Ahead of her stint Sunday hosting the 2025 Tony Awards, as well as gearing up for the release of the feature film Wicked for Good, Cynthia Erivo somehow found the time to also release her new sophomore album, I Forgive You.
She recently sat down with radio host Shelley Wade of 94.7 The Block New York in the Audacy Sound Space at the Hard Rock Hotel Times Square for a meaningful conversation about the album. The GRAMMY, Emmy and Tony award-winning Erivo and Wade discussed the album’s vulnerability, humanity, her appreciation for singer Brandy, why she decided to rap on the album and writing with Hamilton and In the Heights star, Anthony Ramos.
Of Her Appreciation for Brandy:
In discussing the album’s sound and influences with Erivo, Wade asked about her love and appreciation for singer Brandy. After singing a few lines from Brandy’s “Almost Doesn’t Count” for Wade, Erivo commented, “She has this duality in her voice. It has this rasp to it that you don’t realize has all of that range. When you listen to her, you think, ‘There’s no possible way that she can hit that top note up there…and she does with ease. And her prowess over harmony, and the way she uses her voice to riff, the melodic choices that she makes…I think are just very, very specific to her, really individual and the way she sees music, I think is just very different from anyone else and it’s inspiring. She has the most wonderful voice, I think it’s just beautiful.”
When Wade asked if she would consider covering “Almost Doesn’t Count” on her next album, Erivo suggested that she’d love to do a duet with Brandy, saying, “If she lets me. I’ll ask her. If she’s up for it, I’d happily love to do it with her.”
On Writing with Anthony Ramos and Rapping on the Song:
Erivo co-wrote and produced every song on I Forgive You. In fact, she wrote “Push and Pull” with Hamilton and In the Heights star, Anthony Ramos, who just appeared on the Tony Awards on Sunday. When asked by Wade why she decided to rap on the song and how she and Ramos came to work together, Erivo shared, “I’ve known him for a while and he asked if he could come on. This was four years ago and we had a writing camp — just the two of us — and a couple of friends and he came up with this concept and I loved the idea of writing something about the push and pull of romance and whether it’s the forbidden or not and how consuming that can be and how you can push away or not. And when we wrote it, we invited someone else on to sort of write this written spoken part and when I came back to it this time around, I thought actually the newer more elevated version of it that made sense for this moment was for me to be able to speak those words myself and I tried it first time and thought, ‘Oh, I think I think this might work.’ And so I just I fully committed and it ended up being something that people really liked.”
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Shelley Wade/Cynthia Erivo Interview Clips:
*Cynthia Erivo Sings “Almost Doesn’t Count” & Shares Why She Loves Brandy: https://youtu.be/ZjVC0KRyDTI?si=qnD9lb5_n3J6hnij
*Cynthia Erivo Explains Why She Raps on New Song She Wrote with Anthony Ramos: https://youtu.be/_Lhpu0Ocrq0?si=W8pkPtfkTQAZmUIP
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