Perry collaborates with Harris
DJ Calvin Harris announced on Instagram yesterday that his new album will be out on June 30. The upcoming album is called Funk
Wav Bounces Vol. 1 and it features a lot of hitmakers including Katy Perry.
Is he shading ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift?
Incidentally, just a day before Harris’ announcement, Perry was asked if her upcoming album has a response to Swift’s Bad Blood song. While Perry wasn’t straight about it, she did say: “Everything has a reaction or a consequence.”
But perhaps people are just reading too much into the collaboration. After all, Perry is not the only artist featured in Harris’ summer album.
In his video announcement, 19 artists were mentioned as his collaborators. Among them are Snoop Dogg, Future, Ariana Grande, John Legend, Migos, Nicki Minaj, Frank Ocean, Big Sean, Travis Scott, Pharrell Williams and Lil Yachty.
Besides, Perry knew Harris before he was even dating Swift.
Perry and Harris were photographed hanging out in 2013 during the MTV Europe Music Awards with Harris’ then-girlfriend Rita Ora and Ellie Goulding.
Harris and Swift started dating in 2015. They broke up 15 months later. It would have been a simple enough breakup had it not been for Swift immediately jumping into a relationship with British actor Tom Hiddleston just two weeks after breaking up with Harris.
Swift is known for writing songs about the men she dated. So everybody has been awaiting her new album. However, Harris beat her to the punch when a month after they broke up, the DJ released the song Ole with John Newman.
Fans immediately noted that the lyrics of the song seemed like they were written from the point of view of Hiddleston, who got in the middle of the Harris-Swift relationship.
Back to Perry, fans are also awaiting if she has a clap back for Swift, who famously dissed her on Bad Blood, which is a song about a friend who backstabbed another. The video featured an all-star cast: Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, Hailee Steinfeld, Zendaya, Lena Dunham, Ellen Pompeo, Cindy Crawford and many others.
The feud, Rolling Stones learned, was not about a guy despite the two having dated the same guy but at different times: John Mayer.
Swift told Rolling Stones in 2014: “She did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly nonconfrontational—you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It’s awkward, and I don’t like it.”
Apparently, Swift and Perry were touring around the same time. At one point, some of Swift’s dancers decided to join Perry’s tour.
Swift never named Perry but all fingers point to her.
So when Swift and Minaj had a misunderstanding following the 2015 Video Music Awards nominations where Minaj’s
Anaconda was left out of the top award, Perry dipped her toes into it.
“If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year,” Minaj snapped on Twitter. Swift felt alluded to since Bad
Blood, which starred Hollywood’s slimmest women, was nominated for Video of the Year.
“I’ve done nothing but love and support you. It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot,” Swift replied to Minaj, who had to explain that her tweet was not about her.
“Finding it ironic to parade the pit women against other women argument about as one unmeasurably [sic] capitalizes on the take down of a woman,” said Perry. But while she got a lot of pats on the back for finally speaking out against Swift, the grammar police were also on her case.
Perry’s last album was released in 2013 yet. Her yet-tobe-named upcoming album will be different from Prism.
“It’s really quite brave. Sonically, it’s fun and dance-y and dark and light. It’s all of these things. It definitely is a change,” she said.
“I left my 20s and I’ve gone to my 30s,” the 32-year-old told Entertainment Weekly magazine. “I’ve embraced. I’ve surrendered. I’ve healed some of my issues with my family, with my relationships. Today I’m sober but I don’t know about tomorrow! One day at a time, right?
“It’s all kind of beautiful. I built up Katy Perry and she was so fun. And I still am Katy Perry and I love her so much but, at the core, I’m Katheryn Hudson (real name) and I think that’s being revealed as I embrace who I really am.”