It’s been four years since Kelly Rowland’s last album Talk a Good Game and since then, she’s flexed her acting chops on Empire, founded June’s Diary, and become a wife and mother.
Now, she’s getting back to the music.
The singer recently sat down with Kosine (of production duo Da Internz) on his Beats 1 radio show where, while sharing her top women in R&B (more on that in a bit), she revealed for the first time publicly that she’s back at work on a new album.
She first admitted that she struggled to get started [10:00 mark]:
“Right after I had my son, I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about. I just found this place where I just found a groove and everything started to pop into place. I’m really excited.”
She continued to explain what inspired the new record [11:45 mark]:
“I’m not in my 20s, but I’m not in my 50s. I’m in this really glorious time in life where I feel like I’m receiving a lot of information and I feel like I have to give that back out too. Just from years of being here on earth, being a woman, and just going through life. And that’s more than enough to talk about. And I feel like that’s the space that I’m in right now. My theme is the extraordinary simple life of me. It doesn’t take a lot for me to be a happy girl. I like simple things. I like extraordinary things, too. It’s a really colorful, beautiful record so far. I’m very excited.”
In revealing her top choices of women in R&B, and the reasons behind each pick, Rowland mentions Syd and shares that she’s actually been in the studio with both The Internet singer and Kosine himself [19:40 mark]:
“Syd’s voice just sucks you in. The tone. Everything about her is so effortless and cool. I love working with her in the studio. She’s just been such a delight. I think I played that song [“Girl,”] to date, at least a thousand times. It makes me feel sexy, it makes me feel feminine, it makes me feel just easy, free.”
Rounding out Rowland’s list (and curated playlist) were: Jhene Aiko, SZA, Whitney Houston, Kelela, Solange, Sade, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Halsey.
Watch Kelly Rowland on The Breakfast Club.