Khalid says new album, ‘Sincere,’ was initially hard to name

The time’s come for Khalid to release his album Sincere, but coming up with the title wasn’t easy.

“It was a very difficult process in naming this album because I had to find one name that summed up what I really felt in this music. And when I thought of the music, I thought of it as my most vulnerable in a while because when I’m thinking of these songs, I’m saving them over the year like, ‘OK, no, I have to keep this. OK, I have to keep this,'” he tells Zane Lowe. “And that’s vulnerable because I’ve known the impact that that song had to me when I was in the studio. And so I believe that if I trust my intention and I trust my heart, then it’ll have a similar impact to my listener.”

Sincere is Khalid’s follow-up to 2019’s Free Spirit. He says after his rise to fame he “didn’t have free time to sit” and decided to take a break.

“When I think of music and I think of discovery, the universe will bring that music to who it’s intended to listen. So, if I’m going to take this break, when I come back, I’ll come back with more clarity. I’ll come back with a better choice of decisions, more maturity, more knowledge,” he said. “So when I think of the listener, even if that listener may have not listened to me in a while, if it’s meant to be discovered, then I truly believe in the power of music doing that.”

Sincere features 16 songs, including “Heartstroke,” which Khalid says came from a “very passionate place” becoming reinspired by his music and “thinking of my interests and thinking of songs that I love.” It arrives Friday.