The Twin Sisters Behind Ibeyi Found Balance In Their New Album, Offering

The French-Cuban twins Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Diaz behind Ibeyi discuss spirituality, balance and surrender, using their music to ask what remains when ego and certainty are stripped away

If its predecessor Spell31 was rooted in manifestation, Ibeyi’s new LP Offering, out last week, is a record about surrender. Rather than seeking answers or validation, the album asks what remains when expectations, ego and certainty are stripped away, and offers some of the most vulnerable and sonically adventurous songwriting of their career so far. 

For more than a decade, the French-Cuban twins Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Diaz behind Ibeyi have occupied a singular space within contemporary music, while singing in four different languages. Daughters of the late Cuban percussionist Angá Diaz, behind the mononym Ibeyi, they weave together Yoruba spirituality with Afro-Cuban rhythms, jazz, soul and electronic influences. 

Initially discovered by XL Recordings-owner Richard Russell – who went on to co-produce their first three albums under his label – they’ve since received co-signs from J Balvin, Kamasi Washington and Beyoncé, who famously cast them alongside Zendaya in her visual album Lemonade. Now the musicians have entered into a new era. And Offering is their first as fully independent artists. It arrives accompanied by a powerful series of films capturing the authentic spirit of Cuba, devised by the twins and co-directed by Corry Van Rhijn and Roman Pichon Herrera.

Here, the twins discuss independence, spirituality, balance and the “humbling” process of creating their finest album so far.

Gemma Samways: You switched up your label and management team before writing Offerings. Did your creative process change too?

Naomi Diaz: Yeah. We created a lot of the songs – in the moment – at the studio with the producer, which is really different from what we were doing before. 

Lisa-Kaindé Diaz: I think the last three years were an incredible humbling session. If you ask us where we were creatively after Spell31, I think the answer is we were a bit lost. We needed to learn to trust the process.

ND: I think what is beautiful about this album is that it is an album that talks about everything we went through and shares all the sentiments and emotions we had during that time because we were writing it in real time in the studio. Ibeyi has always been about truth, but this album is really vulnerable. And ego goes with vulnerability

Comparatively, was Offering a much more difficult album to make than Spell31? 

LKD: Yes, because it was also longer. [It took] three years. We’re used to making an album in three months. First we had to find the right producers. Naomi says it was like leaving a marriage and going on Tinder, like, dating all of the producers. (Laughs).

ND: I have to say, not working with Richard [Russell] anymore was harder for Lisa because she gets attached to people. But I was like, ‘don’t worry, girl, we’re gonna find our producer’. And we found seven.

LKD: Naomi helped me understand that Richard was the best at what he did, because he did it his way and I needed to find people that are the best at what they do. So as soon as I started understanding that it’s not that I should feel the same when I'm in this session, I should just feel something, that’s when everything opened up.

The soundworld of this record is by far your most adventurous. Tell me about that shift?

ND: Lisa and I are really different, and I think we understood that if we bring our worlds together we will be stronger. I listen to a lot of rap, so I think you can hear that more. I think for a long time, the needle was maybe a little more towards Lisa and now you hear the needle shifting left towards me a little more.

“We understood that if we bring our worlds together we will be stronger” – Naomi Diaz

Offerings begins with the words, “I don’t make spells anymore, I make offerings.” Where did that phrase originate from?

LKD: I had a dream where I saw Yemọja, who is the [Yoruban] goddess of the sea, and I was telling her that I was scared that I was investing all this time and blood and sweat and tears into a record that might not work, and I was not sure if I could survive that. And she said, “What if I told you I would only give you a shell in exchange?” When I opened my hand, I had a shell in my hand, and she said, “Only offerings now.”

The point is, the act of offering is the most important part. It doesn’t even matter to whom. I think also coming from Spell31 – which was an album where I had put so much emphasis into the reactions of other people – I think suddenly centering myself in the act of just giving and then walking away really helped calm my nervous system down and also gave me purpose. 

I learned how to work with my own energy and how Naomi should work with her own energy too. And I think we always intuitively knew that, but it’s even more apparent now. What Naomi does in this band, I can’t do; what I do in this band, Naomi couldn’t do. Therefore the more we develop independently, the better Ibeyi gets.

Deities have appeared in your songwriting ever since your debut single River. Can you tell me about your relationship with spirituality?

LKD: I am considered extremely woo-woo in my family. I think Naomi expresses her connection with something that is beyond this world through dancing, through sweat, through her body, through energy. And [my relationship] is way more intellectualised. I believe that all of my songs are prayers. 

ND: I don’t intellectualise it. I mean it’s part of us, but I think Lisa and I have really two different ways of living this. For example, Spell31 is Lisa but the video for Aset with me dancing is more me.

“Every language has its own special energy” – Lisa-Kaindé Diaz

What were your goals for the films accompanying the album?

LKD: We made moodboards and the majority of the photos were by Cuban or Caribbean image-makers photographing their homes, their families, their people, almost street-photography style. We knew that’s what we wanted to do. 

ND: We wanted to show the Cuba we know and that maybe others know less, unless they go there. Also visually I wanted to show something other than the colonial houses, which we love but there’s a lot of other architectural beauty. It was important for me to shoot in special places.

LKD: I think we wanted to make Cubans the central point of the videos, and for them to be seen for who they are: for their beauty, for their strength, for their power, for their energy. For us, it’s about honouring our dad, honouring the island and the culture that we were born with, and saying thank you.

You’ve always moved so fluidly between languages. Do you find certain languages more suited to particular modes of expression?

LKD: I think every language has its own special energy. English is fantastic because it’s so direct and I love that energy. Spanish is incredibly poetic. And French is very exposing. That’s why it took us till now to have a fully French song [La tendresse d’un mot], but it felt important to do so.

Since you first started out, it feels like English-speaking audiences are increasingly more receptive to hearing music in other languages. Have you noticed that change?

LKD: Yeah. I am glad that English audiences are opening themselves up to other languages, because I don't think a language is a barrier. I actually genuinely believe that music is beyond all of that. I listen to Brazilian music all the time and half of the time I can’t understand what they're saying. And I remember listening to American music when I was young and I couldn't understand a word. Still to this day I discover lyrics like, “Oh, that's what they meant this whole time … ”

For all the talk of no longer manifesting, I’m curious – how have your ambitions changed?

LKD: I think to me it's to be the most powerful I can be. But I guess the growth that I'm desiring comes from the inside.

ND: I agree.

LKD: For the first time in my life, my personal life is also important. I see Lisa from Ibeyi as a statue, and everyday-Lisa as another statue, and I don't want either to overshadow the other.

Offering by Ibeyi is out now.