Katy Perry Talks ‘Super High Energy’ ‘143’ Album, Previews Songs With Doechii, 21 Savage
Katy Perry promised her own Hot Girl Summer in a live social media preview of her upcoming 143 album on Wednesday night (July 10). And while the upcoming collection is not due out until September 20, Perry told her KatyCats that they will have plenty to dance about when fall rolls around.
Earlier in the day, Perry, 39, revealed the LP’s cover art, which features an intergalactic snap of an almost naked Katy floating in space. The title of her follow-up to 2020’s Smile is a commonly used shorthand for “I love you,” and in a statement the pop star raised expectations for a high-energy party.
“I set out to create a bold, exuberant, celebratory dance-pop album with the symbolic 143 numerical expression of love as a throughline message,” Perry said of the collection that will be advanced by first single, “Woman’s World,” the Dr. Luke-produced song due out on Thursday (July 11).
During the live preview on TikTok and Instagram, Perry played snippets of a few songs and explained her motivation. “I’ve been talking about [doing] two albums the past eight years and that’s a dance album and an acoustic album,” she said on IG Live, according to Variety. “I haven’t yet made the acoustic album. Well, we never stop writing. But I finally made the dance album, the album I always wanted to make.”
Dressed in jean shorts and a red bra top, Perry signed vinyl inserts for the album and climbed up on a table to previewed a banger titled “Nirvana,” while also debuting the slinky “I’m His He’s Mine,” which features Doechii and is built around a sample of Crystal Waters’ beloved 1991 hit “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless).” The singer also gave a sneak at “Gimme Gimme,” which features rapper 21 Savage.
“This record is super high energy, it’s super summer, it’s very high BPM,” Perry said. “We just had a family dance party to one of the songs, and it’s just full of so much joy, so much love, so much light.” On TikTok, she added, “143 is honestly a dance party. All fandoms, invited. And it’s high energy, lots of love, mostly lots of love and BPM, summer, sexy. And it’s for y’all.”
Though no tour dates have been announced yet, according to Variety Perry — who left her seat at the table on American Idol earlier this year — told her TikTok followers that she’s wiped her schedule so she can hit the road for her first major tour in more than six years; following the 2017-2018 Witness tour, Perry set up shop at the Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas for an 80-show run of her Play residency from December 2021 through November 2023.
143 will feature Perry’s studio reunion with producer Dr. Luke, who settled a bitter, nine-year legal battle with Kesha in 2023 before their case was slated to go to trial. The producer had claimed Kesha defamed him in 2014 when she made the “false and shocking” allegation that he drugged and raped her after a 2005 party. Perry had been dragged into the yearslong battle at one point when in a July 2021 deposition she denied allegations that Luke raped her. She also said the producer had never given her a roofie, that she was never in a sexual or romantic relationship with Luke and never told anyone — even jokingly — that he’d raped her as part of her testimony in Luke’s defamation suit against Kesha.
The team-up with Luke led to a number of fans expressing their disappointment that she was working with the producer again, as well as a statement from actress Abigail Breslin, who wrote, “I’m just saying… working with known abusers in any industry just contributes to the narrative that men can do abhorrent s–t and get away with it.” At press time the full extent of Dr. Luke’s (born Lukasz Gottwald) involvement in the album was not known.
Check out snippets of Perry’s preview below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
