R&B singer Gallant originally signed with Warner Records in 2016, the same year he released his Grammy-nominated debut album, Ology.

It wasn’t until after 2019’s Sweet Insomnia, and his latest EP, Neptune, that Gallant began to believe he was better suited as an independent artist.

“It started with ‘Relapse,’ which was the first song that I wrote from realizing that the label thing wasn’t working out,” Gallant tells SPIN of the Neptune track. “I knew that was going to be a really internal record where I’m going over past mistakes, try to atone for things I’ve done wrong, and then trying to find my footing again.”

“I paid attention to little space references that were coming to my head. I didn’t want to dive too deep into the isolated part ’cause it wasn’t just a quarantine project,” he continues. “But the title matched the somber introspection of it all and magically made sense.”

To introduce his introspective world of Neptune, Gallant tapped “The Vocal Bible” Brandy on the track “Dynamite.” 

“She finds a way to make ambient R&B feel like you’ve been listening to it your whole life. So when I wrote that first part of the record, I was thinking about her,” the 29-year-old admits. “I sent it to somebody who knew her manager and I didn’t really expect anything from it.”

“It was such a long shot in my head that Brandy would ever be a part of it. But I kinda knew something was going to happen with this,” he adds. 

Neptune is out now.

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