Rebecca Black releases her boldest and queerest album yet

Rebecca Black is famous every day of the week.

Long separated from her viral fame for releasing the song “Friday” as a 13-year-old, the 27-year-old queer Mexican American has used the last few years to establish herself as one of the most vibrant and vivacious voices in pop. Black came out as queer in 2020, and with songs like “Girlfriend” and “Crumbs,” and her debut album Let Her Burn, she’s become a cult favorite in gay bars and queer clubs.

Black recently released the dynamic and infectious dance-pop single “TRUST!,” which sounds like classic The Fame Monster-era Gaga with a 2025 edge.

The recording artist’s new album, Salvation, is out on January 17. She sat down with The Advocate to discuss it all.

Where do “TRUST!” and this new album come from?

This year and honestly writing this project were some of the most therapeutic experiences of my life, because growing up as a child within the industry and trying to take a hold of myself for so long, I think I really tried really hard to be taken seriously. And when you’re young and bred through this industry, people want you to keep it together from a really young age. And I think I’ve had a lot of rigidity and structure in my life as a result of that, which I’ve always prided myself on.

I got to this place about a year ago where something was coming out, some pent-up rage and need for freedom and need for just my own personal self to let go was really coming out. And that was actually when we wrote “TRUST!” and wrote most of the album.

How does this album represent your most authentic self?

This year, due to some of my own personal circumstances, I think I’ve really let go of a lot of the structure that I always thought I needed in order to have success or happiness or whatever. And that has been the most cathartic experience of my life. I have never spent as many nights on a theoretical bender as I have this year, but that has really done so much positive for me in the sense of allowing myself to mess up and fall and fail, which I think I was so afraid of doing for so long.

What’s your message to your gay fans about this new project?

This project is for them. I think that I have really grown into myself over the last 13 years of being in this industry. I came to terms with my own sexuality a long time ago, and that’s been a part of my process and my journey and my music for a long time now. But I think that I’ve always really known that there was a connection that I had to the queer community way before my own personal story with it, just from the ways that they’ve supported me before anyone else did. They led my mission way before anyone else understood it.

And I’ve always wanted to make a project that felt like it could exist for the people who I really knew were there and were going to get it. I think that can be scary for people around an artist that might pigeonhole you, or whatever the word, is that might come out of fear. But I think that we live in a time right now where queer people, more than ever, are getting the credit for leading the charge of culture, and they deserve to have the music that will ignite that piece of them more than anything. So that’s one of the reasons I’ve been so excited about this project and have really had to trust myself throughout it. It’s not a project that everyone will get or understand, but I think that there’s a certain group of people that hopefully will.