Drunken Wordz Sober Thoughtz

“When it comes to writing, I have to have something to write about,” Sevyn Streeter tells Apple Music. “I like to write about life and experiences.” In the four-year space between her debut album and its follow-up, she’s been through plenty, including the loss of a beloved uncle, which forced her to remain present, dating here and there and checking in with herself, especially after the COVID outbreak slowed everything down. “I’ve just been giving myself the time and the space to create in the way that I want to create.”

A satisfying showcase of R&B that’s both sexy and sensitive, Drunken Wordz Sober Thoughtz took many forms as Streeter responded to and evolved through life’s ebbs and flows. The title itself is a nod to the fluidity that comes with simply existing. “We’re not the same people from day to day, and we literally can be under the influence of a million different emotions—you know, love, lust, heartbreak, anger,” she says. “When people hear the project, I want them to be able to find the records that help them further be able to express themselves and communicate better. I want them to be able to identify themselves in the records.” Below, the singer breaks down the stories and inspirations behind each of the songs.

“End Up”
“I had intros that I created that were these big, vocal-sounding intros. I had a different sequence where another song came on and it was a little bit more chill, and it was like, nah—I need all the women, when they press play on this project, to know what type of time it is. I want them to pop it in and they start their day off knowing that they’re a bad bitch. I enjoy it because I think this whole project is taking a lot of ownership in who you are and your confidence. ‘I’m a bad bitch. I make bad decisions and I’m the type to make them and think I’m going to give them my heart and then I keep it.’ I just like the honesty in that. I like the risk in it, and I like the ownership.”

“Fall Back” (feat. Lavish)
“I be feeling like I’m cheating on my other songs when I say this, but I think that ‘Fall Back’ is my favorite song. It’s also produced by Bizness Boi. I was, for real, kind of going through it when I wrote that record. It’s extremely honest—the rasp and the rawness in the vocals came from a real place. I liked that it speaks to my life a little bit. I’m a single woman living in LA, and my life is very hectic—videos this day, crazy-ass parties this night. It’s an honest record, and it’s basically just talking about trying to find love in this crazy world, crazy industry that I’m in and giving it a shot.”

“Guilty” (feat. Chris Brown & A$AP Ferg)
“Shout-out to the boys [Chris Brown and A$AP Ferg], ’cause they killed their features. They went crazy. But ‘Guilty,’ for me, is super nostalgic and it gets me in my feels because my grandfather used to love ‘The Payback’ by James Brown, and we actually have him on VHS tape dancing to it. That was my introduction to that sample. Then, when Total and Puff and B.I.G. did it a couple of years later, they just flipped it so well, and it turned the party up every time you hear it, and I love that. I was like, ‘I think this generation needs to feel this again. It’s time.’”

“Tell It”
“‘Tell It’ is produced by Brody [Brown] from 1500 and written by my friend Rose, who’s an amazing singer-songwriter. It’s about having this special kind of relationship with someone that may not necessarily be a secret—it’s more of an energy thing. You can feel it and they can feel it, too, and you’re contemplating that thing. Do I allow myself to be vulnerable and put myself out here and let it be known what it is? Me, personally, I’m always an advocate for that, so ‘Tell It’ is kind of right up my alley.”

“Feel a Way”
“‘Feel a Way’ is produced by Jimmie Gutch, and I love it because it takes me back to this time in the early 2000s when house music felt like that. I loved that era so much—it’s just fun. I love dancing, and I wanted something uptempo and fun that I could dance to. In my head, when we wrote it, I imagined myself falling in love with somebody in a park, at a festival. If I fell in love with somebody at a festival, that would be the record that I would want to play.”

“Nasty Girl” (feat. BIA)
“My brother actually produced that record. His name is T. Street, and I’m really, really proud, and he’s super talented. He produced that with a producer named Charlie Heat, who’s also really talented. I’m obsessed with Pharrell and N.E.R.D and The Neptunes. And in my head, I was pretending to be Kelis, because I love, love, love her. It just takes me back to a certain time. Then, I just love the fact that it’s very confident and sexy and very grown. And you add BIA to it, and I’m just obsessed with her because she’s always going to go crazy with the bars and she just brought great energy to it.”

