Normani may be close to finishing up her debut album, but she’s still riding the success of her 2021 Cardi B collaboration “Wild Side.” As Normani knows, part of being a chart-topping pop star is being an expert at promoting yourself and your music on social media to some extent. But while Normani is great at crafting bangers like “Wild Side,” she admits her strengths don’t quite lie in the art of social media — and that’s where her grandmother comes in.
Normani recently sat down for a conversation with Ciara on The Ellen DeGeneres Show where she spoke about the viral success of “Wild Side,” which was turned into a TikTok dance challenge, the status of her debut album, and the fact that her grandma is better at using social media than she is:
“I’m really bad with social media — it’s bad. My grandma at this point has me beat. She’ll be sending me TikToks and videos and people doing the dance challenge. […] She’s better than me. I’m the grandmother. It’s terrible, we’ve reversed roles.”
Of course, Normani also gave some updates on the status of her new music, saying she’s “almost done” with her debut album. The singer knows fans are impatient to hear her songs, but Normani says “people really underestimate” how much work really goes into one body of work. “Coming out of a girl group, there was a lot I had to figure out about myself; fears I had to deal with head-on. I was always so safe being in a girl group,” she said. “I remember when I was little, my mom was like, ‘Why do you want to be in a girl group so bad? Is it because you want to hide?’ And I think that was pretty much the answer. But God had other plans for me.”
Watch a clip of Normani’s conversation with Ciara above.
Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.