Teyana Taylor isn't afraid to be a "lover girl," to embrace her soft power, to love unconditionally—and her newly released album, Escape Room, proves it tenfold.
"I’ve noticed that people who will make fun of lovers are people who don’t have the ability to love at the full capacity, and they’re jealous of that," Taylor tells Marie Claire editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike for our Changemakers issue cover story (which also happens to be a "Nice Talk" podcast recording).
"You know the quote 'Good girls finish last?' No, good girls finish on their own divine time. Like, I’m going to take my time. And I’m gonna properly love and I’m gonna be a lover girl and I’m gonna be a simp, whatever comes with that. I love to love."
For the singer, dancer and actress, the capacity to love is the ultimate show of strength. "People that don’t have emotional intelligence make fun of lovers," she observes. "I am a soldier of love. I am a love warrior. I am a lover girl and I love everything about it and I’m okay with that. One thing nobody could ever take away from me is the love that I give. Never ever be ashamed of being a lover girl. I think lovers are the most emotionally intelligent."
Taylor's new album has love at its core. "That’s why I’m excited about Escape Room—because I feel like even though there are the ones who make fun of it, everybody is low-key lovers," she says. "It’s just not the cool thing to do because we’re in a prideful and very egocentric time of music right now. But what I want is to create a safe space for women to be able to love again and to create that safe space for men to be gentle and to be lovers because they want to feel protected too. This album opens up that dialogue."
The artist couldn't be prouder of this album. In a recent interview with InStyle, she gushed, "Oh my God, the album is so good." It's her offering to the world, she says. It "takes you through every single stage of vulnerability, from heartbreak to repair, from heartbreak to healing… I think it's so universal that you can literally customize it to fit you."
