When I heard Fousheé’s “Still Around” for the first time, my mood changed. At this point in my life, existential crises come and go on a weekly basis and mood swings happen, but this was different—I couldn’t even decipher my own internal response. I attribute this particular mood shift to the melody in “Still Around,” the lead single from Fousheé’s new album Pointy Heights.
Speaking with her over Zoom, I blurted out that I believe there is such a thing as a Fousheé-type melody. I instantly regretted saying that aloud, because no artist wants to be boxed into any one type of thing, but I stand by what I meant. Whether she’s making hushed R&B over trap drums, aggressive punk-inspired rock, or sleek, synth-driven pop, there are melodies and pockets within those melodies that only Fousheé would spin into existence.
The mood shift that “Still Around” triggers is complicated—Fousheé is a master of contradictions, and sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what emotion is being evoked by any given song. There’s yearning, pain, nostalgia, serenity, anger, tenderness, and despair, sometimes swirling around each other at once, and mostly ambiguous enough to be left up to your own interpretation.
This delicate balancing act has been apparent ever since Fousheé’s breakout hit. It all started with a royalty-free sample that Fousheé uploaded to Splice. Brooklyn drill rapper Sleepy Hallow used a loop of the haunting vocal snippet to serve as the backbone to his “Deep End Freestyle.” It blew up (unbeknownst to Fousheé, at first) and she eventually followed it up with her own extended version of “Deep End,” showcasing a spellbinding performance over skittering hi-hats and sparse guitar. To further distance herself from the potential confines of her unlikely, far-reaching first impression, she also shared an acoustic version of the song.
From there, her first project Time Machine featured a Depeche Mode cover, a Lil Yachty feature, and over half the songs were drumless. On 2022’s softCORE, she veered into explosive pop punk territory and brought Lil Uzi Vert along with her for a song. By 2024, she had collaborated with Steve Lacy (multiple times, and earned a Grammy nod for her contributions to “Bad Habit”), Lil Wayne, Ravyn Lenae, Childish Gambino, Pink Siifu, Vince Staples, King Princess, Saba, and Teezo Touchdown. The point is: whatever boxes listeners may have built around Fousheé through lazy labels like alt-soul, trap-R&B, or urban-whatever, she tore through them.
Even in her music’s brightest moments, Fousheé’s songwriting obscures any sentiment implied by the beats, words, instrumentality, and production. Musically, her new album Pointy Heights is some of her most radiant work, beaming with syrupy grooves and free-spirited charm.
The project was made in Jamaica during a trip to Pointy Heights, a community that Fousheé’s late grandfather established after buying land for his family to live on. Fousheé hadn’t been since she was a child, but her connection to Jamaican culture runs deep—her mother was a drummer in an all-girl band in Jamaica and reggae was always playing in the New Jersey home that Fousheé grew up in. The rhythms and messages stuck.
On Pointy Heights the album, Fousheé embraces those Jamaican roots—sometimes obviously, and other times more discreetly through an easygoing bounce or the swing of a rubbery bassline. “War” is powered by an untroubled ‘60s rocksteady sample, and the hook includes phrases like “No one can save you from the truth you create” and “We build our world with the tongue, and I’d rather not be at war.” On paper it might read like an uplifting call for peace of mind, but when you put it all together with her playfully pining, almost mischievous tone, it elicits something more complex. And then in the song's sole verse, Fousheé sings irreverently: "Pray for my opps every day, ‘cause they gon' hate this here year I'm having."
“I love things that sit in between two things—good and bad, salty and sweet, love and anger. I think it's healthy to have balance, and I like to write that way,” Fousheé explains. “If the music is sweet, I love the irony of more gritty words on top of it. Mostly I'm just trying to explain how I feel in the moment.”
So what is Fousheé feeling at this moment, with her new album finished and ready to be released into the world a week after this conversation?
“Everything,” she says. “Some hours of the day, I feel excited. And some I feel nervous. Some I feel relieved, but one thing that has been consistent is when I hear this album in its entirety, it's still something I stand behind.”
I have to start by talking about “Still Around.” I love that song, and I’m curious why you decided to release that one first.
“Still Around” is a song about acceptance and detachment. It's basically saying that in order to love you, I have to have a certain detachment from you for us each to be our best selves. I think it's a hard pill to swallow.
In a relationship, a lot of people feel like they own the other person in a way. I found it interesting that for everyone's best interest, there has to be a detachment for that person to be able to experience the world. They have to share their love with other people, and that could be monogamous—it could mean a lot of things—but they have to be able to experience that person in the now and for who they are right now, as opposed to holding onto the concept of who they were in the past.
I was saying that I'm okay with you going out and experiencing the love that the world has to offer you and it doesn't change our relationship and it doesn't change what we mean to one another. I know that I'm still your pride and joy and I'm okay with that. So it's like a sad song dressed up as a happy song.
