0:01
Well, you know, we had to put the biggest story and the biggest star on the cover at the end of what's been a really busy week as 2022 ramps up.
Search this video
0:04
Thank goodness you showed up for work. Really.
0:10
Thank goodness you showed up for work as well. Appreciate it.
0:16
You changed the course of the music and then you just vanish in into your own creative space.
0:21
You know, and it's not that you haven't come back here and there, but I mean, we're ready. That's what I'm saying. Thank you. I appreciate you. I'm ready, too.
0:28
I'm I'm more ready than ever. DFMU. You all can censor it. I don't care.
0:33
Don't me up is the name of the song.
0:34
And you know, very much to the point and up front as always with you.
0:39
This this dedication to honesty and truth.
0:41
How hard is it to get to that place where you know you're ready to share? Extremely hard. Do you know what?
0:45
This this especially this song in this process was very very hard for me cuz it was like my life in real time.
0:54
So, it was almost like a therapy session when I was in the session. Yeah.
0:59
But, I think that's the best way all the people that I grew up listening to were always very very honest and I've always just appreciated honesty.
1:04
I think it's the most it's the best way I think that people can relate to you also.
1:09
You can hear it and as soon as your vocals start, the tone, the meaning behind it.
1:13
That's not singing I don't think, you know?
1:15
I don't think that's singing.
1:17
I don't think I I certainly don't think it it may be singing, but it's certainly not performing.
1:21
Cuz it's just it's like literally I was having a very honest conversation with Prince Charlez who I wrote the song with about what I was going through at that that point and it just it was basically like a conversation and it kind of just came together that way and I think those are the best those are the best songs because what what really storytelling is just conversation really, so yeah, thank you for that.
1:41
It's true and you can't turn those good songs on and off. That's why it's magic.
1:45
That's why music is magic.
1:45
It happens when it happens.
1:47
Did you experience anything that was akin to writer's block or did your confidence shift and move shape over the course of the last few years since you had that success? Definitely.
1:59
I think I always say when I was recording my debut album, um, I was a lot younger.
2:03
I was like the studio was a lot newer to me, obviously.
2:06
So, there was a lot of things that I didn't really know much about, um, and you can almost say I was a bit naive.
2:12
Um, like when when but that yeah, that's kind of ignorance is bliss, right?
2:16
So, now I'm going into the next era.
2:19
Now going into the next era and, um, really just kind of like trying to figure it out, obviously, coming off of, um, huge success on my debut album.
2:26
Um, and then obviously the pandemic, which I think affected a lot everybody, obviously, in different ways, but like just creatively, it was a lot of start and stop, which I think was kind of I was making me a little bit blocked because I just didn't know where to go and I would start and then I would stop and then I would come back and I'm like I couldn't really find a rhythm.
2:46
Um, but in the end I think you always push through.
2:48
You have to push through those moments and that's what makes the process actually beautiful.
2:51
The creative side of it is is it's I I always think it's a really fine line you have to walk between self-awareness enough to tell your truth, but also sense of like abandonment so that you don't get inside your own head.
3:05
You put it very very well.
3:05
It's it's very hard not to do so, though.
3:07
Like obviously, I think just in everyday life is is hard not to get in your own head.
3:13
So, then when you start to put every every other variable in into that, um, picture, it gets harder and harder, but I think the people that you have around you are very important.
3:20
I think that, um, the people that I have around me, they keep me grounded.
3:26
They, you know, they can talk me through those moments, um, without me getting super overwhelmed and I'm very appreciative of that.
3:32
My friends, my family, my team, like everyone kind of helps me in that way so I can get back to that space and just create.
3:39
So, 2021, knowing that you were sitting on music as it was developing and you were finishing this project, when did it start getting really exciting for you again?
3:45
When did it go from being creative and process and all of these anxieties and all of these perfectionisms into like, "Oh, I'm getting ready.
3:54
To be honest, I think right now I think it didn't actually feel real until we announced it.
