(August 26, 2026) Sandra St. Victor has spent more than three decades redefining soul, funk, rock, gospel and jazz as a prolific singer, songwriter and fearless live performer. First rising to prominence as the powerhouse voice and founding member of The Family Stand, the Dallas-born, Brooklyn-raised artist has worked with an extraordinary roster of soul, disco and hip-hop innovators, including Curtis Mayfield, Prince, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, Common and Lalah Hathaway, among many others.
Now based in the Netherlands, Sandra St. Victor returns with her first solo album in over a decade. ‘Eleven’ is a soul-stirring body of work that bridges St. Victor’s long-standing audience with a new community of listeners, seamlessly blending soul, jazz, boogie and soulful dance music while celebrating her legacy and continued artistic evolution. Spanning fourteen tracks, the LP features longtime collaborators, including The Family Stand’s V. Jeffrey Smith, Emmanuel “Eman” Anene Jr., Ty Macklin, Adam Dorn (aka Mocean Worker) and Tom Hammer, alongside Mother Tongue regulars Patrick Gibin, Kaidi Tatham, Edoardo Della Bitta (aka EDB) and Mark de Clive-Lowe.
‘Enter 11’ opens with a low-slung neo-soul beat and smoky vocals before ‘Life’, featuring EDB, unfolds over a shuffling, organic deep house groove, with St. Victor delivering an uplifting ode to life’s simple joys. ‘Moonchild’ drifts through a tapestry of intricate broken beats courtesy of London’s faultless multi-instrumentalist Kaidi Tatham, while ‘No More Water’ welcomes a stunning guest spot from America’s First Daughter of Soul, Lalah Hathaway, the two trading sublime harmonies with effortless chemistry. Romance lingers in the air on ‘Makes Me Wanna Fall In Love Again’, where sensual hand claps, lush chords and smouldering vocals give way to the darker mood and brooding rhythms of ‘Go Up Moses’, with Philly-born jazz cat Mocean Worker adding cinematic weight to the arrangement.
Kaidi Tatham returns on the cosmic-leaning jazz-funk fusion of ‘Tiki Tiki Donga’, while ‘Black Ice’ nods to classic boom-bap and golden-era neo-soul smoothness. ‘Womanizer’ exudes effortless confidence, pairing shimmering synth work with sultry drums, while ‘Regarding Leon’ glows with golden chords and a gentle rhythmic bump as St. Victor’s vocals soar. The elastic funk of ‘What Would Miles Do’ injects playful energy before ‘Build A World’ offers a heartfelt lament on inequality. ‘Dizzy’ closes the LP’s main sequence with a stunning display of vocal control, before ‘Regarding Leon (Midnight Mix)’ provides a fitting epilogue, its neon-lit chords and colourful scat vocals carrying the album into the early hours in a haze of quiet reflection.
