North African, LA-based singer-songwriter Ami Taf Ra announces her debut album, The Prophet and The Madman, arriving August 22 via Brainfeeder. A transcendent, sonic palate cleanser that draws from Moroccan gnawa, gospel, and spiritual jazz, the album is a personal and poetic meditation on duality, healing, and ancestral memory. Inspired by Khalil Gibran’s seminal work, The Prophet, Ami Taf Ra’s album was produced by legendary saxophonist composer and her frequent collaborator Kamasi Washington. Arriving alongside the announcement is Ami Taf Ra’s powerful new single “How I Became A Madman” featuring Kamasi Washington. With soaring arrangements and entrancing emotional arcs, the track captures the tension between inner chaos and clarity—a central theme of the forthcoming album.
“How I Became A Madman” follows the release of “Speak To Us (Outro)”, Ami Taf Ra’s Brainfeeder debut, praised for its emotional depth and the accompanying video’s striking visual storytelling. Her upcoming album expands that sonic vision into a richly textured 11-track journey, featuring collaborators including Ryan Porter, Miles Mosley, Brandon Coleman, Tony Austin, Taylor Graves, Cameron Graves, Ronald Bruner Jr., Allakoi Peete, Kahlil Cummings, and Kamasi Washington. Ami Taf Ra’s The Prophet and The Madman is a bold statement from a vocalist rooted in the traditions of Arabic greats like Fairuz, Umm Kulthum and Warda, yet reaching fearlessly into new sonic territory. It’s an album that seeks not answers but presence—a devotion to the journey, not the destination.
