Annahstasia

Her path to reach this point has certainly been circuitous, but Annahstasia is now one of the most beguiling and magnetic new singer-songwriters in the United States. She is not, mind you, particularly that “new” to music. Now 30, Annahstasia—a Los Angeles native born to Nigerian and American parents—signed her first record deal when she was 17, responding positively to a music manager’s promise to make her a pop star. But the creative direction and control stifled her, eventually prompting her to make music of her own as she balanced a career in modeling with degrees in political science and fine art. There was even a tour with Lenny Kravitz along the way, but her doubtless breakthrough is Tether, one of 2025’s most self-assured and stunning debuts.

Tether builds on Annahstasia’s subtle and sophisticated acoustic guitar playing, her picked counterpoint recalling Nick Drake and Julie Byrne. Like those two, though, she carries so much feeling in her voice, a husky contralto over which she has expert control. Her songs capture scenes of defeat and perseverance, of finding love and of trying not to lose it. Where “Silk and Velvet” explores the inevitable hypocrisies of modern life, “Unrest” looks at it with a kind of sun-also-rises contentment. “The skin that I’m in is just a vessel/Barely holding,” she sings during “Slow,” a song about the toggle between risk and reward, between staying alive and living a fulfilling life. These are the kind of songs—and Annahstasia’s the kind of story—that help the rest of us navigate that process.