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Kanysha: A Debut Album Built Out of Sessions on 'Strawberry Sessions'

Kanysha ·
The Strawberry Sessions album cover: Kanysha in a red dress against a red room, album title in pink script.
Image via kanysha.bandcamp.com

Kanysha has the training to sing just about anything, and on her debut album she more or less does. The Washington, D.C. singer, songwriter, and actress released Strawberry Sessions on October 23, 2026, and tonight, Friday October 30, she celebrates it with an album release concert and costume party at Blue House Productions in Kensington, Maryland.

Trained for the stage

Kanysha is a D.C. native who studied at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the Washington National Opera Institute, the New Washingtonians Jazz Institute, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and George Mason University. She has performed at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, and she is currently an artist in residence at Strathmore. Theatre runs through all of it. Her own bio leads with singer, songwriter, actress, performer, dreamer, and describes her tools as dynamic storytelling, quirkiness, emotion, and musicality.

An album built out of sessions

Strawberry Sessions runs 18 tracks, and its architecture is the first thing to know about it. The full songs are woven together with short interludes called sessions, each one named for a person: Kalen, Divine, Ciara, Tamara Jade, Kecia, a girls' room session, and a two part session of her own. It plays less like a playlist and more like a night spent talking with everyone she loves, with the songs rising out of the conversation.

The range inside that frame is wide. Her site bills the release show as a blend of funk, alternative, ballads, R&B, punk, and soul, and the album backs that up. "Kiss Me" and "Nothing Makes Sense But You" are straight ahead love songs. "B.H.W.O.," the album's second single, is what her site calls a funky, neo-soul anthem about telling the truth, a story of infidelity and growth that warns a lying partner he is going to buss hell wide open. "Gay Guy," featuring Sheila, plays heartbreak for comedy and lands on grace. Then the album turns serious: "Can You Hear It?" sits with grief and blood in the streets, and the closing track, "Grant Us Peace," is a prayer. She announced the record on Bandcamp by saying she was excited to share her heart, and that is exactly the shape of it.

Listen

Open on Bandcamp

Start here

  • "B.H.W.O." — the funky neo-soul single and the album's warning shot.
  • "Kiss Me" — the love song at the record's center.
  • "Can You Hear It?" — where the album's weight lives.
  • Then take the full album in order, sessions and all. The interludes are part of the story.

See her

  • Tonight, Oct 30, 8:00 pm — Strawberry Sessions album release concert and costume party, Blue House Productions, Kensington, MD

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