The first hit of Dopamine is coming.
On Saturday at exactly 1:59 p.m. ET, Normani announced that she’ll be releasing single “1:59,” featuring rap star Gunna, on April 26.
The announcement comes almost exactly a month after she revealed the cover art for he debut album, Dopamine. “Cryingg typing this rn. DOPAMINE THE ALBUM,” she wrote at the time.
The wait between the album cover reveal and the first single announcement made fans joke that they might have to wait even longer for the music to arrive. Responding to a fan who wrote a formal email “following up” on the announcement, Normani wrote on X/Twitter Friday, “Hi, Thank you for your patience. This matter will be addressed tomorrow at 1:59pm EST – Management.”
Before her album announcement last month, Normani shared a website WheresTheDamnAlbum.com in a retweet of a note she posted in 2018, proclaiming, “I have my album title y’all”. The website contains pre-save links for both Apple Music and Spotify, and one last tease: an ostensible release date, though the days and months keep changing rapidly with the year 2024 remaining fixed.
Accompanying the announcement, Normani stunned on the cover of Who What Wear, in which details about the project were revealed, teasing a “subtle shift” from her pop-R&B origins.
“For me, this upcoming album is not just about music coming out. It feels like a representation of everything I’ve gone through to get to this moment,” Normani told the outlet. “I know I needed time, experiences, and space coming out of [Fifth Harmony] in order to become the version of myself I needed to be. Without [all of that], I would not be able to exist within the creative space that I am in now. I would not be able to make the type of music I’m making now.”
In the days after the announcement of her album, the singer shared a snippet of a sexy and soothing R&B track as she lip-synced to the lyrics. “When I get you alone,” she sings before an angelic ad-lib: “Boy, what you gon do?” It’s unclear if that song and “1:59” with Gunna are the same. She also teased a track called “Candy Paint” in a Bose ad last summer.