Yazmin Lacey

Yazmin Lacey blends timeless R&B, jazz, and reggae through a contemporary lens, channeling diary-style lyrics via an intimate, chatty delivery. Originally from Nottingham, she began casual sessions with friends and harbored no further creative goals until BBC broadcaster Gilles Peterson selected her for the Future Bubblers initiative. Her profile rose through the EPs Black Moon, When the Sun Dips 90 Degrees, and Morning Matters, issued between 2017 and 2020, until she advanced in 2023 with the debut full-length Voice Notes, shaped alongside Dave Okumu.

East London upbringing found Lacey filling notebooks and joining a choir without any thought of a music career; acting held greater appeal, leading her into youth-theater productions. During her twenties, while employed at a children’s charity, an impromptu jam session with friends suddenly elevated music above her other pursuits. Once invited into Future Bubblers—an incubator supporting unsigned emerging artists—she joined the program, releasing her opening EP Black Moon in 2017 on Running Circle, the imprint she named after her own backing ensemble. That same year she opened the Future Bubblers 1.0 compilation with the track “Marie” and appeared at Peterson’s Worldwide Awards event. The follow-up When the Sun Dips 90 Degrees arrived on First Word in 2018, coinciding with wider endorsement from numerous BBC presenters and additional platforms.

She subsequently founded her own imprint, Own Your Own Records, which debuted in 2020 via the third EP Morning Matters. The sessions featured Moses Boyd on drums and production, Sarah Tandy on keyboards, and Ezra Collective members Femi Koleoso on drums plus Ife Ogunjobi on trumpet. Three years afterward she issued the more expansive yet characteristically affectionate Voice Notes, forging close ties with multi-instrumentalist producers Dave Okumu and Melo-Zed along with drummer Dan See; Okumu additionally handled executive-production duties.