When we speak on the eve of her 28th birthday, Normani is feeling wistful. Living out in LA, she is putting the finishing touches to her debut album, a diary of her journey “to womanhood”. Six long, hard years in the making, Dopamine is her ambitious attempt to reignite R&B’s glory days of big beats, big emotions and even bigger choreography. But as she embraces the feeling of a career milestone finally coming into view, her thoughts are back in Texas, where her family lives. She’s trying to get them to move nearer to her, but Grandma is proving hard to win round.
“We moved to Houston from New Orleans in 2005 [after Hurricane Katrina], so for her, even just being in Texas is still a lot closer to where her siblings are,” she sighs. “I don’t want to rip her away from that, but obviously, I’m still like: ‘Grandma! Come here right now so we can cuddle!’”
