Barring her major 2013 collaboration with A Great Big World (“Say Something”)—and her contribution to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack—it’s been six years since Christina Aguilera dropped a track from one her own projects. The singer returned to music today with the Kanye West-produced “Accelerate,” the lead single from her upcoming album Liberation—an 11-track LP that Billboard has described as more “R&B and hip-hop than any of her previous efforts.”
Recruiting 2 Chainz and Ty Dolla $ign as well, the track kicks off with raw drums and pitch-shifted vocals before hand claps, bright synths, and a rumbling reminiscent of Yeezus come through as Xtina and Ty deliver racy requests: “Accelerate, c’mon babe, pick up your speed / Stamina, fill me up, that’s what I need.” The song slows down for 2 Chainz’s trap-backed verse.
Regarding Kanye, she told Billboard, “I’ve always been a huge fan of Kanye. Outside of, you know, his controversial aspects, I just think he’s a great artist and musicmaker and beatmaker. The artists that he chooses to pluck from different walks of life are so interesting.”
The accompanying visual is a disjointed series of intimate close-ups, of both Christina’s tongue (licking milk, covered in glitter) and her body (dripping in honey, nipples obscured with tape).