Fousheé on reconnecting with her Jamaican roots and working with Steve Lacy

If you were to hit shuffle on all of Fousheé’s tracks, you could be spiritually transported to an acid rave, a 1970s punk concert. Or, if you land on a song from her latest album, Pointy Heights, you may find yourself teleported to a small community in Saint Catherine, 30 minutes away from Kingston, Jamaica. 

Britanny Fousheé was born and raised in New Jersey. Her Jamaican mother was a drummer for the all-woman 1980s reggae band PEP, so she grew up surrounded by music. In 2021, she released her first EP time machine, followed by her debut album SoftCORE, a 12-track project fusing R&B melodies and punk beats and vocals. Over the past few years, you may have heard her on songs with Vince Staples, James Blake, Lil Wayne and most famously Steve Lacy, with whom she has consistently collaborated. 

Her latest offering, Pointy Heights, takes her in a more introspective direction. While making this album, she took a trip to her mother’s home in Jamaica for the first time since she was six years old. Inspired by the UK’s ska movement after 100,000 Jamaicans immigrated there in the 70s, the album is delicately layered with intentional nods to the soul and energy of both Jamaican sound and culture. On “War” she samples famous ska beats, and on “100 bux“ she closes out the song singing the chorus from “Pass the Dutchie” by Musical Youth. 

In the visuals, shot in Pointy Heights, you see elder members of the community sitting around playing dominoes, surrounded by colourful traditional Jamaican homes. “All of a sudden I felt this strong responsibility to carry on a torch that’s been carried for generations before me,” the singer says. “It made me just think, am I ready to carry that? Do I know the history of my family? Am I ready to pass that down? Am I ready to represent that?” Below she speaks to us about returning to Jamaica, and how she used music to work through anger. 

When you think back to your childhood, what are your earliest memories of music?

Fousheé: A strong part of my earliest memories was my mom’s musical influence. There was the aspect of just her singing around the house. She had a sound system and that was the centrepiece of my first musical experience. The whole family would gather around and listen to a lot of Bob Marley. She would listen to anything with a strong bass line and at one point we had a mic plugged into it and that was my earliest memory of singing. I started writing songs when I was five or six.

You went back to Jamaica for the first time since you were really young as you were making this album. What was it like for you to go back and reconnect with your roots in that way? And did you expect it to spark the creative inspiration that it did?

Fousheé: I knew that it would shift things and it was something that I’ve been wanting to do. When I did make it back, a lot changed. I still have memories from when I was a child. I have family there and family would come to visit abroad to the US, but there was a lot more that was able to be communicated. [I was] seeing the places where my mom came from and meeting or reuniting with family that I hadn’t seen since I was little, and all of a sudden they had all this lifetime of experiences.

The album is greatly inspired by your grandfather, could you tell us more about him?

Fousheé: My grandfather is Pointy, they called him Pointy because he was pint-sized, and he founded this area. It’s a mile-and-a-half area of land he and my grandmother took the initiative to purchase and build, There were nine children, and he built houses. He wanted to make sure that everyone had a piece of land so each one of the kids’ houses are next to each other in a row. There also are other people with homes on the land that they purchased from him. But there’s a street in the middle of Saint Catherine that is our street. I can walk to each door and know everyone there, and that’s something I never experienced here.

I know that you’ve spoken in the past about how your last project, Softcore, was about letting that rage out and letting that part of yourself be free and heard. So following that, making this album, what was the process like for you? Did it feel different to working on your last project?

Fousheé: I would say that this was a response to that. Punk music and its origins are from this place of revolting and self-expression. For me, it was a lot of anger, a lot of built-up emotion that I needed to let go of. I wanted to experiment more with my sound and have fun. It was just a natural motion for me to go into punk, but after having toured it I really started to go more inward as opposed to outward. I had a lot of questions about myself that were unanswered, it took that connection with family for me to understand. I guess I wasn’t angry anymore.

It’s interesting that my whole life I was just searching. We’re all searching for ourselves outwardly, people, places and experiences, but you’d be surprised what things you can find inside. I just felt like I was more than one genre. I didn’t want to be the martyr for just punk. I want to be fluid in the music that I make.

All of your past projects sound so different yet there’s still a sense that a Fousheé song sounds like a Fousheé song. How do you keep that authenticity when trying to branch out into different genres and being fluid?

Fousheé: My identity is filled with multiple backgrounds and influences, that is just what I’m drawn to. I love all of these different things, and sometimes it is hard to clarify these things. What am I? People want to know and be able to identify you or artists but the way that I’ve combated that is by following my gut and following the voice that is leading me to create and seeing where I am the most influenced at the time. What am I trying to express? What’s the perfect palette to express that? I use music as a means of expression, as a manifestation of what I want life to look like at times. 

Sometimes the music is a mask [or] it’s just pure, honest expression. I just deal with the consequences that come with that, like having to take a little bit longer for my fans to get to know me and who I am. It’s harder to pivot to a new genre because you could disappoint a whole group of listeners who liked you for the previous genre. I would hope that in all of that, as you said, there’s still something in me that's prevalent throughout any music that I make.

You collaborated with Steve Lacy again on this project, what is it like working with a friend like him?

Fousheé: It makes it more natural. Steve is very honest. I think we can just be more vulnerable in the creative state and be honest in a way that usually you don’t get the opportunity to be. He pushes me a lot to challenge myself and he’s very intuitive and spiritual, so he’ll tell me if something doesn’t feel right. I really trust his musical intuition. 

Under the comments of the “100 Bux” video that said someone said, “Fousheé created a genre of music that is every alt-Black Caribbean girl's dream”. Do you have any words of advice for someone who wants to go against the grain and do something that’s unexpected?

Fousheé: Oh, thank you. I would say lean in. When you’re on a path that hasn’t been paved yet, it feels weird. Lean into it and don’t be afraid to be the paver of the path, and there will be many people behind you to follow and many people who need this road to travel on. So it’s high stakes for high reward.

Pointy Heights is out now