Fresh from her 2x Grammy winning Gospel record Hiding Place, Tori Kelly is finally ready for the world to hear her most personal album to date.
The aptly-titled Inspired by True Events sees the star bare her soul through sixteen songs documenting the turbulent years since her last commercial pop release; 2015's Unbreakable Smile.
We caught up with Tori following her sold-out London show to hear the track-by-track tales that made her third studio LP; learning that sometimes life's more troubling times can become the most 'freeing'.
Hey, Tori - let's talk through the album. What's the story behind 'Coffee'?
"It's probably one of faves on the album. I wrote it with Taylor Parks and Nate Campany, two amazing writers, and I love the lyrics. It's very poetic; it makes me feel like I'm floating when I play that song. It's the chords.
"Coffee didn't seem to have a place anywhere else on the album other than the first track. Every time I played it it felt like the first song; it felt like the opener to me."
How about '12/16/92'?
"Throughout the album there's four interludes, which is something I've always wanted to do. I love albums that feel like there's a flow to them. I ended up grabbing actual audio from home videos, and this first one is footage from when I was two days old.
"It's my dad, my grandma and my mum speaking to me when I was a little baby. I was two days old. The interludes were added very last minute, and it felt like 'this is my album.'"
Two Places
"Two Places represents the album as a whole. It's me being super overwhelmed with my emotions and not knowing what to do with them.
"I'm a late processor, and at the time I walked into the session I wasn't very self-aware. I wasn't being very honest with myself at that point. I felt kind of numb; it sounds deep but I wasn't fully sure how I was feeling. I was one step behind my own thoughts.
"I call Two Places my emo song."
Change Your Mind
"Change Your Mind I wrote a week after my now husband proposed to me.
"You can hear in the lyrics that my parents weren't super thrilled, and there was a lot of confusion. It was a lot. It's supposed to be this happy time, and it was; my husband and I wanted to be together. But there was a lot going on within my family at that time already.
"I actually came to London to write with James Napier, and it all flowed out. It was a little scary; at that time I was like 'I don't write songs like this.'
"This song gave the whole feeling of the album. There was a real grit to my voice. It was scary and freeing at the same time."
Kid I Used to Know
"This is about finding that inner youth again; finding that kid who wanted to laugh, play, dance and sing.
"Being an adult's hard sometimes, you know?"
Actress
"Actress I wrote after a dinner conversation. I was in LA, where there's obviously a lot of actors and actresses.
"I met this actress and was intrigued; I asked 'is it easier to play a character like yourself or the complete opposite?'
"She said 'it's so much easier to play someone unlike yourself' and I used that as inspiration for the song."
Language
"This was the first one I did for this new chapter of music. It's bluesy and there's a little bit of sass in it, too.
"I'd strayed away from that sound, but I went back to that stripped-back sound and it's just a really fun song. It's about getting on that same page with the one you love; saying 'hey, it's okay that we're arguing because we care about each other.'
"Sometimes you have to work through things to get to a better spot."
The Lie
"This was actually a last minute addition to the album, just before I turned it in.
"I love the lyrics of this song, because I'm playing a character and I'm imagining myself falling for the lie that money can buy you happiness. I'm falling for these different traps, then trying to warn everybody that - at the end of your life - you realise that's not the way.
"This might be this album's version of Funny from Unbreakable Smile. A grown-up version."
Tori Kelly's Inspired by True Events is out now.