Chloe Bailey Says Any Music She Does ‘Will Easily And Quickly Be Categorized As R&B Because I’m A Black Woman’

Chloe Bailey is opening up about how the music industry often pigeonholes Black artists.

The 25-year-old artist got candid in an interview with Nylon about her music career. While discussing the previous music she’s released as a soloist, Bailey (who goes by Chlöe for solo music) said her songs automatically getting categorized as R&B is frustrating.

“Any music I do will easily and quickly be categorized as R&B because I’m a Black woman,” she told Nylon. “If someone who didn’t have my skin tone made the same music, it would be in the pop categories. That’s just the way it’s always been in life.”

The Atlanta native also teased her upcoming sophomore album, Trouble in Paradise . The LP is intended to showcase her personal growth. For the musician, it’s “a coming-of-age celebration of being a woman and having fun, not taking life too seriously.”

She also noted that Trouble in Paradise is the opposite of her debut album, In Pieces, a collection of songs focusing on the ups and downs of her private battle with depression .

“The story of this album is like when you have a summer fling. You’re a hopeless romantic and you fall in love, deep. You know it won’t last forever, but it feels too good to really care,” she explained.

A track on Trouble in Paradise titled “Want Me” will likely be the most anticipated one as it includes a guest appearance from younger sister Halle Bailey . It’ll mark the first time Chloe and Halle have released a tune together as a duo since their Ungodly Hour album before embarking on solo careers.

“It’s weird, because it’s almost like I wrote the song for two without knowing it,” she said. “I was talking to one of my engineers, and she was telling me about this guy and how into her he is, and I was sharing a similar story. I was like, ‘But am I that much into him? Why is it that the ones we want don’t want us like this?’ I immediately wrote it down in my notes, and the song wrote itself in, like, five minutes.”

Trouble in Paradise is set to arrive later this year; her singles “Boy Bye” and “FYS” are expected to appear on the album.