As listeners began to connect with her 2025 album Do It Afraid, Yaya Bey fell into a state of distress. She contemplated the commodification of Black grief, hers included, as well as the shorter lifespans of Black artists and the way their work receives overdue recognition after death. Her mind also remained freighted with anger and frustration over losses to Black communality, whether caused by gentrification or exacerbated by online infighting, aka diaspora wars (with white-owned social media platforms as the battlefields). While Bey might have been spiraling, her creative upswing continues with this close companion to Do It Afraid. Every bit as sure-footed and stimulating, the purposefully titled Fidelity is another invigorating modern synthesis of Black musical innovations.

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