In the realm of emotions, music serves as both salve and celebration, touching every high and low. For Vagabon, it not only offers escape but also becomes a testament to a lasting legacy.

The Cameroonian-born New Yorker’s latest album, Sorry I Haven't Called, is one relatively void of peril sonically even though it was inspired by the death of one of the singer/producer’s loved ones. In 2021, her best friend died suddenly, which caused her to process what was really important in her life and the understanding she needed to feel everything that came her way.

On the single “Can I Talk My S**t,” Vagabon sets up her latest project as the track is a masterclass in conversational songwriting stripped of metaphors and very direct. Lyrics like “We found ourselves taking different paths / I see you out and I miss your laugh” relay the plain emotional resonance that she uses to cope with tragedy.

Overall, the album serves as a sort of distraction for Vagabon, but also functions as  processing grief in a different way. It’s something that came to her while spending months in the North German countryside where peace and solace helped her form her thoughts while grieving the immense loss burning inside of her.

“Grief is something that we all process differently, and as I'm talking more about the record, I’m realizing that I just wasn't ready to write songs about my despair,” the 31-year-old told BET during a recent interview. “The way I found that I couldn't make an album that felt true to the emotional moment I was having was to write about how grief changed me and what it changed about me.”

Creating Sorry I Haven't Called was a cathartic release for Vagabon, symbolizing a painful chapter in her life, albeit one that lacked the expected introspection. For her, making music is a part of her ongoing journey, not a constant reminder of her grief.

“Usually, I write music to work out some of the hardest feelings that I've felt,” she explains. “I wanted to keep my sadness to myself and to the people I was talking to in my real life, and I didn't want to write about it. I didn't want to go on tour [performing] songs about the saddest period of my life. For two years I wanted to create a room that was an escape from the very the very overwhelming pain that I was in. I wanted to have like a room in this house of despair that was just for escaping.”

Vagabon is currently in the midst of her first headlining tour, which spans across North America and Europe. It’s the first time she’s hit the road in front of fans since before her last, self-titled album, and the coronavirus pandemic. She says the show she’s built is one she’s very proud of as it encourages audience participation and is “as much their show as it is mine.”

Vagabon's recent music exudes dance-inspired beats, radiating warmth and resilience that urge us to embrace moments of ecstasy while understanding the depths of love and mourning. This music represents not only an artistic rebirth but also an emotional awakening for her.

“I really wanted to draw from dance music which I hadn't really done as explicitly since ‘Water Me Down’ off my self-titled album,” she says. “But I wanted to go a bit deeper into the kind of dancier stuff like the jungle beats in “Do Your Worst.” And so that was the overall thing in my mind of being suggestive of some dance elements while not making explicit dance music.”

Futhermore, Vagabon is still striving to discover her next challenge moving forward. It’s something she feels keeps her steadily improving while learning the lessons of her past, including ones that were hard and tested her mental and emotional fortitude. Through it all, it’s the music that keeps her curious about her next chapter in life.

“This is kind of my time. I am always chasing that feeling of being a beginner, so I like to embark on each new record with something that feels unfamiliar to me and uncharted territory so I can feel like a beginner learning to be proficient at something,” she says. “I just like feeling naive about something and then deciding to do it. It makes the process fun for me to have something new to discover.”

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