Tyrant (feat. Jorja Smith)

Kali Uchis explained to Pitchfork why she chose the word "tyrant" to describe an emotionally abusive dude on this song. "A restrictive vocabulary is not any fun for a writer, and I liked how calling someone a 'tyrant' was direct," she said. "I can be really dramatic and overly sensitive sometimes, and that was a direct reflection of how I felt about a guy that was emotionally manipulative. On the track, I talk about trying to decide whether I should give this person my time because I don't know if they're going to abuse the power of me actually opening up. If I give you a little, are you gonna be like, 'Oh yeah, this is mine now' and then just s--t on me?"

Uchis told Genius how the song came together: "I was in the studio with Sounwave, and we were just going through a whole bunch of different song ideas that we had, potentially for the album. When he played that one, it just came into my head. And then, I used some lyrics from a really old song of mine that I never released. Like, the first two lines of it was from an old song. That's how I jumped it off, and then the rest of it just came rolling in right after."

The song features a verse by English singer-songwriter Jorja Smith. Uchis explained: "I had actually never even met her before. I just sent her the song and then, she sent me the verse back and I was like, 'This is amazing.' And then, I was kind of worried, because I usually don't work with people that I've never met before. I usually have to connect with you as a person before I'm going to make music with you, but I got lucky with her because then when I met her, we actually ended up becoming good friends and talking s--t over wine. And, she ended up just being really cool."