Jamila Woods dives into tranquility on her upcoming third album Water Made Us. Woods’ follow-up to 2019’s Legacy! Legacy!, the 33-year-old co-executive produced the LP alongside LA-based musician Mcclenney. Featured on Water Made Us is Saba, Peter CottonTale and duendita, who appears on the Wynne Bennett-produced lead single “Tiny Garden.”

Jamila Woods – Tiny Garden (Official Video)www.youtube.com

Woods’ self-directed music video for the single, which she calls “a song about the way my heart works,” accompanied her album announcement. Titled after a well-known Toni Morrison quote, Water Made Us thematically follows Woods’ journey of returning to oneself.

“‘Water Made Us’ feels like the most personal and vulnerable piece of art I’ve ever made. I love creating from source material, diving deep into a subject and extrapolating from what I discover,” Woods wrote in a press release. “We sat in the house for 2 years and I became my own source material. Shout out to the therapists, the astrologers, the family members and friends who listened, who helped me process and transform my journaled thoughts and questions into this body of work. I hope it feels like a playlist that carries you through the life cycle of a relationship, whatever stage of the journey your heart may be in.”

Post-Legacy! Legacy!, Woods’ poetry was featured in 2020 Library of America anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. During the 2021-2022 academic year, she was also an artist-in-residence at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.