Photography by Danica Robinson

“I just want people to feel something, whether that’s sadness or wanting to shake your ass a little bit,” Lolo Zouaï says of her third studio album Reverie. Written in the aftermath of losing her best friend, it’s a project rooted in grief but one that refuses to be defined by it, drifting between haunting introspection and flashes of sun-soaked escapism (see: the inevitable gay favourite ‘Lemon Squeeze’). “It’s the kind of album you put on and get completely lost in thought,” she tells Gay Times. “Or sit in the back of a car at night, looking out the window. It’s a car album.”

Since releasing her debut single in 2016, Zouaï has fused her French background with the sounds and attitude of the West Coast, resulting in over 600 million streams, collaborations with Nike, Dior, Chanel and YSL, and supporting Dua Lipa on tour. Her songwriting credits stretch beyond her own catalogue too, including NewJeans’ dance banger ‘Right Now’ and H.E.R.’s self-titled Grammy-winning album. Along the way, she’s also built a fiercely loyal LGBTQIA+ fanbase – “If you have the girls and the gays [as fans], you’re set up for stardom,” she says. “I mean, that’s who the stans are!”

Here, Zouaï opens up about turning grief into Reverie, finding freedom in going independent and why she’s stopped chasing outside pressures in favour of something more honest. “Once there’s this expectation, it’s impossible to meet it,” she says. “So I’m just doing it at my own pace and trusting the music more.”

Lolo, this album… I’m obsessed with ‘Lemon Squeeze’ and – I’m very sorry for my pronunciation of this – ‘Toute seule à la plage’. 

Hey, you did a good job! That's my Basanova, 60s, French vibe.

It feels like summer. 

That was the goal. In the middle of a... It feels like a winter album to me, and then we just hit it with the summer banger.

The album feels simultaneously haunting, trippy, and summery. What sonic mood were you aiming to create with it?

I wanted you to feel heard and understood. To me, the album is very personal. It’s about grief and how it changed me, how I grew from it, and who I am after. I feel it’s the kind of album you put on and then get completely lost in thought, or where you sit in the back of a car at night, looking out the window. It’s a car album! So I just want people to feel something, whether that’s sadness or wanting to shake your ass a little bit — especially with ‘Lemon Squeeze.’

The video for ‘Holding On’ is, again, quite haunting. Can you talk about the storyline and what it represents?

The song, and a lot of the album, are about my best friend who passed away. It’s about the memories I have with her, but also realising she’s no longer there. That’s why I’m hugging her and then she disappears. There are all these actions where I’m alone, and they’re things you would usually be doing with someone. At the end of the video, you see the other side of those moments, where she was there while I was charging my portable battery. She was there on the beach when I was lighting the firecracker. It’s just a story of grief and girlhood.

How did working on this album lyrically, and creating visuals like the ‘Holding On’ video, help you process that grief?

It was very heavy working on it. It took me three years to really get this album together and to be able to process my emotions, because I was in the middle of a giant tour right after it happened and was never able to process those feelings. It allowed me to be alone with my thoughts and feelings, to write about it, cry about it, and make