There’s something oddly comforting about admitting you’re still making the same mistakes you swore you’d left behind. Sabina Beyli has built her music around that exact feeling. The alt rock singer-songwriter doesn’t dress up her flaws or pretend growth is linear. Instead, she turns relapse into release.
Her latest single “Bad Habits,” a 2:48 track released in October, co-written with longtime collaborator Kate J. Brink, gets right to that uncomfortable truth. It’s about falling back into patterns you thought you’d outgrown, the kind of perfectionism that keeps you stuck, and the messy reality that personal growth isn’t a straight line. Beyli’s approach to these themes feels less like confession and more like recognition. She’s not asking for absolution. She’s just acknowledging what most people are too afraid to say out loud.
The Azerbaijan-born artist has been making music since she was five, when hearing Christina Aguilera for the first time sparked something that led her straight to music school and vocal training. That early start shaped her technical foundation, but it’s her willingness to get uncomfortable that makes her work hit. Now based between Boston and New York, Beyli has become the first Azerbaijani woman to graduate from Berklee College of Music, a milestone that speaks to both her dedication and the doors she’s opened for others.
Her sound pulls from Paramore’s raw intensity, Mitski’s emotional precision, and Evanescence’s darker undertones. But Beyli isn’t copying anyone. She’s taking what resonates from those influences and filtering it through her own lens of self-image, betrayal, and inner conflict. The result is music that works best loud and late at night, when defenses are down and honesty feels easier.
“Bad Habits” arrived alongside another recent release, “Culprit,” both produced with Berklee alum Mike Midura. She’s also put out “Crave The Burn,” continuing to build on themes of vulnerability and empowerment. Working with producers like Skylar Mones and JD Walker, Beyli has developed a following of over 70,000 across platforms. You can find her on Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, and TikTok, where she shares both her music and glimpses of her life outside the studio.
That life includes weightlifting, fashion, baking, and makeup. It’s a reminder that artists aren’t one-dimensional, even when their music digs deep into specific emotional territory. Beyli’s varied interests seem to feed into her creative process rather than distract from it. She’s building something that feels sustainable because it’s rooted in who she actually is, not who she thinks she should be.
What makes her work resonate isn’t complexity. It’s honesty. She’s writing about the gap between who we want to be and who we are when no one’s watching. About knowing better but not always doing better. About the fact that healing isn’t a destination you reach and stay at forever. These aren’t revolutionary concepts, but Beyli presents them without pretense or polish that would dull their impact.
“Sometimes we fall back into the very things we swore we’d outgrow,” she says. “It’s messy, it’s human, and it’s honest.” That’s the core of what she’s doing. Not pretending to have figured it all out, but making art from the parts that still need work. It’s the kind of perspective that only comes from someone willing to sit with discomfort long enough to write about it. And in a music world that often rewards perfection over truth, that willingness to stay messy might be Beyli’s biggest strength.
