“I’m simply going to do some music without feeling defensive about it.

Whoever likes me can listen.

I don’t care.

I just want to put music out.”

But that music was all about unity and anti-racism, and that was in the'70s.

Then we were doing it in the ’90s.

And now here we are, again, in the same old mess."

“I just said, “I want to do some reggae,'” she remembers.

I just didn’t think it was going to come this year or that I’d be this lucky.

That’s a long time.

I don’t know how it went by so quickly.

I also was feeling like… “Does anyone really want to hear new music from me?”

I just listen to the stuff that I liked in high school .

Somebody sent me a song called “When Loving Gets Old,” and I really loved it.

Nobody sends me songs.

Why doesn’t anyone just send me, like, “Umbrella”?

I got this song, I actually liked it.

I went in to record it.

The girl that sent it to me said, “They actually wrote this for you.”

And I was like, “Really?

No wonder the lyrics feel so good.

Why don’t I write with them?”

We had this really great day, but I had to rush home to the kids.

That was last February.

And then we hit lockdown.

I spent a hundred days in Oklahoma, doing laundry and cooking.

We had 15 people there.

But Blake happens to have a studio there and had to do some work and brought an engineer in.

You felt inspiration again?I felt allkindsof inspirations and ideas.

It’s like God saying, “You’ve got to do thisnow.”

When I get that urgency, you could’t stop me.

I’m like, “I’ve got to go write songs.

That’s what I need right now.

When I got back to L.A., I went into the studio.

You get your temperature taken.

Everybody’s wearing masks.

By then, all of the riots had happened.

There’s this little white Catholic nun called Sister Mary Ignatius Davies who helped nurture reggae music.

you might see all these pictures of her with these little boys and they’re learning these brass instruments.

The first ska band that was ever born was these kids out of Alpha Boys School, the Skatalites.

No Doubt used to listen to them.

Doing my research, it all just felt so full-circle.

So this music was born out of that.

We really hit it off.

It has to have scratching in it.

It has to be ’90s.”

It was a perfect kind of combination between the three of us.

And we wrote a bunch of songs together and I know we’re going to write more.

Lyrically, “Let Me Reintroduce Myself” addresses the idea of people thinking of you as a relic.

Why would you even want to?”

This is just how my brain works.

Anyone would, you know what I mean?

Everybody has their own fears or insecurities.

“Let Me Reintroduce Myself” references your past, lyrically and visually.

Some artists are really loath to look backwards, but you seem extremely willing to.

Music has always been a really amazing place to pour my heart and emotions into.

It’s like therapy.

When I was offered to do the Vegas show a huge milestone for me it was very reflective.

The first solo record [2004’sLove.

Back then, I said, “You know what?

I want to venture to make that kind of music.

I want a dance song.”

The third solo record was not born in the same way.

It didn’t have a reference for the production.

It was just, “How do I get through this time in my life?

I’ve got to write these songs.

I don’t care how they’re dressed up sonically.

It’s just getting them out.”

After that, it was like, how do Ievolve?

But when you’re doing a Vegas show, you don’t have a new song.

You don’t have anything new.

How do you create a show around everything you’ve done?

This year marked the 25th anniversary of No Doubt’sTragic Kingdom.

How has that record changed meaning for you over the years?I don’t really like anniversaries.

I don’t really celebrate like, “Oh, I wore that in 1995.

Now it’s 10 years later, woo!”

It was a really emotional couple of days.

I really enjoyed hearing just how much that record impacted people.

It’s hard to wrap my head around it.

I’m really proud ofTragic Kingdom.

It was a very weird album.

I was so naive.

I didn’t even know how to write a song.

I don’t know how I wrote those songs because I didn’t know anything back then.

It feels like history repeating itself.

We’ve come far, but we haven’t.