Nearly two decades after a teenage Syd helped reshape the sound of R&B from her childhood bedroom as part of the Odd Future collective, the singer and producer is stepping into what feels like her most grounded era yet.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Rolling Stone tied to her third solo album, “Beard,” out July 17, the 34-year-old reflected on aging into her confidence, crediting her thirties with giving her the clarity she spent years searching for.
“I have a newfound sense of confidence and assuredness,” she told the outlet, framing the new project as an attempt to “plant my flag” and carve out a sound distinct from the one she’s known for with her band, the Internet. That search for identity runs through the 11-track record, which arrives four years after her heartbreak-driven 2021 album “Broken Hearts Club.”
The interview also doubled as the reveal of a major personal milestone. Syd shared that she quietly married her wife, model Ariana Simone, in a Los Angeles courthouse last July. As Complex highlighted, the ceremony came together with remarkable speed. “We literally got our appointment three days before our wedding date,” she said, describing an intimate gathering with just her parents, brother, and aunt.
While she’d envisioned a larger celebration down the line, she explained the priority was more practical than ceremonial: “For both of us the concern was making sure we have rights to each other.”
Married life, it turns out, has reoriented her sense of joy. Syd told Rolling Stone she now spends the bulk of her days at home, leaning into hobbies like gardening, painting and tinkering in the garage with her dogs. “This is me living life,” she said, adding that she’d happily trade the stage for that daily routine.
The past few years brought other transformations too. She stopped drinking in 2024, bought her first home on the same Baldwin Hills street as her parents, and watched a lyric she once wrote land on Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning “Plastic Off the Sofa.”
Notably, Syd is releasing “Beard” the same day as her Internet bandmate Steve Lacy’s new album, a coordinated move she called intentional and, characteristically, a little bold, “Who does that on purpose?”
Source: theGrio
