“I’ve been working on my debut album for a very long time,” Tiana Major9 tells Apple Music. “It’s gone through many phases and names. The one consistency throughout it all, though, has been my commitment to singing about the real vulnerability of how I love and how I want to be loved. That honesty has always been the key.” Since breaking out with the slow-grooving, Grammy-nominated 2019 single “Collide,” from the soundtrack to the Daniel Kaluuya-starring Queen & Slim, the British singer-songwriter has made a luxuriant combination of soulful, soaring vocals with rooted rhythm their signature. Tiana Major9 (real name Tiana Thomas-Ambersley) has since released a slew of singles and collaborations with the likes of Stormzy and Bryson Tiller, yet it took switching to an independent label, +1 Records, and tapping up a new creative team in 2024 to find the right vision for their long-awaited debut album, November Scorpio. Inspired by astrology, truth-telling, and the tumult of romantic relationships, the record spans everything from the finger-picked guitar balladry of “have ur way” to the confessional songwriting of “money,” the ’90s-referencing R&B duet “Always” with Yebba, and the reggae-jazz fusion of “energy!” “Despite all the challenges I’ve been through, I’m so proud of this album,” Thomas-Ambersley says. “It’s tapping into parts of myself I would usually shy away from and it’s helped me understand my value in the process.” Read on for Tiana Major9’s in-depth thoughts on the album, track by track. “have ur way” “This is one of the oldest songs on the record. I wrote it with my friend Daniel March, an incredible songwriter from Australia. He came to London in 2021, and it was just me and him and an engineer in the studio and we came up with this song after a few hours with guitar and vocals. I knew I loved it so I held onto it for a bit and then gave it to my executive producer PRGRSHN, who has worked on 99 percent of the things I’ve done, and we made it sound more full. It sets the tone for the album by being vulnerable and honest, since it feels like peeking into my life and headspace when I’m falling in love.” “waikiki” “I’m a great believer in manifestation and the fact that if I want to achieve something, I need to believe it and say it to myself. I wrote ‘waikiki’ when I was at a stage of my career where I was starting to see where my music could take me and how my life could pan out if I really locked in and set goals for myself. I was in a visual space, and this track is a representation of that ambitious feeling. I’ve still never been to Waikiki but I feel like it’s on the way!” “money” “‘money’ came about when I had just changed teams and gone independent and was working with lots of new producers and songwriters. I was over feeling like I wasn’t being honest in my music and I wanted to talk about things in my life that weren’t love. Being independent and a freelancer is tough, and so money was an important consideration for me at the time. I was in a session with the producers Brody Myles and Pera and this track just came out while I was flowing with them. It felt so good to sing about.” “fiiighttt” “I was coming out of a relationship and realizing I didn’t want to keep arguing in my life when I wrote this song. I was in a very combative space and it seemed like I was always arguing and being overly defensive or being around people who didn’t really get me. Looking back at that time, I was very tense and this reflects those feelings.” “Shook One” “I wrote this song with PRGRSHN, and we’ve had it in the vault for a long time. He first came up with the track, and as soon as I heard it years ago, I loved it. I always kept it in the back of my mind, and when it came to the record it felt like a perfect fit, except it was really hard to figure out clearances, since it’s an homage to ‘Shook Ones’ by the legends Mobb Deep. Thankfully it all worked out and all I can say is big up Mobb Deep and RIP Prodigy!” “GRACE” “‘Grace’ was one of my keywords I had for 2024 when I really began focusing again on this album. I was being really hard on myself, doing a lot of comparisons with other artists and with my old self, and it was getting me down to the point where I felt like I couldn’t even release music. I had to tell myself to have grace both for me and for others. I was very open about all of this in the studio and I soon caught a vibe to create this song. The track also ends with my mum’s voice, since she always has a word and prayer that feels fitting and that I can listen back to for myself. It feels really free, and it feels good to release into the world now.” “alone” “This is one of the songs I was trying my hardest to nail and it just kept going back and forth from the studio to my team since it wasn’t good enough. On the final session, after going back about 10 times to record it, I just decided I was going to give it my all and even though it felt like I was screaming down the mic, this final take is the one that ultimately came out the best and delivered the rawness of the song’s message.” “Always” (with Yebba) “I love Yebba, I’m such a fan of hers as she’s such an incredible musician and songwriter. When I came up with this song, I just thought it would be iconic to have us both on it, especially since I love feeling like I can go back-to-back with a musician in our own flow states on a track. It’s a great way to get the best out of each other. I sent it to her and she loved it, cut it, and sent it back. It is perfect and has such a great Mariah and Whitney energy to it.” “desire.” “‘desire.’ came when I was figuring out this album in 2024 with a new team behind me. I went to LA for a month and I worked with so many different songwriters and producers there. During that period, this song came about with the writers [DJ] COCO and Omar Grand and it’s another flow-state track that had pretty much written itself by the end of the session. I really love how it came out.” “energy!” (with Keyon Harrold) “At a similar time to that LA trip, I also went to Jamaica with the intention to feel free and confident as an independent artist. It was there that I met JLL, who has since become a favorite producer of mine. We did a few songs, and on the last day, he played me the bones of this track, which really caught a vibe. Since it has such a jazz and reggae fusion feel, I wanted to reach out to Keyon Harrold, who is an amazing trumpeter—I’ve worked with him before on his Tiny Desk. I asked him if he would play over the track and gave him free rein to do his own thing. It came out like a beautiful blend of him and Roy Hargrove’s classic trumpet sound.” “Lucid Dream” “I’m such a visual person, I dream every day and I often remember my dreams even if I want to forget them! I lucid dream, which can be scary, and it’s become a big part of my life. I wanted to talk about that type of dreaming when it comes to desiring and loving someone and the track ended up being very Scorpio and very horny! It’s the perfect way to end.”