The album SZA recently called “the most beautiful shit I’ve heard all year” is on the way. Laila! is ready to engulf listeners inside her world with a new album,We’ll Never Be This Young Again’,out Oct. 23. Two years after her stunning debut, Gap Year — which earned her a spot on our Future 25 list — the producer-singer-songwriter has transitioned out of her childhood bedroom studio and into legit recording rooms in New York, Atlanta, and Paris for her follow-up. “I think this project really does show the ways I’ve grown up,” Laila! tells Rolling Stone, “I’m buying my own groceries and shit and doing everything for myself. It’s been a great experience for me.”
News of the new body of work comes with a teaser for the title track, “We’ll Never Be This Young Again.” Before the song’s release, Laila teased it on her Instagram with a stripped-down video of herself recording the vocals at a desk in her apartment. “With creating this album, I became really obsessed with nostalgia and postcards and memories and travel and people and places and things,” she says. The obsession is evident in the cover for Young Again, which features a headshot of Laila! framed by an ocean shore with a mango stamp in the upper right corner, a nod to the album’s lead single, “Miss Mango.”
Laila! caught up with Rolling Stone to talk about all the life experiences she’s gained between Gap Year and her latest 12-track offering, like moving into her own apartment, being in her “lover girl” era, and getting into martial arts.
Dylan Dejong-Dougherty
You had an explosive year with your first album. How did you spend the quiet time?
I really only had about four months to really chill. The album came out, and then I toured during that summer, and then following that was when I actually was able to go on vacation for the first time in, like, forever. In the time that I was away, I’ve just been living and experiencing new things. I moved out for the first time, got my first apartment at 19, and all the stuff that comes with that I had to figure out.
What has been like living on your own? What has been the hardest adjustment?
Honestly, it took a lot of adjusting. One, living in New York is just not fucking easy. I did not anticipate how stressful it was going to be to find my own spot. I’m really thankful that I have a spot now that I really fuck with. But in the beginning, I was like, “I don’t like this spot at all.”
This was the only thing I could really find that suited what I need, because I have so much stuff and I need so much space. I’m grateful for all the stuff that I have. But like, where am I gonna put it? So that was very stressful. … I was worried that I was gonna feel like super, super lonely. But I don’t know. I really enjoy my alone time.
Once you build your own furniture, it kinda helps you feel settled.
I was like “I own a toolbox? That’s crazy.”
Last time we talked, before Gap Year’s release, you talked about wanting to produce for other artists. When making this album, were you able to collaborate a bit more?
I’ve definitely been able to do exactly that, and I’m really excited for that to show on this project. I really pride myself on being able to do everything entirely myself and be the producer, be the writer. But I’m slowly starting to learn what collaboration looks like for me, what it feels like for me, and how to make it be what it has to be.
Does that mean we’re gonna have some features on this album, perhaps?
I will say that I did the majority of this album myself, but there’s a little something in there that I think is really special. A lot of my favorite albums are just artists entirely on their own. I think it’s really personable.
This album got a major cosign from SZA before it was even announced. What was that like?
I didn’t even know what to expect, but that made me feel really, really crazy. … We were in the studio together and I told her that my new album is done. She was like, “Oh, my God, that’s a thing?” and she was like, “I need to hear. I want to hear.” I didn’t really have any expectations of what she was gonna think. Obviously, I just was hoping it would be positive, but she was super excited for me and super proud of me.
Tell me about the album title.
I chose We’ll Never Be This Young Again because I became really obsessed with nostalgia. I wanted to use that title as something people should be reminded of: Today is the youngest you’ll be. I’ll never be 20 years old in however many weeks, however many days, and however many seconds. That’s a trippy thought.
I feel like young people especially need to feel that way, because you can get really hopeless and feel like, “Damn. What do we do? Like, the world just sucks.” No. We’re young. We have time, for sure.
What did you learn from Gap Year that you directly applied to this upcoming album?
I think production-wise, I’ve picked up different skills and different sounds that I like, which I feel like has definitely helped. I kind of just lived my life, and my tastes just evolved. I don’t know if there was a thing directly that I pulled from Gap Year because I feel like I’m always trying to do something better than what I’ve done before. But I love that project. I’m so proud of it. Like, it’s my baby, and it was just such an incredible time for me and such an incredible experience.
In the “Anything Could Happen” video, I see there’s a little bit of romance going on in your life. Has that been a source of inspiration for you?
Absolutely. I’m a lover girl. I love love. I love writing about love. I love being in love. So yeah, there’s definitely a lot of love in this album.
Speaking of lover girls, what was it like touring with Kali Uchis and Mariah the Scientist?
That was so fun. Honestly, it was really big for me. I just never imagined that I would be on a stage that big, you know. It was really, really cool.
They’re both the sweetest ever. They’re so sweet. They’re so welcoming, and their teams were just super, super loving and took great care of us. So it just made the experience really, really great. I learned so much from watching Kali and Mariah’s sets,just from seeing their stage design and their stage presence, the dances and the choreography, lighting, all the outfits. It was really inspiring and cool for me to see, and thinking about, “OK, in the future maybe this is how I would do mine.” It definitely gave me a lot of ideas for what my own show could look like.
When you were telling me about Gap Year, you talked about how you had a creative hand in everything from the cover to the music videos to the rollout. As your career has grown, have you been able to maintain creative control?
Yeah, it’s still that way. I have all the ideas, and then I have people around me. They’re like, “OK, how can we realistically do this idea?” I creative-direct everything that I do.
As far as the cover goes, my homie Dylan [DeJong-Dougherty], he also shot this cover as well as the Gap Year cover. We’re like, “Are we gonna do this every year?” But the portrait aspect was really important to me.
What has been inspiring you right now?
Honestly, I’ve been having so much inspirational-ass moments recently. I actually have been training Muay Thai. A lot of people don’t know that. I’ve been training every day, and that really keeps me creative, because I’m able to focus on something that’s entirely not music for the start of my day, and it really helps me. It helps me exert that focus muscle in my music, so that’s really helpful to be able to zone in on what I’m doing and not thinking about what other people are gonna think about [the album] or if it’s gonna sound good.
Last question, if you can manifest one thing out of this album cycle, what would it be?
Go big or go home: Grammys. I want all the nominations. I want covers, and I just want to go for the moon, beyond the moon, beyond the stars. But more than anything, I really just want people to connect with it and resonate with it, and my audience especially to feel inspired by some aspect of it.
