Hear ye hear ye: Normani is the pop princess we were promised!
In case you've been living under a rock, the 23-year-old singer is just over a year into her pursuit of absolute world domination, and sis is already out here w-i-n-n-i-n-g.
Nearly two weeks after she snatched my, and everyone else's, wigs with her da*n near perfect music video for her debut solo single "Motivation," the former Fifth Harmony member hit the 2019 Video Music Awards stage for the first time as a solo artist on Monday (August 26), and let me just say, her performance was EVERYTHING and more.
All eyes were on the rising pop diva as she kicked off her solo performance sitting atop a basketball hoop in a velvet custom tracksuit. #THROWBACK Once she made her way down, Normani danced her behind off on a basketball court, giving definite Janet Jackson vibes, while surrounded by a league of dancers. At one point she even had a dance solo, which included a backbend, a split, and multiple crawling twerks. (The girl's got talent!)
After twerking, working, and just giving me life with her moves and voice, it's easy to say, Normani is here to stay!
In the midst of her prep for the VMAs, Normani spoke to Fader about how her debut single, co-written by Ariana Grande, and it's corresponding 2000s-inspired music video came to be. "For a very long time, I'd been looking for something fun and uptempo. I just came off 'Waves' and all of the collaborations I'd done, and I really wanted to take the opportunity to do what I do best: perform, entertain, and not cut any corners. I wanted to give people what they had been waiting for, and what I'd been waiting to do," she explained of the track.
As fans know, the music video for the single pays homage to the most celebrated artists of the 2000s, however, Normani said the numerous tributes was actually a total coincidence. "I was on the phone with one of my friends back in Houston, and he was like, Did you actually mean to pay homage to every single artist literally in every scene? I was like, Yo, I didn't even think about it like that. But that's really dope that it naturally just happened to be that! I just knew that I wanted an early-2000s music video," Normani shared. "I did my research: I looked up the styling, and hairstyles. Every bit of what you see in the video, I pretty much knew what was happening. One reference that I made was Jennifer Lopez’s "I'm Real" music video — which is funny, because Dave Meyers shot that. But I just told him I wanted an early-2000s vibe because that was my favorite era of music."
Photo: Getty Images