Summer Dennis Releases Single “Ain’t Nothing New” Ahead Of Debut Album 'Mr. Wonderful Is Dead'
Summer Dennis is giving us something to dance to as the weather heats up. The Maryland native sat down with Lowkey R&B about her new single “Ain’t Nothing New” ahead of her forthcoming album Mr. Wonderful Is Dead. The upbeat track is about not giving up on someone you love despite everyone (including yourself) telling you otherwise.
“It’s an anti-love song, we’re talking about how you are in love but you know its not the best thing for you but you’re not leaving either,” Summer said.
“Still don’t know why I put up with ya/Made up my mind that I ain’t tryna fix ya/ You so problematic but I gotta have it,” Summer sings in the second verse.
As for the writing and production of the song, Dennis co-wrote the song Dro Williams.
“We were just talking over and over and I kept saying ‘He put a spell on my body’ and ‘I don’t want to stay but I want to stay’ and we just kept talking because it’s hard for men to understand our mentality because they think we’re in these relationships like ‘woo’ but it was a learning and getting to know experience while we were writing,” she said.
As for the music video, it was directed by Khairi Christopher, and the R&B songstress said there was a lot of intention put behind the visual to get her desired outcome correctly.
“I’m glad that we kept to the story. There were a couple of treatments we were going through and it was ’Summer meets this guy, falls in love, and goes into the sunset,” she said. However, this was not the look she wanted to convey in the visual, “And this is not a sunset song. I had to hammer it that ‘I need a hot guy that looks like a mistake,” she said laughing.
As for her debut album Mr. Wonderful Is Dead which has a mid-June anticipated release date, the singer says that “I think everything vibes together but we did try a lot of stuff on this album,” Summer explains in relation to “Ain’t Nothing New.” “It’s hard for me to say what everyone else is going to think [but] I think the songs flow together. "
Summer also got to work with Grammy-winning songwriter Tiara Thomas but had started the writing process for “Aint Nothing New” prior to her arrival in Atlanta. Thomas' work is implemented in the singer's debut album which she explains later.
"We used different producers for everything so everything is going to sound different but the tone of things," Summer said. "Tiara has a specific delivery when she’s vocal producing that she likes to use with the melodies so you might hear some similarities to H.E.R.’s music because she wrote a lot for H.E.R.’s last albums.”
She noted that after she was listening to her own album she heard similarities between she and H.E.R.’s runs.
“We all don’t sound the same but elements of what the writers and producers put in the music pop up and it’s just really cool to see all of that working together, especially after being a fan of these people.”
“Ain’t Nothing New” is available on Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal. Take a look at the music video below and our interview with Summer above.