*The day after Sheila E. pays tribute to her longtime collaborator and former fiancé Prince at the BET Awards on June 26, the singer/drummer will release a new single inspired by the late Purple One, a ballad titled Girl Meets Boy,” reports Billboard.
Sheila E. had been working on a dance album, looking to release its first single in April. “Then that whole thing happened,” she tells Billboard, referring to Prince’s death on April 21.
“It just wasn’t the music I wanted out right now,” she continues. “It’s not how I’m feeling; everything has changed. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to write a whole new album. And it feels right.”
Named after the lead single, the album will drop later this year through her Stiletto Flats label, and mark her first solo project since 2013’s “Sheila E.: Icon.” According to Billboard, it’ll include uptempo tracks and ballads influenced in some ways by her relationship with Prince, and “driven by the sense of loss that so many are feeling.”
Regarding BET’s Prince tribute, which also features the Roots, D’Angelo and Janelle Monae, Sheila E. says it’s been difficult.
“I wasn’t sure I could do it even though I said yes,” she explains. “In the first conversations about it, I couldn’t even say his name. And when I started putting the music together, it was hard for me to listen to anything. It’s actually been a part of my healing now, trying to figure out what I was going to play and what would be okay to make sure I would get through it. But it’s going to be fun.”
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