ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
The musician Masego lost his home last year in the Palisades Fire in Southern California. But from the ashes of his loss, he's made something new - an album called "Fix Your Face." There are many complex emotions woven throughout the record. NPR's Kai McNamee reports.
KAI MCNAMEE, BYLINE: Fans recently lined up in Washington, D.C., to see a side of Masego not many have seen before.
KAI BROWN: It seems like this album is really vulnerable, and he came from a place of, like, reflection, which is a little bit different for him, so I like that.
MCNAMEE: That's Kai Brown (ph). Like a lot of the concertgoers I talk to, she loves Masego for his musical talent. But to many fans, this latest album feels different.
STEWART ARCHER: This one, in particular, seemed a lot darker, actually, which I did not expect from him.
MCNAMEE: Longtime fan Stewart Archer (ph) - he's here with his wife, Kate Archer (ph).
KATE ARCHER: I love an artist that really digs into their emotions, and I feel like this really, like, showed the full breadth of his work.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MASEGO: We going to have a good time tonight. I can tell. I can tell 'cause I had Jamaican food in D.C. I can tell.
MCNAMEE: After two years of travel and living abroad in Brazil, the Jamaican-born singer is back to touring in the U.S., and it's his first album since losing his home in the 2025 Palisades Fire.
MASEGO: It revealed what I actually cared about in the home, which said a lot about me - you know, my instruments, my vinyls and, of course, the memories in the home more so than my chains and my custom couch and my linen.
MCNAMEE: "Fix Your Face" is an introspective turn in Masego's career, touching everything from love to grief to joy. The opening track, "Sounds Like," is a reintroduction to young Masego.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUNDS LIKE")
MASEGO: (Singing) Miss my white wired headphones. Me, myself and I.
MCNAMEE: In the song, he recounts his love for basketball and how he got into cinematography at church. He tells the story of a life-changing injury that set him on a path to a music career.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUNDS LIKE")
MASEGO: (Singing) Locked my knees, and I fell on the concrete. I blacked out, then I woke up with IV. I passed out with my teammates beside me.
I fell after holding this big, old-school TV camera, and I had internal bleeding - woke up in a helicopter, woke up again in a hospital, had to relearn how to shoot a basketball. And instead of being discouraged about, you know, not becoming Kobe Bryant, I really became passionate about Miles Davis and jazz music and the things that helped me heal.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUNDS LIKE")
MASEGO: (Singing) It sounds like the life for me. It sounds like the life for me.
MCNAMEE: Throughout the album, you hear snippets of his mother. He says she's the one who taught him what vulnerability looks like.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUNDS LIKE")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I know it's getting tough. Keep your chin up. Mm-hmm. Shine, baby. Shine.
MASEGO: With reflecting, it's grandmothers, it's mothers, it's sisters - women just have it way more figured out. But men, or just at least the men that I was around growing up, we just, like, we meet up and fight weekly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMEONE")
MASEGO: (Singing) Yeah. If I cry and if I break, will you mistake me for a weaker man?
I know till the end of time, there'll be a random person that comes up to me saying, yo, I love your saxophone. And that's fine. That's a version of being famous. But what I'm also trying to add to that group of fans is, yo, that record really helped me get through this. I think that you wrote that about my life.
MCNAMEE: The album hits an emotional peak with the track "Breathe." It's a song Masego wrote about the death of a family member.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BREATHE")
MASEGO: (Singing) Last night, that news shook me to my core, mind you. Last week, it was all cool. Now I'm thinking how to save you.
MCNAMEE: The lyrics are direct. He says there's no hiding behind metaphors or the music.
MASEGO: I feel like I don't have the tools to deal with grief as a Black man. It wasn't really a thing. We just don't talk about it. We go to the funeral. It's done. Even after having a death in the family, in the music industry, you don't have, like, you know, paid time off to deal with something. It's just, all right, you have an interview today, a studio session, a show and a fitting. And yeah, sorry for your loss.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BREATHE")
MASEGO: (Singing) Can I breathe? Breathe. Can I live? Live. Can I grieve? Grieve. Get a minute? Min'.
MCNAMEE: Alongside the heavier tracks, there's also joy.
MASEGO: I feel like it's the human experience to say no. If I'm sad, I don't just put it in one space emotionally. And so when I play "Hello," you'll see I'll just get done singing the thing that makes you cry. And then it's like, all right, wind up your waist.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HELLO")
MASEGO: (Singing) Tattoos on my wingspan. My eyes on you, see my wingman.
You need all of the emotions, man. There's how many - there's a finite amount of emotions, just like with colors. You need all of them to make a nice picture.
MCNAMEE: So if there's anything Masego wants you to get from this album, it's this...
MASEGO: Just feel comfort, you know? I feel like a lot is out of balance these days. And if music could help restore that, that'd be amazing. And if my music could help restore that, even better.
MCNAMEE: Masego's third album, "Fix Your Face," is out now. Kai McNamee, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HELLO")
MASEGO: (Singing) She dancing on me.
BUJU BANTON: (Singing) She love to wine. And she do it on time. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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