Rita Ora is back!
The singer returned with her electro-pop single "Your Song," which was co-written with Ed Sheeran. This is her first new track in two years and is the first cut off her long-awaited upcoming album. But Ora didn’t think the collaboration was actually going to happen.
"When I ask anyone for anything I never kind of expect, I never really ask anyway, so when I do it’s definitely with somebody that I’ve known for a long time," she told On Air with Ryan Seacrest on Thursday. "I just said 'Do you want to be a part of it?' And he went 'Well, funny you say that because I did just write this song.' Then he sent it over with just him on the guitar and it just sounded amazing. I just thought 'Alright, this is it.'"
"'Your Song' is really a love song, but it’s not a love song about anyone specific, which is my usual go to. This time I just really wanted to have an open mind to everything," the singer explains. "I just wanted people to feel good in the summertime—sometimes it’s not about thinking too much."
"It happened really in the space of two weeks. This is the last song I recorded for the album and it’s the first song to kind of come out, which is usually how it goes," Ora says. "It's so funny when you just do something in the studio and it just comes out to the world. It’s like the best feeling."
For her upcoming album the "Body On Me" singer is taking a new direction, she is getting more personal.
"I really wanted to approach it in a way where it’s really vulnerable, but also really real. So I wrote everything and co-wrote everything or was it inspired by and every track on there is kind of a story," Ora explains. "My inspirations were when Lauryn Hill and all those albums really had like just a body of work."
"The approach of it, the narrative and everything is just definitely more I don’t know, less crazy Rita and more kind of like here we are," she says. "I'm still crazy, but I’m definitely more open now with my kind of sensitive side, which I never used to be."
"Your Song" is out now and you can also see Rita hosting the singing competition show Boy Band Thursday nights at 8/7c on ABC.
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Photos: Joel Marasigan