Masego Gets Vulnerable on Fix Your Face

By Claire Braberry

The Grammy-nominated, Jamaican-American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Masego’s latest album, Fix Your Face, takes a more personal approach, exploring themes of love, grief, faith and growth across 16 songs. Masego’s third studio album, released on 17 July 2026, explores vulnerability while still drawing on R&B, soul, hip-hop and Jamaican influences that shape his art. Written over three years and shaped by his life experiences and the LA fires that destroyed his home in 2025, the album reflects his shift from freestyling to intentional writing and storytelling, evident in its lyrics and the journey of its track sequencing.

The saying “Fix Your Face” refers to the pressure to hide difficult emotions, keep it together, and to make sure your expression does not reveal how you were truly feeling. In the context of his album, Masego uses this to confront his emotions, making vulnerability the album’s main theme and the foundation of its storytelling.

The album’s direction is established from the first track, “Sounds Like…”, reflecting on his turning point from hoping to pursue basketball, and redirecting to music after an injury, and briefly hinting at his religious childhood with his parents, who were both pastors. He sets the scene with the opening line, taking us back to the era of wired earpieces and two-toned wave caps tied to the side, and introducing a narrative that traces the experiences behind his musical journey. In an interview with GQ, he says, “Sounds Like… is really the theme song to that realisation” of the change in his aspirations. The inclusion of Masego’s mother’s voice, which introduces the album title, made the album feel less like a collection of songs and more like a story being shared with the listener.

“And then my whole room changed

From Kobe to Miles Davis

Gave myself a new name, new game”

– Masego in Sounds Like…

The storytelling continues into Heaven, combining his childhood in a religious household with intimacy and romance. The second track samples “Cheek to Cheek,” the iconic jazz song written by Irving Berlin, using the line “I’m in Heaven” over an R&B beat, portraying the connection of romance and a heavenly state. Masego’s saxophone can also be heard throughout the track, adding another layer to its soulful production, complementing his relaxed vocal delivery. He blurs the line between spiritual and sensual as he talks about going to choir rehearsals and having feelings for a girl from church, asking questions like, “Is it a sin to make love to gospel music?”

Throughout the album, Masego showcases his versatility, moving between genres without losing his identity, while collaborating with artists including Leon Thomas, Keyshia Cole, Musiq Soulchild and more. One of the standout tracks in the album is his eighth track, in which he brings his Hip Hop influences together with dancehall, paying homage to his Jamaican heritage, in the song “Hello,” featuring the well-regarded Jamaican reggae and dancehall musician Buju Banton. Rather than simply using these artists as features, Masego seems to incorporate elements of each artist’s style into each collaborative track, allowing the album to take on different sounds and genres while still fitting together and telling a cohesive story and journey.

Initially released as a single, “Breathe” conveys the difficulty of dealing with personal challenges, prompting him to question whether he can take a moment to stop and process what he’s going through without further challenges arising. The way Masego delivers the pre-chorus creates a sense of emotional contagion, making the listener feel almost breathless as he moves quickly through the lines, asking them not to make assumptions about him. The song grows heavier while maintaining the soulful groove, with strings layered underneath. It then drops into a softer section where his breathing can be heard, before building up heavier than before with Masego’s layered vocals, sounding as if he’s desperately yelping and pleading, asking for a moment to breathe as he repeats, “I just can’t stop, the world won’t stop.”

“Masego: I think the goal was to give people the chance to be human and to remove the transactional relationship we have with one another. I think we take the fame thing too far sometimes—putting celebrities and even people in our own lives on pedestals.

We have to consider other people’s perspectives and give them the grace to deal with whatever they’re going through. “Breathe” was my personal story about what I was experiencing and trying to navigate, especially not feeling very safe within the music business.

– Masego on Fix Your Face, vulnerability and the stories that shaped his most personal album, Glamour

Ultimately, Masego’s Fix Your Face succeeds in turning his vulnerability into a musical journey, not only exploring different genres but also exploring different emotions and experiences. While his album moves through multiple genres, his distinctively clean vocals, instrumentation, and production keep the tracks connected by his lyricism and storytelling, making the album feel cohesive and encouraging listeners to listen to it in full. Rather than just simply telling listeners about his experiences, Masego takes them on a journey through his vocals, lyrics, instrumentation, and production to show vulnerability as a part of the music project itself.

References (APA 7th):

ABC. (2026). Masego on new album Fix Your Face. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TBM7Hy6ijuI

Buju Banton. (n.d.). About. https://bujubanton.com/about/

Caribbean National Weekly. (2025). Jamaican Olympian Una Morris and singer Masego lose homes to California wildfires. https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/posts/jamaican-olympian-una-morris-and-singer-masego-lose-homes-to-california-wildfires

Davies, S. (2011). Infectious music: Music-listener emotional contagion. In P. Goldie & A. Coplan (Eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and psychological perspectives (pp. 134–148). Oxford University Press.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280903004_Infectious_MusicMusic-Listener_Emotional_Contagion

Fitzgerald, E., Armstrong, L., Berlin, I. (2021). Cheek to Cheek. Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20iOlPwz0J0

Garcia, S. E. (2018). The Durag, Explained. The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/style/durag-solange-met-gala.html

Mandoyi, S. (2026). Masego on Fix Your Face: Vulnerability and the stories that shaped his most personal album. Glamour South Africa.https://www.glamour.co.za/lifestyle/entertainment/masego-on-fix-your-face-vulnerability-and-the-stories-that-shaped-his-most-personal-album-cae5eeaf-5c43-4036-b619-17ceec96fb35

Masego, Banton, B. (2026). Hello. On Fix your face. Capitol Records.

https://open.spotify.com/track/00R468Heq3qV12xMqQFULd?si=e8d43bede5d64bcb

Masego. (2026). Breathe. On Fix Your Face. Capitol Records.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3mOoPkvBiO784mr4RSTkRV?si=d51851e9b1e84d73

Masego. (2026). Breathe. On Fix Your Face. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lns2oQkVQt8

Masego, Cole, K. (2026). Someone. On Fix your face. Capitol Records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyshia_Cole