Cynthia Erivo Says ‘I Forgive You’ On New Album

Acclaimed singer and actress Cynthia Erivo is heading back to Oz later this year in Wicked: For Good, but between her turns as Elphaba on the big screen, the Grammy and Tony winner is returning to music with her second studio album, I Forgive You.

I Forgive You arrives four years after Erivo’s debut LP Ch. 1 Vs. 1 and is an intimate look into the ups and the downs of the star’s personal life. She first teased the album with lead single “Replay” and followed it up with “Worst of Me” in April.

“This album is a collection of stories and songs that are both personal for things that are happening now, things that have happened in the past, and I think some of which I have had to forgive people for. And honestly, some of which I’ve had to forgive myself for. And I loved the idea of calling it this title, because it’s a simple concept, but not an easy one. And not one that we as humans are very good at, often,” she told The Associated Press of the project.

Recording I Forgive You, then, was a cathartic expression for Erivo. “The meat of each of the pieces that you listen to is the voice, so that you can hear the lyrics, you can hear the song, you can hear the emotion in it,” she said. “Everything you hear in there is real and tangible.”

Singing and acting have been intertwined in Erivo’s career for years, and for her, the two work in tandem to improve the other.

“They feed each other,” she explained. “When I sing, I feel free and I feel open, which means that when I go and act — because I’ve given myself that experience — the want to close off again sort of goes away. So, when I’m on a set, I’m as open as I am when I am singing. I’m waiting to receive whatever I’m getting from my counterpart or whoever’s opposite me so I can actually listen. Because the act of writing and singing actually is also the act of listening.”