Normani makes for a stunningly arresting sight on the latest cover of The Cut magazine.
The songbird nests on the publication on the latest stop of the press run for her new single ‘1:59 (ft, Gunna)’ and her incoming debut album ‘Dopamine’ (due June 14).
Beyond styling and profiling, the stage blazer opens up about the long-traded path to the release of her LP, finding her sound, navigating the cancer diagnosis of both of her parents and much more.
Head below for quotes and pics…
On Taking Her Time to Create ‘Dopamine’:
“I could’ve put three albums out by now in that duration. I’m not oblivious to that. But I felt like I owed it to myself to be able to take my time, and reinvent, and be experimental.”
On ‘Motivation’ Being Her First Ever Solo Single:
“I didn’t feel like it represented me and I’d already known how that felt. But the label was like, ‘Sorry, it’s coming out.’” (RCA declined to comment.) She remembers compromising with the music video, of which there are 50 edits: “This needs to be Black as f*ck.”
On Both Her Parents Being Diagnosed With Cancer:
“You don’t even know the half of it. I was just like, ‘F*ck all of this. I needed to be at home, with my family.
My mom was like, ‘I’m still going to be here the day you put that body of work out. I’ll be here at the end. And I held onto that.”
Excerpt on Normani Being Called “Normonkey” & Receiving Death Threats During Her Time In Fifth Harmony:
“I remember going on social media and seeing my daughter’s face Photoshopped on bodies of people being whipped,” says Andrea [Normani’s Mom]. A few days before, Normani had casually described Cabello as “quirky” and “cute” in an interview, and a swathe of fans, who sensed tension between the girls, interpreted it as a dig. They responded with vitriol, singling out Normani, the only Black girl in the group. (Cabello’s social-media footprint later revealed racist posts of her own from the early days of the group; in 2020, Normani said, “It was devastating that this came from a place that was supposed to be a safe haven and a sisterhood.”) Fifth Harmony was on tour at the time, and nobody from Epic or Syco reached out to her. “We just continued to do shows, and I was fearing for my life,” Normani says. “But they continued to put me out there on the stage. It was pretty much like, ‘The show goes on.’”
On Working With James Blake on ‘Dopamine’ Song ‘Tantrums’:
“I feel like a lot of people who’ve heard it are really surprised, but that’s the point — I wanted to be able to flex my taste.”
On Her Current Perspective:
“For so long, I allowed music, numbers, and how successful I am define me.
I’ve always felt like I can hold a conversation, but, like, I’d rather not. I have this anxiety when it comes to being seen too much or people seeing through me.
I felt like I needed to experience things to actually be able to talk about them on a record, whether it’s my parents, or heartbreak, or even just being in tune with myself as a 27-year-old woman. There’s so much life I’ve lived in the span of creating this body of work.”