You see this happy music, and it was this jubilee. It was the 1960s when England was ruling Jamaica, then they were freed, and ska was born. I didn’t know where to plant myself musically, so I started to investigate reggae again, and I watched all of these BBC documentaries. Was that a reflection of the year we’ve had, where happiness felt as if it was in short supply? “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” talks about wanting to spread a smile. Then halfway through, I fall in love with this cowboy guy-like, what the hell?” That’s a completely different place to be.
wasn’t to do with anything other than saving my own life. It’s weird how time can go so quickly, especially when you’re a mother of three boys-I went from that horrible time in my life, and that was when I wrote that last record. I have a 14-year-old son, so he had a lot to do with me reinvestigating myself and taking me back to when I discovered ska music. Sometimes I can see my style, especially right now because it feels like there’s a 1990s nostalgia in terms of fashion. I’m still going to do it.ĭo you think about your legacy? Do you see your influence in new acts today?
Zuma plus 4 song tv#
Why stop now? If you don’t like it, then turn off the TV or the radio or don’t look. Then there are other days where you’re like, I’m not dead. This is the thing about age-there are days when you think you’re expired. That’s just the way it is, and when you know that about yourself, you think, Why would anybody want that from me? I know that.īeing a woman in this industry, I assume the question of being too old for pop has also risen its ugly head?
I was like, “I know that you know I’m Gwen Stefani and I’ve done all these things, but right now let’s try to be intimate, and I’ll tell you how I’m feeling about being my age.” He really got in my head-he’s the one that threw out the line, “Let me reintroduce myself.” Once he said that, the tone for the song was there. I was working with this young producer called Luke Niccoli, and he introduced me to his friend Ross. Do you feel like that’s something you need to do? You’re quite famous. The title of the new single is pretty self-explanatory-it’s about reintroducing yourself to the world. It was hard to do that full-time because I don’t love cooking, cleaning, and wiping pee off toilet seats-when you have three boys, it’s just a lot. It would be homeschooling all day it was crazy. I can’t even describe -it’s really small, with a tiny double bed, a rollaway, and a couch-and all of us in there. You have the outfit that you wear every single day until it smells too much and you have to wash it. Zuma and Apollo, me, and Blake in one room for three months. We went straight to Oklahoma and lived on a ranch in a cabin for 100 days. I was on tour with Blake -we were actually sitting on the bus when everything started to be canceled. He was in Hawaii, she was in Los Angeles, and I was in Oklahoma-we wrote a damn song on a damn phone.ĭid you at least spend the first few months of lockdown slobbing about in tracksuit bottoms and doomscrolling the internet like everyone else? We ended up doing it, and the first one I wrote on Zoom was with Greg Kurstin and Mozella. After that, people were like, “Everyone’s writing on Zoom.” I was like, “That sounds horrifying.” It’s already horrifying to go in a room with a 28-year-old who wants to write with you, and you’re like, “I’m like your mom, let’s write a song.” It’s weird. I had written one song, Cry Happy, in February, and it felt really good.
So it’s incredible how those outfits have stood the test of time. I had one girl who would knock off looks for me-she’d make my cargo pants by going downtown and pulling fabrics, sending them to me, stapled to a piece of paper with a number, and then I’d go, ‘I want yellow bondage pants, use that trim.’ Then she’d FedEx them to me on tour. “I didn’t consciously make them looks back then,” Stefani says of her various eras (pink-hair-and-braces Gwen was my favorite, thanks for asking), via Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. It’s also a reminder of Stefani’s enduring influence on both music-she recently appeared on Dua Lipa’s Club Future Nostalgia remix album-and fashion. Featuring recreations of Stefani’s iconic looks (think Just a Girl’s baggy pants and Don’t Speak’s polka-dot dress), it’s a glorious celebration of a 35-year career. The video for Gwen Stefani’s “Let Me Reintroduce Myself”-a ska-tinged, No Doubt-esque throwback-meets-comeback single-is a perfectly timed jolt of nostalgia.