3:58
Like I knew it was coming, we've known for a while, we've been you know, we've been planning, we've been trying to make everything right.
4:03
And then the moment like we announced it I was like oh wait, this is actually like coming out.
4:09
So I think now and you know, just being able to sit down and talk with you and and being able to just speak with my fans who are super excited and um I yeah, I think it just I think it just hit me this week.
4:22
What's it like when you're at that point when you know, you're not in that zone, you're not feeling that equilibrium?
4:25
I mean, does it does it affect you?
4:28
I think it that yeah, it definitely affects me.
4:29
I think I wouldn't I wouldn't be human if it didn't affect me.
4:32
And especially with this difference to the album the debut album process, sorry.
4:36
Um like I said, I was naive.
4:36
So I was just going in the studio and doing whatever and writing with a bunch of people and I wasn't really like thinking about it.
4:43
But this time around, I'm obviously a lot more experienced.
4:47
Focusing on on on Mustard for a second who's just had this kind of unparalleled success in the last 20 years and again, keeps himself to himself for the most part.
4:55
Um what is unique about your your sort of creative relationship and your friendship with him that brings the magic to life?
5:00
We just trust each other.
5:00
And it's really weird because um from the moment I met Mustard, we just had such a musical chemistry.
5:07
It just made so much sense.
5:09
Um and I obviously was a lot more experienced than I was when I first met him.
5:13
Um but even just in outside of music, that's like my brother.
5:17
Like I I I work out with his wife every week.
5:19
I spend Christmas with them.
5:21
Like it's lit it's really like a family at 10 Summers.
5:25
So I think that helps even more so because you're just you're you're super comfortable going into the studio and there's nothing that I don't feel like I could say to him or he could say to me that we would be offended by.
5:33
We're really honest with each other creatively.
5:37
Let's talk about this wonderful space where emotion and vulnerability meets modern technology and the dance floor just which is called modern R&B, right?
5:46
And we've seen it in different shapes and different feels.
5:47
I don't feel like there's too many producers who can say they've contributed to the changing shape of that more than Mustard.
5:51
I feel even when he was making club records with rappers, he was always staying loyal and faithful to his idea of what R&B could become. Mhm.
6:01
And he's achieved that through his sound.
6:03
Others have now joined the party.
6:04
When you made Booty up, when you came out, it was you and a very small group of people I feel that we that could honestly say you were making R&B music.
6:10
How has it been to watch that change shape?
6:12
And and have you made peace with the fact that you know, you were right there at the perfect time and contributed to that change? I love it. I grew up on R&B.
6:18
I think the narrative that R&B was dead was just something that I think all of us as as listeners, as as um fans, also as artists were just kind of like that narrative was just it was just there all the time, but it wasn't true.
6:34
Um and I think obviously the resurgence of R&B that's happened um has has proved that, but it's it's always been there.
6:40
It just wasn't as mainstream as as it's become again now.
6:45
Um and I'm just honored of that.
6:45
I think to just have my name in that conversation um is something that as a little girl I would have I would be like, "Oh, she's so cool." So, I'm I'm I'm honored.
6:56
You probably haven't given yourself too much time to reflect.
6:57
When you think back to that time, like what was one of the maddest experiences that you found yourself in unexpectedly, whether it was being in a room with a group of people or being on a stage or being in a space or being traveling or something that you just could never have imagined you would have you would have you would have gone through that was really off the back of that album and that success?
7:16
Touring in Asia for me was really like, "Wow."
7:18
Because as much as touring anywhere is is amazing and it's and it's super super fun, I think going to somewhere like uh a lot of the tour that I did was English speaking like first language was English.
7:30
So, uh the the first that was my first time in Asia.
7:33
I didn't really know what to expect.
7:35
I was actually quite nervous cuz I was just like, "I don't know if this is going to tran like translate."
7:39
Not in not language wise, but just like what I'm saying and resonates with people.
7:42
And I went there and they embraced me as if I was I was from all of the countries that I went to and knew every word and it was I was just amazed because I know music is super universal and and it travels regardless of language.
