Alicia Keys returns with her new single “LALA (Unlocked)” featuring Swae Lee.
Over the breezy track, produced by Mike WiLL Made-It, the 15-time Grammy winner and Rae Sremmurd crooner show off their chemistry as they trade love-drunk verses.
In an interview with Apple Music, Alicia opened up about the “unexpected” collaboration.
“I love Swae. Swae is such a bright energy. He’s the real deal. He’s so authentic and for real,” she said. “It’s so unexpected because you might see Swae featured on my record and you might expect something, or you might not expect something. I’m not sure what people expect, but what I love about it is I personally feel like you never heard Swae like this before.”
Alicia, who will perform “LALA” for the first time at the MTV VMAs on Sunday, is now readying the follow-up to her 2020 album Alicia.
“I do feel like this music that’s coming is very much like, I know my lane and I’ma drive in it. That’s the vibe of this music. There’s a confidence. There’s a swag. There’s an energy. There’s a feeling of just complete comfortable in my skin,” she said.
“Wait until you hear the rest. There’s a very specific thing that’s happening. The vision is tremendously clear and it is something that I can’t wait to tell you. And the way that it all goes together is something that is, for me, makes this one of the most exciting projects I ever did, ever. It’s definitely the best one I ever did yet. It for sure has the most clarity, and it a million percent, the perspective that it holds is special.”
Additionally, she has teased a collaboration with Kehlani (“She got some freshness dropping soon”) and is working on her Girl on Fire graphic novel.