“All of these songs are me reflecting on these times before the pandemic hit,” Blu DeTiger tells Apple Music about her debut EP. “It’s me having this constant battle in my head of, ‘Where am I at? What do I actually want? What do I actually feel?’” Shortly after the success of her early 2020 breakout hit “Figure It Out,” the burgeoning NYC-born bedroom-pop artist and TikTok star was met with mixed feelings of longing and anticipation—yearning for those pre-pandemic days yet excited for what's to come. “The basslines always have an integral part in every song and provide the emotional undercurrent of them,” Blu says. “It's my first instrument, so it's how I feel the music and how I express what I'm feeling as well. There's always that natural groove in them that I can't even turn off even if I wanted to.” Hear all of Blu's sides with her track-by-track guide. Figure It Out “Sometimes you sit down to write something and it just flows out of you really naturally. I think that the first verse and chorus were written in about 20 minutes. It came out and it changed my life, honestly. It went viral; it was my first song on the radio.” Vintage “I think these lyrics are probably my favorite on the EP. They're really funny and cheeky, but if you really think about it, it's so real and true as well. I consider myself a vintage girl, because I always listen to disco and older music and wear vintage clothes.” Toast With the Butter “On the verses, you hear these big breaths in the middle to really express that I'm freaking out. Like when you meet a new person and you're like, 'Oh my god, I really like this person,' just that instant desire. I really went into detail with the production and made these conscious choices of how I'm going to sing the song to really express that lust. I co-produced this with my brother, just me and him, which is really special.” disco banger but you’re crying in the bathroom “It was really late at night and I was really reminiscing about dancing and clubs. I'm a DJ, and I was just missing it so much during the pandemic. I was listening to all of these songs that I would always have in my DJ set, like 'Love Come Down' by Evelyn 'Champagne' King, 'Forget Me Nots' [Patrice Rushen], and all these classic songs that I would constantly spin. With the production of this song, it's supposed to be like when you're at a club and you're dancing, and then you go to another room and you have a moment to yourself and you can hear the music filtered out from a distance.” Night Shade “I was thinking about summertime in New York, going around Canal Street and downtown and Chinatown at night. This song takes you very much through a storyline—when you’re floating around and dancing with your friends, and you’re vibing with them. I think the title is really cool, too. It's a double meaning, because nightshade is a type of plant that grows at night. It's like you blossom and come alive at night when you go out with your friends.” Cotton Candy Lemonade “I want the listeners to feel that they're getting lost within the song itself. You're supposed to get lost in the groove and the dreaminess of the guitars. Bass-wise, too, it's really groovy and it has these sort of fills that come here and there.” Kinda Miss You “Before the pandemic, I was about to go on this trip to Paris. I was fantasizing about meeting some cute Parisian on the trip, like in the movies. I had this phrase in my phone called ‘one-week wonder’ for a long time. But lyrically, and in my voice, it has some sadness to it too. Because even if you had a little short thing, you kind of think about them from time to time.”