7:56
It's just it's a feeling and a sound.
7:58
But to experience it up front and you know, I do meet and greets and to meet my fans so far away like they you know, just completely on the other side of the world and and have a completely different upbringing to me.
8:11
Just the the way that you can resonate with people and meet people and it with that part of it I think all touring, but that part of it was when I was really like, "Wow."
8:19
And there were there were a lot of moments for me that year where I was like, "Wow."
8:22
I think every every day was really a wow moment for me.
8:26
Who are you most nervous to meet at an award ceremony or whatever?
8:27
Who really threw you on the back foot?
8:29
Who stripped all of the Allemande the artist out of you and made you Allemande the fan?
8:35
There's a lot of people that have done that to be fair cuz I'm I'm I'm a fan first and foremost, but uh I'm trying to think.
8:42
I met Alicia Keys at the iHeart Radio Awards.
8:46
So much grace and just she's incredible.
8:47
Her just her balance and peace is unreal.
8:50
It's like I you know, when I was when I was a little girl I wanted to be Alicia Keys so bad.
8:53
I mean, I have braids in my hair now, but I used to braid my hair and like I started playing I I don't play the piano anymore, but I started piano lessons.
9:00
I should have I should have continued.
9:02
When I met her, she was just so she was just so lovely to me.
9:05
She was she embraced me so well.
9:05
She gave me such kind words and her energy like you're saying is just so calming.
9:11
Like I was nervous, but because of her energy I calmed down. So she was one.
9:15
Rihanna was another one at at the BET Awards. Wow.
9:19
I've had quite a great experience with everyone I've met. When I met Mary J.
9:22
Blige, everyone's been really really really nice and supportive to me.
9:25
And I know that's not you know, always the case.
9:28
So I've just been super appreciative of that.
9:30
Real recognize real Allemande.
9:30
That's why you know, you present yourself in an honest and true way with real authenticity.
9:35
Artists of the same caliber will in kind, no matter where they are on their journey. Is the album complete? Yes.
9:40
And uh you have a title for it. I do. Does it feel conceptual?
9:42
Do you think that this this song, D F M U, does it speak to what was going on in your heart and in your soul at the time? 100% yeah.
9:48
It definitely definitely was.
9:51
It's It's like it's weird because um I think obviously I've I've lived with the song for a while.
9:56
Um I recorded it at the start of my album process, so I've been listening to it for over a year. Yeah.
10:02
But when I listen to it I get I get put back in that place that I was in when I recorded it.
10:07
Oh, that's how you know it's good.
10:08
That's how you know it's good.
10:10
Yeah, it really just It really just takes me back and it was one of the ones in during the recording process that I just like I just knew it had to make I remember we were probably I think it was maybe like the 10th the 10th song in the recording like the recording process.
10:22
I recorded a whole bunch of songs.
10:23
Um and I remember saying to my team my manager I was like um yeah, this is making the list and she was like, "You know, we just started. Calm down. There's no list yet."
10:34
Like we've got a long way to go and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I know, but like I just feel this one.
10:36
I just feel this one on a different level.
10:38
And I'm grateful that it still made the list and here it is. Oh, yeah, here it is.
10:42
No, you were you were you were faithful to that feeling.
10:45
Will there be surprises on the record?
10:47
You don't have to give away details, but have you extended the the creative space to other artists?
10:50
Have you done duets or collaborations in any capacity on this record? Of course I have.
10:54
I didn't want to assume anything.
10:58
Yeah, no, I I love collaborating with other people.
10:59
I think I always say two minds are better than one and um I think being able to bounce off of somebody else's energy and somebody else's process also.
11:06
I love to actually work in the studio.
11:09
So, which season are we expecting the album to come in?
11:11
Is it sort of Is it a Is it going to be a Are we Are we going to remain in the fall? Is it Is it the spring? Is it the summer?
11:16
I mean, I guess we'll find out.