In the five years since Teyana Taylor last released new music, the multi-hyphenate (R&B singer, dancer, model, director, etc.) has enjoyed a serious glow-up as an actor. She had a breakout role in the 2023 indie film A Thousand And One. In a huge coup, she's starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in this fall's Paul Thomas Anderson movie One Battle After Another. She's also in Tyler Perry's new Taraji P. Henson-led Netflix thriller Straw dropping this Friday, as well as Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's forthcoming crime thriller The RIP, and two years ago she confirmed she's in the Dionne Warwick biopic. That's range.
Taylor has at least one more big film project ready for imminent release, and it marks her return to music after half a decade. Escape Room, the follow-up to 2020's The Album, is an ambitious audio-visual project in the vein of Beyoncé's Lemonade, and it seems to be about Taylor's divorce from former NBA player Iman Shumpert and the ensuing healing process. Taylor announced the project last week with a trailer for the album's accompanying short film, in which she married Lakeith Stanfield, watched their romance fall apart, and eventually hooked up with rumored real-life boyfriend Aaron Pierre. Today lead single "Long Time" is here, with a video that elaborates on that plotline.
"Long Time" is a multi-part epic that essentially welds a throbbing, hard-edged club track to a soaring, string-laden R&B ballad. In the first half, the refrain gives the song its title: "Shoulda been walked out this bitch a long time." In the latter half, Taylor gracefully laments, "You said you would love me 'til you die/ But I guess love must be a lie/ Why won't you love me back to life?"
The "Long Time" video is a high-concept, high-fashion affair. In one scene, Taylor's clothes are on fire. In another, she appears to be splattered in blood. Lots of drama ensues, and Taylor begins with a blazing monologue: "This n****. He created this fire in me. I just simply wanted him to love me back to life, that's it! But no. The hardest part was realizing I shoulda walked out this bitch a long time ago! Yeah, but I, I, I ignored the signs! Yeah, those flags was slapping me upside the face, but I loved you n****!" Watch below.
Escape Room is tipped for August release via Taylormade Enterprises/Def Jam.
