Syd On Her Sophomore Album Within the video for “Fast Automotive,” the second single from Syd’s sophomore album Broken Hearts Club, we see the 30-year-old R&B songstress the sexiest she’s ever been. Because the song title implies, the setting for her impending rendezvous is her own personal Bronco truck. Syd and her leading lady are exchanging kisses so passionate they couldn’t help but record themselves on video. When asked concerning the pair’s undeniable onscreen chemistry, she lets out laughter before telling ESSENCE why the music video stars couldn’t keep their hands off one another.

“Well, the love interest in that video is my actual girlfriend [Ariana Simone] in real life–I wasn’t about to shoot pandemic kisses with some random girl,” Syd says. “We’ve been together now for a couple of yr and a half. So it was pretty easy and she or he’s a model full time. She knows what to do in front of cameras. It was probably essentially the most fun I’ve had shooting a video since it was a small crew, just me and her in my automobile. It was a cushty experience. As an artist, some people say ‘you gotta pull outta your comfort zone.’ But sometimes man, that comfort zone just hits.”

Satirically, Syd lulls listeners out of their comfort zones with Broken Hearts Club, her first solo studio album in five years. Commencing in 2008 as a DJ and engineer for the infamous collective Odd Future, she reached a special sort of success when she formed her group, The Web, just three years later. While her latest project finds her at her most lyrically vulnerable, the star shares that it took an immense amount of growth to get there.

“I started off as an engineer and I desired to be a producer, but I wasn’t very confident in my music back then. So I just stuck to engineering cause I used to be really good at it and I actually enjoyed it. I got signed once I was only a DJ so once I finally did make my first album with Matt [Martians], I already had a record deal which was interesting. I sort of got thrown into this whole lifestyle of being an artist, which is something that I never considered for myself. It’s been a journey…starting in a single place and ending up some place else. But I’m grateful since the truth is being an artist gives me the liberty that I actually require.”

Syd uses that freedom to openly explore a gambit of emotions on her newest album, navigating her way through a tumultuous breakup that modified the way in which she experienced love. She managed to search out a way through it, even though it meant briefly re-examining herself and the way she operated in relationships. “I believe the very first thing you think that if you get dumped is ‘what’s fallacious with me?’ I definitely was caught off guard. It was a humbling experience…I didn’t see it coming because we actually didn’t have any issues in our relationship. But there was a degree where I had come to the conclusion that ‘Yeah…delay, she’s tripping.’

No one’s perfect. I’m a piece in progress as all of us are, but I’m pretty great. Like I’m a reasonably cool person…I’m easy going. I hadn’t accepted the proven fact that people can change and I can’t even fault them for it–you already know what I mean? She didn’t do anything fallacious. But thankfully I used to be capable of come out of it feeling like no, there’s nothing I’m gonna change about myself consequently of this. There’s nothing I wanna change about myself to attempt to get someone latest or get her back. It was more so a journey of me coming to terms with who I’m, the traits I used to be sort of just born with, owning it and knowing who I used to be. I had never looked inward that deep before because I never had the catalyst for it.”

From professing the necessity to romantically proceed with caution (“CYBAH” featuring Lucky Daye) to frockling with the concept of ceaselessly (“Tie The Knot”) after which being forced to let go of somebody she cared about (“Goodbye My Love”), the wholeness Syd expresses on Broken Hearts Club is compelling. The record also allows other gay and queer Black women to see themselves in her heartache. During a moment of reflection, she admits she hasn’t all the time been deliberate along with her platform to uplift this particularly vulnerable demographic.

“No–I used to be not all the time intentional with it. For the primary half of my profession, I used to be very unintentional with it and I believe I did that in an try and normalize myself. Everybody was like ‘what’s it like singing songs about girls?’ I’m like ‘y’all, don’t ask Bryson Tiller this shit!” She playfully laughs before making her point. “Can I not be gay and be an artist without being a gay artist? So for the start of my profession, I used to be rebellious. I rebelled against putting labels on myself because I used to be afraid of getting pigeonholed… I had seen it occur to a few of my peers.

“They promoted themselves as gay artists after which they’d trouble getting booked for anything but Pride. Once I felt like I had achieved what I set out to perform and once they began putting me in all these different categories…then I felt like, okay, now it’s time to throw some representation on the board. Like we got Hailey Kyoko out here making feature movies for the gay girlies but there’s none of them in there that basically seem like me. I all the time was just inspired to only take that and run with it–but when the time was right. Now, I feel like that is the correct time.”

Being a gay Black woman musician within the mainstream also meant coping with the pressure of embodying a certain aesthetic over time. Syd’s signature style has all the time consisted of dressing her slim figure in oversized clothing and rocking a miniature mohawk (she’s now grown her hair right into a small afro). She acknowledges how previously she did succumb to industry expectations of how she should look, but now fully embraces her true persona.

“It was never [from] my label. It was never [from] people on my team. It was all the time those who didn’t know me–especially to start with. I’d go to a shoot, there’d be a stylist there with a rack stuffed with clothes. And it was nothing I’d ever wear…like not even an elevated version of me form of vibe. It was what they thought I should seem like. And I fell for the okie doke quite a couple of times to start with. I used to be like well I’m the one latest to this. Let me not be a stubborn Taurus as they wish to call me. Let me check out a few of these people’s ideas.

But I learned my lesson. I noticed that I’m the one who has to live with these videos. You’ll be able to hide this out of your resume and I can’t. Now, I ensure that that I’m wearing something or looking a certain way that makes me feel my most confident. I feel such as you’ll see it more on this album and with the videos and the press. I’m definitely dressing more like me today. Pre Ego Death [The Internet’s third studio album], people were really trying me and I got got a few times. There’s definitely some looks on the market on people’s mood boards and I’m such as you don’t even know… that was not me.”

As she gears up for the Broken Hearts Club tour, Syd is happy to indicate off more of this blooming self-assurance. “It’s gonna be a vibe. I’m gonna be doing a couple of Web songs in addition to a couple of songs from each of my projects. What I hope to offer y’all is progress and growth in my vocal abilities.” Throughout the last decade, the singer’s sultry yet angelic croon has inspired countless other R&B acts to follow suit. It was a trait she once shied away from but has wholeheartedly accepted. “I used to see [my voice] as a weakness, but it surely ultimately became a strength for me. The actual fact is that I can’t do what other singers do but truthfully–a variety of them could never do what I do.”