Singer Gwen Stefani makes a return to the mash-up of pop, ska and reggae that defined her ‘90s breakthrough as the lead singer of the group No Doubt. Her latest offering Let Me Reintroduce Myself was released on December 7 via Interscope.
Let Me Reintroduce Myself is the lead single from Stefani’s forthcoming fifth solo album, which is due this year.
In an interview with Billboard magazine late last year, Stefani spoke about the new single.
“I really want to investigate where I started in music — reggae and ska, when I first fell in love with music, when it defined who I was. “I fantasized about it, but then I couldn’t really wrap my head around what kind of music I would create at this point in my life.”
“When No Doubt started, we were an imitation generation, imitating the 1970s,” said Stefani.
“When we were kids, we were trying to say, ‘We’re ska!,’ which was already a third wave.”
No Doubt’s 1995 album The Beacon Street Collection featured multiple ska/reggae fusion tracks. The band’s 2001 album Rocksteady saw production from the likes of legendary Jamaica rhythm duo Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare.
Hey Baby (featuring Bounty Killer) and Underneath iIIt All (featuring Lady Saw) were hits from the album, which charted well on Billboard. Both songs won Grammy awards.
In 2012, No Doubt released the album Push and Shove. The title track, a collaboration with dancehall artiste Busy Signal, reached number 30 on Billboard’s Rock Digital Songs chart. Jamaican, Shane Brown, engineered the song.