For over a decade, New Zealand dancer and choreographer Parris Goebel has created show-stopping routines for pop icons, from music videos for Justin Bieber (“Sorry”) and Lady Gaga (“Abracadabra”) to Rihanna’s Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show. Now, she’s ready to be the star in the spotlight. “I just feel like it’s my time,” Goebel tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I’ve been of service to so many artists for years now, and I just feel like it’s time to pour into myself.” Executive-produced by Aussie producer/songwriter Kito (with additional production from PARISI and Baauer), A GIRL IS A DRUG is Goebel’s first release since 2016’s Vicious. Her long-held love of dancehall connects both projects, but now club music joins the party, as on the stuttering vocal whirlwind of the title-track intro and the walloping, bratty techno of “ITS MY WORLD”: “Do what I like when I like how I like,” she brags over jagged synths. From there, Goebel gets to flirting over the piercing sirens and booming bass drum of “GYAL LIKE ME” with rapper BEAM, makes the mood sweatier and steamier with the commanding “BACKSTROKE,” and punctuates pleasure with squeaking bed springs on the Khia-sampling “LICK THE BEAT.” Meanwhile, “DONT BREAK MY HEART BABY” reveals her softer side: “I’m just a lover girl.” As a choreographer, Goebel tells Lowe that, for her, producing music is like “working backwards”—making the sounds before the movement, even envisioning movement as she creates. It’s a new perspective to carry, along with the lessons she’s learned throughout her multi-faceted career: “There’s only one you in this world, and I think working with so many beautiful artists, especially women, they’re all so different, and I’ve been able to dive into how they see the world,” she says. “That’s what makes their music and their artistry so unique and timeless, because they really trust themselves. It just inspired me in a way to be like, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do exactly what I want, on my time, and on my terms. And if it’s not there, I don’t want to do it.”