When Mya began conceptualizing what would become her ninth album “Retrospect,” she knew she needed to subsume herself in a sound that both played to her performance strengths and spoke to where she’s at in life. “I wanted to turn it up a notch,” she tells Variety of the funk-powered record that arrived last Friday. “I feel like in my career I haven’t had the type of tempo music that supports one of the greatest assets of Mya. I’m a party girl, but people wouldn’t know it because I’m so laid back. I’m still the same girl from ‘Case of the Ex.’ I’m just in my grown era.”
“Retrospect” forgoes the languid pace of Mya’s last album, 2018’s “T.K.O. (The Knock Out),” in favor of the R&B and funk of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Now 46, the singer draws inspiration from the music that inspired her, name-checking Prince and the Gap Band, for a spate of upbeat tunes dotted by glittery synths, pummeling 808s and plucky bass notes. On the Snoop Dogg-featuring standout “No Pressure,” for instance, Mya invokes the carefree feeling of loping around a roller rink as she sings of taking things slow with someone she just met, horns blasting alongside her.
Mya recorded the lot of “Retrospect” in Los Angeles, amassing songs that she tinkered with over the course of several years. She co-executive produced the album alongside Lamar “MyGuyMars” Edwards, a member of 1500 or Nothin’ who has worked with everyone from T.I. and Snoop Dogg to Jay-Z and Drake. Now an independent artist — she released her first four albums through Interscope and Universal Motown, up until 2008’s “Sugar & Spice” via her own shingle Planet 9 — Mya revels in being completely hands-on, producing her own vocals and managing day-to-day operations like booking studio sessions and selecting press photos.
