Rapsody joins The Big Tigger Morning Show on V-103 in Atlanta to discuss her brand new, fourth studio album, Please Don't Cry, and much more.

Stepping right into her new album, Please Don't Cry, Rapsody tells us, “Yeah, don't do that unless you need to. It's supposed to be ironic -- the album is really about being human, and I think the most human thing you could do is feel. You’re gonna go through your sadness and your happy days -- you’re gonna laugh ‘til you cry, but you should allow yourself to just be, and feel emotion.”

“I had to do that,” she admits. “I had to give myself permission to allow people to see that I was human.” As opposed to showing weakness, crying Rapsody believes, is “the strongest thing that you can do. It shows that we are human, that we feel, that we experienced something that was so dope that it creates that emotion.”

The 22 songs on Please Don't Cry could be the most vulnerable fans have seen from Rapsody, stemming from a heartbreak and realizing she could either “drown in it and play the victim, or you could really look yourself in the mirror,” and find that “it wasn't about the other person or the relationship… It was always about me. I had to peel back and heal, and reintroduce myself to me, and really do the work.”

“That was the start of it,” she says. “I had some friends around, they would give me advice, put a mirror up for me. You know, send me a YouTube, ‘Watch this, read this.’ Reminders to help me, it was like checkpoints along my healing journey.”

Her friendship with actress Sanaa Lathan was part of that healing journey. “Her spirit is so beautiful,” Rapsody says, “we just clicked off bat. I even came to Atlanta and I was like, ‘I'm just gonna come, and I wanna be on set. I just wanna learn.’ We would just be together going over the film and she would be sharing her life with me and I'd be sharing mine with her -- she was so more advanced in her healing journey. It was like she saw where I was, like she had been there before. We talked about meditation, all those things. She’s a real one.”

Revealing two of the hardest topics covered on the new record, both are about “that one time,” Rapsody laughs. “I talk about having an experience with a woman and being in a relationship with a married man -- something I said I would never ever do in life, but you find yourself in these situations and it's like, ‘Man, how did I get here?’”

“He said that his situation was something that it wasn't, you know, and I leaned into it and then you wait and you wait and they tell you over and over again and you see nothing's really changing. and I'm like, 'what are we doing here?’ I was very disappointed in myself about that.” Conversely, in her relationship with another woman, she found a real connection, describing that time as “a beautiful, beautiful experience, and I learned a lot about myself. They helped me grow.”

Listen to The Big Tigger Morning Show’s full interview with Rapsody above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists right here on Audacy.

Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by the Big Tigger Morning Show