Zendaya performs "Lost In Rehab" on Late Show With David Letterman
Earlier today, after Zendaya unexpectedly dropped her second single "Lost In Rehab" on iTunes and Amazon, she decided to immediately start her promotion tour all around the US and other countries besides that as well. She started it off by stopping at CBS studios in New York, to shoot her appearance for Late Show With David Letterman. On the show, Zendaya appeared two times - she first appeared as the second guest when she sat down with David Letterman to have a little chat with him, and the second time she appeared was when she showed up on stage to perform her brand new single "Lost In Rehab" for the first time ever live. On the stage, Zendaya appeared wearing a beautiful and simple black chic dress, and she completed this simple look by wearing black colored Louboutin shoes, which are probably Zendaya's favorite shoes at the moment, since she seriously only wear these kind of shoes to every single place she goes to. Her hair was pulled into a low-ish and simple ponytail. The performance of "Lost In Rehab" was really simple, because Zendaya showed up on stage completely alone, besides the person with an acoustic guitar right beside Zendaya, who was playing his guitar during the performance. Zendaya looked really fearless and beautiful when she walked up to that microphone stand, which was places right in the center of that stage. Zendaya's voice sounded better than ever, because she wasn't even dancing during this performance, so she was able to focus more on her voice and vocals during this one, and her vocals actually kind of slayed this time, it was obvious that Zendaya's voice really improved since the last time she performed a song somewhere a few weeks ago. Even though her voice sounded a little bit too sharp during some moments, but it was because she was experiencing too many emotions. However, she was able to channel those emotions through her voice, and even if her voice sounded a bit too sharp during some parts of the song, it didn't feel bad, it actually fit that song and those lyrics that she was singing.
David: Today, we have a lovely singer, who also has a really bright future ahead of her. I'm really proud to say that Zendaya is here! Hello Zendaya, and let me just start off by saying that I'm a huge fan of you. I loved your previously released song, "Gunshots", and I'm inlove with this song that you're here to promote by performing it on our show. Can you tell us something about that song? Since, I'm sure, a lot of people will want to know about it, because it's basically the hot topic of today.
Zendaya: Well, I definitely wasn't expecting it to cause such a major buzz, I didn't even think it will make a lot of people talking and discussing about this single. Of course, I understand, I had to expect opinions on this one, since I guess it's something that other artists try to avoid something these days, but I certainly didn't think that "Lost In Rehab" was that controversial, but I guess it is now. This song is about a guy, who is a friend of mine, and he basically had a lot of problems, and then he went to rehab, and then he tried to commit suicide in the place where you are supposed to get better, but then he overcame everything and now he's living a better life with those problems solved now. It's a really personal song for me, not because I've experienced something that he did, but it means a lot for me, and my other friends, who know this story as well, because we experienced that time of his life with him. We were there when he was drunk, high, sad, mad, angry, lonely, and we were all thinking about him and what's he thinking and what's happening with him while he was in rehab, and we were all brokenhearted. So, I hope that this song will help someone who is going through with some family issues, or if they have suicidal thoughts or something else is happening.
David: I can actually see where that controversy is coming from though! Zendaya, you're only seventeen, you're a teenager and you're singing about attempts of suicide, drugs, alcohol, depression... Singers your age are singing about parties, dancing, adventures, happy times and stuff like that.
Zendaya: I honestly don't care what others sing about. I don't have to do whatever they're doing, I don't have to do the same thing, I don't have to sing about the same things. Maybe other singers my age care about those things and they feel the need to sing about that stuff, while I think that there should be someone who would be not afraid to talk about more serious stuff, or issues, or whatever. I know that a lot of people might think that I'm trying to grow too fast by singing about that kind of stuff, but believe me, especially parents - you have no idea what's really going on with teenagers during their teenage years. During those years, we try new things, we go out for the first time, we feel the need to show off, we have to face our first problems, and as teenagers, we take all of these things very seriously, and we even think about suicides, or abusing ourselves, or starving ourselves, or trying to show off to our friends by drinking way too much alcohol or taking drugs or doing whatever else. So, I feel the need to be the one who actually speaks about that kind of stuff, because I really don't want everyone to think that, um, teenagers have a carefree life, or that we don't have to face problems, or that we don't overthink, or whatever.
