DaniLeigh released With Love, From Dani on Friday (Oct 2), two years almost to the week after her father, Vladimir Curiel, died of cancer. She, her mother and her siblings were at his side praying over him when he took his last breath. In the days that followed, she posted a long Instagram tribute, and one line in it read like a commitment: "I can't wait to share this testimony and my dad's story," she wrote.

Spanning 13 tracks and 35 minutes under Rebellion Records, the LP is her first full-length release since My Side in 2022. Shaped by personal loss and motherhood, the album reflects her journey as a grieving daughter and the mother of a girl who turned five in August, keeping both dedicated loved ones at the heart of the music.

Rooted in grief and faith, the album was crafted explicitly with her child in mind. DaniLeigh told Miami publication Pinch of Sol that she governed the project with one rule: every track had to be one she was proud for her daughter to play. The feature list reflects that broad appeal, pairing her with Chicago singer Tink ("Up Down"), Brooklyn drill rapper Fivio Foreign ("SK8"), and Lagos superstar Olamide ("Goosebumps").

During the years Def Jam was developing her as a crossover star, Curiel was a steady presence at his daughter's shows. When he fell ill, she shared his battle publicly, asking fans in late September 2024 to pray for his life using the hashtag #Cancerwontwin. Roughly a week later, early on a Tuesday morning, he passed away surrounded by his wife and children.

In the same tribute, she wrote that her daughter had called her grandfather the day before he died and kept telling him she loved him, and she promised the girl would always carry that memory. Near the end of the post she wrote plainly about the loss: "this is a pain i've never felt before."

A few months later, on a Sunday that fell on her father's birthday, DaniLeigh and her mother were baptized together. In a post about the day, she wrote that the date of his birth had become the date the two of them were reborn. She credited his death with pulling the whole family closer to God, and that sequence, from the prayer request to the baptism, is the material the new album is built from.

The daughter rule carries weight because of how her last album cycle unfolded. My Side arrived in 2022, a few months after her split from DaBaby, the father of her child, played out on social media. Pinch of Sol reports that she describes the new record as free of malice and pettiness. Coming from an artist whose breakup became public content before her last album came out, that is a pointed promise.

The tracklist backs her up in a way anyone can check. Only one carries an explicit tag, "Cinderella Man" with toschii, and it sits at No. 2 in the sequence right after the opener, "Worthy." No other song on the listing carries the tag, including the drill record with Fivio Foreign and the Afrobeats single with Olamide.

One song appears on the album twice. "G.O.D." first arrived as a single in late February, and it appears at track four in its solo form before returning as the closer with the singer Alex Jean added. "Step," the second single, landed in May and sits right behind it at track five. "Goosebumps," the third single, waits until track 12.

DaniLeigh was born Danielle Leigh Curiel in Miami in December 1994, and her Dominican roots have surfaced in her music since her earliest projects. Prince picked her at 18 to direct and star in the video for "Breakfast Can Wait." In 2018 she told Billboard that she wanted her "Lil Bebe" video to have a continuous, one-take feel and to put people she knew in the frame.

"La Familia," the eighth track, brings in Bella Dose and Brandon Bill$. Amazon Music catalogs both it and the next song, "Slide," as Spanish-language recordings. Placed back to back in the middle of the album, they are its most direct nod to the Dominican side of her upbringing.

"Goosebumps" is the record that leaves the country. Olamide built his career in Lagos and runs the YBNL label there, and Pinch of Sol describes the song as a link between Miami, Los Angeles and Lagos. DaniLeigh co-directed the video with Victoria Curiel, and the premiere notes that she puts her faith at the center of her performance in it.

American R&B and Nigerian pop have been trading guests in both directions this year. In August, Davido spent the biggest video of his ORIADÉ cycle on a song featuring Leon Thomas. DaniLeigh's pairing with Olamide runs the same exchange from the other side of the Atlantic.

"Home," the third track, features Jordan Adetunji, one of the guests Pinch of Sol highlighted alongside Tink and Fivio Foreign. Read in order, the features move from Adetunji to a Chicago singer to a Brooklyn drill rapper to a Lagos star. The Spanish-language pair sits in the middle of that run, between Tink and Fivio.

The With Love, From Dani tracklist is short by design. Going by the run times posted on Apple Music and Amazon Music, 10 of the 13 songs finish under three minutes. "Step" is the shortest at 2:18, and the longest is "SK8" with Fivio Foreign at 3:43. The full album clocks in at 35 minutes and 21 seconds, an average of about two minutes and 43 seconds per track.

The guest list is a different kind of roster than the one on Movie, her 2020 album, which brought in PARTYNEXTDOOR, Ty Dolla $ign, Gunna and DaBaby during her Def Jam run. This time the features lean toward Lagos and the Dominican side of Miami, and the biggest American names are Tink and Fivio Foreign.

Apple Music's editors described the release as the Miami singer's fourth album, built around a compact guest list. Through its first weekend, none of the major music outlets had reviewed or written up the record. The only premiere came from Pinch of Sol, a publication based in the city where she grew up.

The final song is the second version of "G.O.D.," which Pinch of Sol framed as the bonus close of the record. The album that opens with "Worthy" ends with a faith song she had already released once, now sung with Alex Jean. The last thing a listener hears is the faith she found after the funeral.

In October 2024 she told her followers she could not wait to share her father's story. Two years later the story is on every streaming service, with her rule about her daughter written into all 13 tracks and Olamide's feature carrying it to Lagos.