After months of speculation, Zayn Malik has confirmed he will release his first solo single. Ten months since leaving One Direction, the singer will kick off his new career with the track Pillowtalk on Friday 29 January.
The singer, who has signed to RCA records where he intends to make what he described as #realmusic, posted the announcement on Twitter.
— zayn (@zaynmalik) January 24, 2016
No doubt liberated by the absence of his responsibility to tween One Direction fans, Malik has explained that the song was about “dirty and raw” sex.
“Everybody has sex, and it’s something people want to hear about,” he told the Sunday Times. “It’s part of everybody’s life, a very big part of life! And you don’t want to sweep it under the carpet. It has to be talked about.”
There is little indication of the track’s sound, however. Pillowtalk’s reported producer Malay, who has worked on albums such as Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange and Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, suggests that he might be experimenting with future R&B or hip hop.
In previous interviews, Malik complained of creative frustrations while in the X Factor-originated boyband. “There was never any room for me to experiment creatively in the band,” he told Fader. “If I would sing a hook or a verse slightly R&B, or slightly myself, it would always be recorded 50 times until there was a straight version that was pop, generic as fuck, so they could use that version.
