EP REVIEW | Jordin Sparks “Bye Felicia”

It had been a while since we had heard new material from 2007 American Idol winner, Jordin Sparks.

5 years after her latest album, Battlefield, the soon-to-be 25-year-old is back with a new label Louder than Life (a subsidiary of Sony Music) and a new 9-track mixtape titled Bye Felicia, courtesy of the LA Leakers.

#ByeFelicia showcases a more mature side of Sparks, who has since then done some living and explains not having time for certain people and certain things anymore.

“I was listening to the radio and almost every song was dissing women and talking about how we’re not loyal or we make people paranoid,” Sparks shared in an interview that’s embedded in the first track “Work From Home.” “All this stuff…they’re great songs, I turn them up…but then I was listening to them going, ‘why am I singing this?’ It’s dissing me! So, I was like ‘OK, I want to do a response record.”

And so she did!

The fifth track in particular, a remix of Drake’s “How About Now,” has Sparks addressing her recent breakup from singer Jason Derulo. Though she had been pretty quiet about it so far, Sparks doesn’t hold back, even going as far as referencing Derulo’s 2012 severe neck injury. “Remember I deleted all my other guys’ numbers out my phone for ya? / Remember when you broke your neck and I had to wash your back for ya? You probably don’t remember half of the s–t that I did for ya,” she sings in the song.

The mixtape, which also features a collaboration with 2Chainz on the track “Double Tap,” is streaming and available for free on LiveMixtapes.com.

And that’s not all! Sparks also revealed that the EP is just the beginning and that it will be followed by a full-length album, titled Right Here, Right Now, set to drop early 2015.