Anjimile wrote their new debut album, Giver Taker, after a battle with addiction and while they were establishing their identity as a non-binary trans person. (Transmasc, more precisely, as in the Sep. 3 interview with VinylMePlease.) In the process of clearing their head and getting sober, they rediscovered their creative spark, and began to find value in making music.

In their spiritual songwriting, there are redemptive songs of love, identity, and recovery, as well as finding truth and acceptance. On the record, Anjimile and their collaborators, Justine Bowe and producer Gabe Goodman, have also created a feeling of support in the arrangements, surrounding Anjimile’s mesmerizing voice with warm and steady instrumentation, along with a community of other voices in the mix. “It takes a village,” they said of how their collaborators have helped lift their songs up into their best possible state.

This beautiful, buoyant, and tender pop record, Giver Taker, also draws on a surprising mix of folk, African pop, and Western pop sounds, ranging from Shona Zimbabwean pop to Madonna, Ladysmith Black Mambazo to Gloria Estefan, Whitney Houston to Sufjan Stevens. There is also a song written in the rhythmic and musical Chichewa (a Bantu language spoken in Malawi) which their parents, who emigrated to West Virginia from Malawi, still speak. The song is called called “Ndimakukonda,” which means “I love you.” Anjimile plays live, solo, from their home in Boston. 

Set list: "Baby No More," "Maker," and "1978"

"Baby No More": "Maker":

"1978":