born together. We have two points of view; we have two ways of doing things. Ibeyi is big enough and can stretch enough so that we can both fit. As we're becoming more confident in our own energies, we're also offering more to each other. I'm very happy that this is what happened.
Naomi: And speaking personally, I'm really strong. I've always had that side to me, even when I was younger, but I was more careful about expressing it. My family and friends have always known who I am, so I think this is the first time people can really sense that side of me and see it, too, which is great.
I was wondering whether that sense of individuality and alignment was already there before your debut. Was it always an unwritten rule that if you stepped into this industry, you would do it together?
Naomi: No, I'm not doing this alone. It's as beautiful as it is horrible, you know, like life. But we do things separately, too. I make art with my hands, I produce, I paint. Lisa writes. I'm begging her to write her first book. I want to make films, so we have things going on for ourselves that we don't share. Music will always be ours.
Lisa-Kaindé: Same.
So that was never a question. Moving on to the tour: ‘Offering’ has been out for a few months now and has had time to breathe. How do you feel about the reception, this independent chapter and finally bringing the songs to the stage?
Naomi: We feel really good. I think our comeback was beautiful with ‘Aset’, the song and the video. And when you're independent and things are working that way, it's amazing. I'm going to talk about myself personally, because I don't want to put words into Lisa's mouth, but I'm very detached from public perception. Even though I see everything, I think it can just drain you.
We're extremely happy to go back on tour, to feel the love and give love. Being on stage is a different kind of love. It's been a long time, so I'm really grateful to keep going. When you start, you want to prove that you can sing, write, produce, do it all. Now, it's not that I don't care, but I know the only person I ever have to prove anything to is myself. I just want to have fun and create a whole range of emotions – make you dance, cry, scream, laugh. That's the aim.
Lisa-Kaindé: For me, the internet feels almost unreal, but when you play live shows, that feels real, right? I think the songs have a way of becoming fully formed, of being fully born, when they're sung live and received by an audience. For the first time, I'm trying to concentrate so much more on the act of offering, and on the act of receiving. I'm starting the tour really charged up and wanting to give everything. I'm so incredibly proud of the live show we're presenting. I think it's the best one we've ever done. We're also coming back on tour as just the two of us, which is very special. We haven't been the two of us on stage in a long time, so it's a homecoming. I've worked very hard to relearn all the piano parts and get to the level I want to be at, so it's going to be fun.
Naomi: I think it also feels like the beginning. That's what's beautiful about art: even though we've had a career for quite a while, this album feels like the beginning.
'Offering' is out now.
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