Being a Normani fan has been an exercise in extreme patience. When the singer left Fifth Harmony to pursue a solo career in 2018, she was pegged as R&B’s next big thing. Her talent spoke for itself on songs like “Motivation” and “Wild Side” and with high-profile collaborations with Sam Smith and Calvin Harris. She released single after single (and a few videos), but that’s all that we’ve gotten from her after years of promises of more. However, that’s about to change.
Normani has simultaneously answered fans’ prayers and snatched their wigs with this week’s surprise announcement that her long-awaited debut album is coming. Finally and for real this time. She’s even standing on business by revealing the album title and cover art across her socials.
Her first collection of music is entitled DOPAMINE, and she can be seen on the album cover wearing a black leather bikini with chains and straddling a black rocket. She didn’t share the tracklist or a release date for the project, but Normani is in on the gag. She is directing fans to a website with the tongue-in-cheek URL wheresthedamnalbum.com that features a neverending countdown to a mystery date. The only thing confirmed thus far is that the album will be released in 2024, and it is currently available for pre-add on Apple Music and pre-save on Spotify.
The 27-year-old songstress isn’t keeping people totally in the dark. She shared a snippet of a new, unreleased song to Instagram that sounds like it has the potential to be a banger. Normani asks the question “Boy, what you gon’ do with it?” over a slinky, bass-heavy track that we can’t wait to hear the rest of whether it’s released as a single or is an album cut.
“The album feels like liberation, like a season of freedom,” Normani wrote on IG about DOPAMINE to accompany a carousel of photographs from a fashion spread and interview she did with Who What Wear. With her big announcement and proof that her debut album is almost here, it’s safe to say that Normani season is upon us.
