NAKAYA welcomes us into her meditative space in this week’s quarantine Buzzsession, filmed in her Brooklyn home. It’s a minimal set-up, her Fender amp adorned with the vines of a well-loved heartleaf plant and warm candle lights, the perfect setting for this intimate rendition of “Dear Skin” from her 2015 EP Out of Breath. Acts as simple as smiling at the camera on her rooftop and enjoying the skyline sunset feel incredibly vulnerable while she sings of apologizing for ways she’s mistreated herself in the past. As quarantine has presented us all with the opportunity to spend time with ourselves, her second-ever single about being kind to oneself takes on a new life as she allows herself to be the center of attention in this bare-bones performance. The surmounting pressure for aggressive self-care and productivity in this time has been overwhelming, but with NAKAYA, we find that the foundational element is cultivating an environment at home where we are relaxed, safe, and loved.

A stripped-down cover of the bluesy Corinne Bailey Rae classic “Like A Star” carries that mellow, tender energy forward. Her silhouette moves before time-lapse footage of clouds and a river oasis, meditatively dancing with her arms out as her spirit moves all the way through the tips of her fingers. Her soft voice and subtle strums have a way of enveloping you with the adoration and compassion at the heart of this song, seeming as though we’re being serenaded in our own living rooms. As the video mirrors when her harmonies build, it appears as though lines like “I don’t argue like this / With anyone but you” are subtle messages to herself. Despite the problems she’s had internally in the past, NAKAYA assures herself that she is her own star.