Embodying the namesake of her EP, Preyé arrives fearlessly with her seven-track debut, Don’t Look Down. The meditative R&B/soul record is a voyage of smooth melodies alongside intimate lyrics and hypnotic instrumentation punctuated by sensual sing-along anthems. "It has been a long time coming—I’ve been trying to put a project together, but it just never worked out,” Preyé tells Apple Music. "Something always came up either externally or internally. So Dont Look Down has taken so many forms, but I’m so proud of myself because I finally allowed myself to lead with love on the project.” After an extended creative journey, the EP is a statement piece for the Nigerian singer-songwriter. In her words, the "labour of love" is an ode to embracing her fears and releasing herself from the shackles of creative expectation. Alongside her creative partner and co-executive producer, Joshua Ahazie, Preyé has created a project to express the complex circumference of love: the love of art, the love of creating, the love of family and romantic love. Here, Preyé (Tamunopreye Martha Itamunoala) explains the inspiration–and love–that created the EP–track by track. “You Can Dream, But..” Joshua Ahazie: “We wrote and recorded ‘You can Dream, But..’ literally right before we submitted the album.” Preyé: “I was scared to start recording something so close to the release. But I told myself, ‘Don't look down. I'm just going to do this.’ When I finished laying my vocals, it felt like the intro to this project; it just felt right. I literally told BOSH, who played the horns on the intro, to play ‘like you are making love with your horns’. Let’s say, you have a painting, and you're just trying to put some white streaks on it—that’s what the horns did to give it that nice finish.” “Red Wine” Preyé: “‘Red Wine’ is about romantic love, but for me, it's more about loving myself, and how that is also romantic love. I am the essence of whatever love I experience; I am the spark.. The song owns the power that comes with expressing your sensuality. There's power in vulnerability, but ‘Red Wine’ is this song that makes me feel very powerful when I sing it. I want girls and guys to feel as powerful as I feel.’ “Love, Today” (feat. LADIPOE) Preyé: “I had had a stressful day and a horrible evening. I was in London, and I had a studio session the next day, and I felt very depressed that evening. I didn't want to go to the studio, but I thought, 'I'm just going to show up; I'm going to do my part.’ When I got to the studio, the vibes were kind of dead. I wanted to talk about something leading into or leading with my depression, but I was just like, 'You know what? I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about something positive. I'm going to talk about love today. The song is about love for myself, everybody in the studio, you, me, and my family. It's a song that reaffirms and reassures the people around you that you have a love for life.” “D.L.D. Interlude” Preyé: “I recorded this song in one take. The synth and the bass were sampled from the next track on the EP, ‘Malibu’, easing you into it. ‘D.L.D. Interlude’ is about me being completely vulnerable and allowing myself to receive love. I hadn't experienced the purest kind of love from God or somebody else for a long time. So I had to let myself know that, 'You are worthy of love. You are worthy of accepting good love.’” “Malibu” Preyé: “‘Malibu’ is a different version of loving; it was very much inspired by my trip to California and listening to Anderson. Paak’s album. The song is about you being completely consumed with loving someone; you would die for this person and cry for them. So many people are scared of allowing themselves to be loved because of trauma, but everybody should experience what pure love feels like, and it should be fun.” Joshua: “We needed to make a statement with this song because I thought, ‘The beats are cool, but her voice is powerful.' Preyé had 26-second intros on her last three singles, so we needed a single that started with her voice. So Malibu begins just like that, with her voice.” “Color” Preye: “‘Color’ is the counterpart to the last song on the EP, Crayons. I had bAd entity mix both songs in one file, and then break it into two songs. ‘Crayons’ is the colourful version of a painting, and ironically, ‘Color’ is the black and white version of the same painting. You hear little girls playing at the beginning of ‘Crayons’, because ‘Color’ is a message for my inner child to just be free. I feel freedom comes with just being who you are and expressing yourself unapologetically.” ”Crayons” Preyé: “‘Crayons’ is an ode to my younger self, a connection back to my inner child. I studied engineering, and I was not creating as much; it felt like I was dying slowly. I felt like my creative side was suppressed. So ‘Crayons’ is like, ‘You know what? I'm going to leave this thing where I'm seeing the world in greyscale, and find my way back to the colour and the wonder in things’.”