David: So that guy, did he let you to write that song? How this song became a reality?
Zendaya: When the lyric sessions started, I was really involved in that proccess, you know? Some artists just throw some ideas for their writes and then go away, but throughout this whole writing proccess, I was in the studio with those writers, telling individual stories about my life, about what I've experiences, and they basically put everything I said in songs. And then I remembered this story about my friend, and I felt really inspired by it, when I was in the writing session, I just remembered it somehow, and I had this clear vision of this song, and I actually felt the need to do something like that. Personally, I haven't experienced anything like that, so I've just met up with him, and I asked him if we can write a song about his story, and he actually agreed. So we went together to a studio, he told the writers his story, and his story ended up being captured in my song.
David: Both songs that you've released so far, "Gunshots" and "Lost In Rehab", are pretty serious and talks about issues and problems and stuff like that. Is everything on your album like that - about problems, issues?
Zendaya: Definitely not. I admit, first two songs are actually serious and they're both about issues, problems, facing them. I mentioned during one interview that this album shows completely different side of me - a more serious side. My debut album was fun, it was about love, it was about having fun, but this album is completely different. On this album, I sing about problems, I sing about issues, and overall, this album is really serious, it's about serious topics. But of course, there are some tracks about love, there is a track about feeling lonely when you travel alone, there are sure some amazing tracks that don't talk completely about tragedies or sadness or problems or issues. But even though I can confirm there will be some happy-ish tracks, I still want to say that people shouldn't expect a rainbow-filled album from me. Not anymore.
David: Speaking of your album, where is it?
Zendaya: It was supposed to come out a few days ago, on July 12th, but then we decided to postpone it, because I wasn't ready to put it out actually, and we just decided to work a little bit more on it, and I needed to get my name out there more, and that's what I'm basically doing now, that's why I've decided to release another single from this album before I release it. I really want to make sure it will get some amount of attention, and I'm perfectly building that hype for this album by releasing these singles and promoting them as much as possible, you know? I took some time, I announced that I'm delaying it a little bit more, I just decided to take a break for a while, I didn't perform for two weeks now, and during those two weeks, I completely locked myself in the studio to focus on this project. I've been polishing this one for about a month now, since we released "Gunshots" - I thought that this album was done when we released the lead single, but then I went to the studio every night to polish it, change something up, but it was really hard to polish anything when I had to promote the single as well, so I didn't have much time to finish up this album. However, I took that break for two weeks, and I finished it. And hopefully, this album will come out pretty much soon. I wanted to launch it with two singles under my belt in the first place too, that was our plan from the start, but since "Gunshots" received a lot of attention, we decided to rush it a little bit more, and that rush thing ended up being a mess. But now, we're basically sticking to our first plan that we had - release two singles, promote both of singles as much as possible to make them hopefully enter Top 5, and then launch the album with other singles released after the launch.
David: You're a really smart girl, Zendaya. I don't know, but somehow, at the age of seventeen, you already know how to promote your projects, and you know how to market them well, how to bring the attention without trying too hard. How you manage to do that?
Zendaya: Of course, I have my excellent team who always helps me out to figure out how to perfectly market my singles or any project I have to promote, but when we're figuring out the promotion plan, I'm still very involved in those kind of meetings, because the last word is mine, and I get to say what I want to do and what I don't want to do. If you have that Adele kind of voice - that is not enough to make your singles or songs or albums popular, because you also have to understand how the promoting and marketing works. I think the key to perfect marketing is just to figure out what is your audience - for example, I'm focusing on teenagers and young adults, because that kind of audience listens to that kind of music that I'm currently trying to push. So, I just have to figure out what teenagers and young adults watches the most, I have to make sure my performances are interesting, and even if I don't have a huge budget to do a huge and interesting performance, I still try to make it as spectacular as possible, I still bring a lot of dancers with me on stage. That's just how it works.
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