At age 13, Rebecca Black was choosing between “kickin’ in the front seat” and “sittin’ in the back seat” in the lyrics of her viral hit, “Friday.” Today, she’s most certainly in the driver’s seat of her career.
More than 14 years after Black was widely ridiculed by the world for the certainly silly but ultra-catchy (and ultimately iconic) pop song, she’s feeling more confident than ever and making music she’s extremely proud of — like her bombastic new project, Salvation, out now.
While there was a time when the 27-year-old singer may have wanted distance from the version of herself that recorded “Friday,” she now feels quite connected to the young girl who was simply “looking forward to the weekend.”
“The way I approach everything is actually the same as deranged, Glee-obsessed 13-year-old me in middle school,” Black tells PEOPLE. “I was annoying as f—. I was often disliked because I took it so seriously. I was so passionate, and I was always pushing myself.”
Such dedication led her to where she is today as an independent, openly queer artist making electro-pop bangers so high-energy they’ll not only make listeners move but potentially shatter the dance floor underneath them, like Salvation tracks “Sugar Water Cyanide” and “TRUST!”
“I feel really charged by what I am making right now. I feel really inspired. I feel really energized by it, and that’s how I felt as a kid,” says Black. “I feel like the most my 13-year-old self, I think, than I’ve ever felt.”
Davis Bates
As for how the teenager who made “Friday” would feel about Salvation? “I think she’d be scared,” she quips. “But I think she would recognize this version of herself.”
“She would get it, and she would gag for it,” continues Black. “She would learn the choreography immediately. That is something I’m really proud of, is to have come back to this version of myself.”
Part of the reason she’s been able to this point in her life and career is through self-trust. When she first started working on Salvation, several people around her didn’t necessarily click with the musical direction she was going in — but she stuck to her guns.
“I knew that I just needed to fight to the finish line and then once people sat there one day, they would hear it. I just knew,” says Black. “That was a learning lesson for me throughout the process of the [project] as well, was learning how to really trust my instinct and trust my gut.”
She didn’t want to give any part of the process less than 100% effort, even when it came to making high-production, choreography-forward music videos for tracks like “TRUST!” and the title track.
“No one wants an independent artist to make a music video these days because it’s expensive, it’s really difficult and the timing is so difficult to work through,” explains Black. “I knew it was necessary, and I feel really vindicated in what we’ve done so far.”
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