“Wet Dreamz Interlude/Wet Dreamz” (feat. Jeremih)
“Shout-out to Jeremih. He’s been one of my closest friends for years, and that particular record was also produced by Bizness Boi. I hated everything I was writing that night, and it was just me and my engineer, JP. I shot at, like, five ideas and they were all trash. I was like, ‘All right, let’s try one more,’ and he pulled up that beat and I lost my mind. I ended up writing the first verse and the B section and the hook melody that night. Jeremih actually lives 15 minutes from me and I hit him like, ‘Yo, I think I found the one for us.’ We pulled up and we ended up cutting it that day. His dad actually sat in on the entire session. God rest his soul, we recently lost him‚ rest in peace. But he loved that song. That’s why this song is really special to me. He loved how his son sounded on the song, and that made me really happy.”

“In Common”
“‘In Common’ was produced by Kevin Cossom, who’s an amazing artist and songwriter. We did that when I was actually home in Florida. We did it in Orlando, and I love it so much just because I feel like it paints exactly what happens when somebody hits you and be like, ‘What you doing?’ Or ‘are you still up?’ It’s sexy. It’s honest. It’s straight to the point. You don’t have to read that person’s mind when you hear ‘In Common’—you know exactly what type of time it is.”

“Change My Mind”
“That’s a sexy record. It’s self-explanatory. It’s sweaty. It’s provocative. It’s sensual. It’s honest. It’s vulnerable. It’s that space, that really central space, that a woman will allow you to reach when you make her the most comfortable. You just might change her mind, and she may do some things that she thought she wouldn’t do before—just for you. And I like that it takes that kind of position. And it puts the woman in charge, like, ‘I might let you change my mind, I just might, but that’s completely up to me.’”

“Taboo”
“‘Taboo’ is an Alexander O’Neal sample, and it’s produced by D’Mile, who I’m just endlessly obsessed with. He’s so freaking talented and he’s been one of my friends for years. He’s been on all of my projects, I believe. It was written with—I call him my musical heavy—Micah [Powell]. We wrote ‘It Won’t Stop’ together and ‘Before I Do’ together, along with Felisha [King]. But I wrote it with Micah and Eric Dawkins and Vincent Berry. Those are, like, three incredibly talented Black men, and I loved that session. Micah was trying to be an ’80s R&B singer in the session, literally with the choreo and everything. It was a great time.”

“Run To”
“‘Run To’ is produced by Smash David, and it’s written by me and my friend Chrishan. Chrishan is, like, a freak of nature. There’s nothing that he can’t write. But I like that it’s formatted a little bit different. I think it probably sits in a different pocket than any of the other songs on the project, and I liked that. And I liked the harmonies and that also it’s clean and it’s simple, but when that beat come in, it goes crazy.”

“Feelz” (feat. Lucky Daye)
“First of all, shout-out, Lucky Daye. People will avoid you or avoid a conversation just because they don’t have the words, and they don’t know how to express themselves. ‘Feelz’ says it for you. It kind of sets the foundation for you to be as open and honest with your significant other or with somebody that you’re dealing with as you possibly can.”

“Forever” (feat. Lavish)
“I love big soundtrack type of records, and I always have. Back in the day, I loved big Céline Dion records and things like that. So, me doing R&B, I wanted to kind of play around and see what my take on those types of records would feel like. I have lots of them—‘Forever’ is just like the first one that I’m letting out the bag. And shout-out to the OVO camp because the level of quality that comes out of their camp is unmatched, and Lavish is no different. He is a beautiful representation of just how much they actually really care about music over there. He’s an amazing songwriter, an amazing artist, an amazing singer. And we all made that record the first day that we met, and we just vibed. And I like that it feels like a movie. It’s a very bold record, and I hope that it helps some people confess their love to some other people.”

“Liquid Courage”
“That’s, like, my real baby. That was the first song that I recorded for the album three years ago. It’s surprising that it’s stuck around this long. I was just mad as hell when I wrote that record. I was at the studio, I’d taken a couple of shots, I was mad at my ex. I threw a couple of them back and felt how I felt. It’s basically just telling somebody, ‘You really got this confused because you clearly don’t see the value in having me. And if you don’t see the value, then I’m sorry—you can’t afford me and I have to dip out.’ It’s not even a breakup record; it’s just anybody that ever felt like they weren’t being valued in a relationship or talking to somebody, that’s their record. I want them to blast it sky-high or send it to them in a voice note—whatever you got to do. But that’s the record for you.”