With “Bad Girl,” Daya's kicking off her “full career rebirth”

m_daya_041921
m_daya_041921
Clyde Munroe

Daya, who hit it big as a teen with her songs “Hide Away” and the Grammy-winning Chainsmokers collaboration “Don’t Let Me Down,” is back with a new hit, “Bad Girl,” and says she’s in the middle of nothing less than a “full career rebirth.”

“When I was 16, I just hadn’t lived enough life, I don’t think, to have had, like, formative kind of thoughts on where I wanted to go with my career,” Daya, now 22, tells ABC Audio. “And so I’m really glad that I’ve had this time to to do that. And it does feel like I’m kind of like re-emerging.”

She laughs, “It’s been the same me all along! I think that it’s just…I’ve had a lot of growth.”

Part of that growth is being able to sing songs like “Bad Girl.” Daya, who came out as bisexual in 2018, says it’s “a concept that I feel like I’ve been wanting to write for the past few years or so.”

“[It’s] about coming into myself and into my sexuality, and realizing what my desires are in a relationship,” she reveals. “And wanting to find someone who can not only understand them, but mirror the same ones back at me in a really mutual way.”

“Bad Girl” will appear on an EP Daya plans to release later this year.

“I view this kind of era of my career as a full career rebirth for me…I’ve never really talked this in-depth about my sexuality,” she explains. “I’ve kind of had these, like, walls built up around me my entire career.”

“This is the first time that I feel like I’m fully vulnerable on these songs that I’m releasing,” she notes, adding, “So, yeah, it feels so good in so many ways.”

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