LISTEN
"WEEPING ANGEL" (ALBUM)Corset
Twin Flame
Pledge
Overboard
Ave Maria
Wild
Not Today
Blue Eyes
Join Hands
Strut
Cotton Candy Clouds
Skirt Hurt (Redemption)
Boogie Man
Today, visionary alt-R&B artist iyla unveils her long-awaited debut album WEEPING ANGEL, a powerful and deeply personal body of work forged in grief, transformation, and creative rebirth. Out now on all platforms, the 13-track album features fan-favorite singles like “Wild,” “Strut,” “Overboard,” and “Corset,” and introduces a new highlight: the sultry, razor-sharp focus track “Pledge.”
Listen to WEEPING ANGEL HERE.
“‘Pledge’ is a sexy and confident demand for a man to step his game up,” says iyla of the new track. “Drop to your knees or fly away forever.”
Shaped in the wake of a life-changing loss — the passing of her mother — WEEPING ANGEL channels heartache into emotional and artistic clarity. Equal parts spiritual, sensual, and cinematic, the album is iyla’s most fearless and fully realized work to date.
“Weeping Angel is my debut album, named after the monster that is love,” iyla reveals. “We created this album in the most challenging and transformative couple years of my life. It’s a reflection of everything I felt but couldn’t say out loud… it’s freedom, sensuality, heartache, pain, moments of clarity, grief and the spectrum that is to love and be loved in return. These songs came from laughs and from screams. This album was drowned in tears and brought back to the surface again to see the sun. Creating this project was a way of surviving, of making art from the wreckage, and discovering new parts of myself through it all. Weeping Angel is spiritual, provocative, and a ride you will never want to get off of.”
The album’s sonic palette is wide-ranging and emotionally rich, blending lush production with raw storytelling. The seductive "Ave Maria" celebrates spirituality and sexual expression in equal measure (“If you’re spiritual, there’s often an expectation you can’t embrace your own sexuality,” she notes), while the hypnotic "Cotton Candy Clouds" offers a dreamy, pink-hued tribute to her late mother. "Her favorite color was pink, and my favorite color was never pink. Since her death, my favorite color is now pink," iyla shares. "Cotton Candy Clouds is a taste of the fun, vibrant HD way I look at the world. I’m taking what she loved and putting it into my art."
On "Twin Flame," iyla explores inner duality through layered rhythms and emotional tension. "Join Hands" transports listeners to a church-like setting, while "Skirt Hurt (Redemption)" balances vulnerability with bad-bitch bravado. "It's the first track I wrote after my mom's passing," she says. "I always need to have this stance of bad-bitch energy—but conveyed in a poetic and timeless way."
The album’s release follows a string of standout singles that have cemented iyla as one of modern R&B’s most compelling voices. Most recently, she shared “Corset,” a cinematic slow-burn produced by longtime collaborator Kadis, capturing the emotional whiplash of a relationship that binds tight but never quite feels right. Threaded with vivid metaphor and tension, the track explores the seductive push-pull of desire and detachment. The accompanying visual — directed by Justin Moser with iyla as creative director — brings the WEEPING ANGEL album artwork to life in haunting, surreal fashion.
From the sultry tension of "Wild" (Billboard R&B Fresh Pick), to the hypnotic energy of "Overboard" (praised by Uproxx as "spicy"), to the no-holds-barred bounce of "Strut" (lauded by VIBE and Rated R&B), iylacontinues to evolve—sonically, emotionally, and unapologetically. And with "Blue Eyes," a gut-wrenching ballad written in her mother's honor, she delivers the album's emotional anchor.
Written and recorded with longtime collaborator and producer Kadis, WEEPING ANGEL showcases iyla'ssingular ability to transform pain into poetry and vulnerability into strength. A standout moment on the final stretch, "Boogie Man" (a reinterpretation of a Mos Def classic) brings her vision full circle, blending upbeat R&B, eerie samples from the horror film City of the Dead, and a reflection on the duality of good and evil. "It was important to end the record with a well-rounded look at humanity," she says. "The album represents the whole woman I am—the dark, the light, and all of the colors in between."
iyla has gained strength and self-assurance from one of the hardest seasons of her life, and she flips those traits into her music. With WEEPING ANGEL, she delivers her fluid and fiery hybrid of R&B, pop, and hip-hop with more panache, poise, and passion than ever before. As she puts it, "I hope you feel empowered in your own pain, supported in your sexiness, and uplifted when you feel like your highest or lowest self," she leaves off. "I just tried to create a good representation of the human heart and all it can bear."
WEEPING ANGEL, the debut full-length album from iyla is out now– Listen HERE. |
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