Is that a message that carries across the whole album, or was releasing it as the lead single more about setting the tone sonically?
Every song has its unique topic. It touches on romantic love, detachment, nostalgia within friendships, conquering your mind. So everything is unique. I would say the thing that ties it together is the fusion that I was aiming to make sonically.
I was trying to find where the crossover was between the music that I was already making and the music that was made in Jamaica, through all time. I found myself in the 1950s where ska was just being created, and they were replicating Western sound. In the process, they created a genre of their own.
I feel like it's connected. I hear the elements of soul and then I’m taking ska and implementing it in some records. “War” is a sample of one of the staple pioneers of ska, Prince Buster, and I’m reinterpreting that for now, to the present. That's what the whole album is, an interpretation of the place my family comes from.
Pointy Heights is a town that was founded by my grandfather. They called him Pointy because he was pint-sized. On that plot of land, all the family lives—there’s nine children and all of their houses are back to back to back. So there's this culture there that I got to re-explore as an adult. Before going back there, I hadn’t been there since I was like 5.
What led to the decision to want to make that trip? Was it a personal decision, or were you searching for inspiration?
It's something that I always knew I wanted to do. I wasn't searching for inspiration. It was just something I couldn't not do, you know what I mean?
Once I was there, I saw that wow, this is the road it took for my mom to be in the US and for me to be able to do what I love. It made me question: am I ready to pass the torch on to the next? I guess in the present, I'm taking the torch and now I have the responsibility of telling those stories of past generations. So it's that cycle of existence in a family and going back to be able to go forward.
I think I saw that before you took this trip, you were already talking about an album. So did you already have music made, and then you got there and you realized you wanted to start over, or how did that work?
It's funny, one of the first songs I made from the album was a song called “Feel Like Home.” The irony of it is that I went back home, and suddenly I was clear-minded on what I wanted to make.
So it didn’t change the concepts I was writing about, because I’m not talking literally about the family in the music—it’s more like life gems that are in the music. Being there made me want to do more research on the musical history and my family history and incorporate that in the instrumental aspect and the visual aspect of everything.
My actual family is featured in the videos, and it's based on the trip I took there for a family reunion. So in the first visualizer I get the call from my uncle, and then I'm there and it’s me just existing in the town and interacting with everyone in the family and passing the story down. But I also didn’t want to abandon what I was already doing and making, so it's a mixture of things.
That's your uncle dancing in the “Still Around” video, right?
It is, yeah. The bald one.
Is your family aware of what you’re doing and the success you’re having?
They're so excited about it. My uncle was just telling me after we left how quickly the word spread around town and how proud everyone was. He's a teacher, so all the students were sending him messages about his appearance in the video and the effect it made in the community.
We had an all-local crew each day. Just being able to employ 20 local men, women, or whoever working on the crew, it really affects the area and the economy there. I’m happy to have been able to provide opportunities for people there. It’s a very tight-knit community, so they’re all kind of like family, and I wanted to be able to include the full family and raise awareness about what my grandfather built and shed light on the family, which is the community of Pointy Heights, and shed more light on Jamaica and this part of Jamaica, Saint Catherine. It was a very specific story.
What was your relationship with music from Jamaica, whether it was listening to it or making it, before this album?
My first experience with Jamaican music, with reggae, was very early. My mom was a huge Bob Marley fan, so we played all the albums religiously. I think subconsciously, it always had an effect on me, but I was so into whatever was on the radio and pop culture and I became Americanized.
But now looking at the artist that I've become, I guess [Bob Marley] was one of the first examples that I had. He was playing the guitar, writing impactful lyrics, and his whole artistry was based in authenticity and cultural impact. That's definitely what I aspire to do. And now as an adult, I appreciate it even more. I'm going back to the lyrics that I learned and those messages are still very useful today.
There's this one song called “Who The Cap Fit” and I'll never forget, my mom used to just talk those words all the time. She used to just drill it into me, the lyrics to this one song:
Your worst enemy could be your best friend
And your best friend, your worst enemy
Some will eat and drink with you
Then behind them su-su 'pon you
Only your friends know your secrets
So only he could reveal it
Who the cap fit, let them wear it
All the lessons in the music, I still think about today.
I know your mom was a drummer in Jamaica. What do you think about music as something that’s in your blood or in your DNA versus something that you soak up through exposure? Like nature versus nurture, but specifically with music?
I think it's a hundred percent spot on, just like how humans from different regions, their biological makeup develops to adapt to that environment. It’s the same, like if it happens enough within your family, I think it gets implanted in your DNA.
I wouldn't say I picked up her specific skills—I can't drum for shit—but the love of music and appreciation of music is definitely in there. Her great-grandfather was a choir director and had a beautiful voice. I never met him, but I heard. On the other side, my grandmother's father was a guitarist and he would perform at cafés. Yeah, I think it's somewhere in the DNA for sure.
