Normani Kordei is heading into the studio with Missy Elliott.
The Fifth Harmony star recently signed to Keep Cool/RCA Records following the ‘Work From Home’ group’s hiatus announcement in March, and now she’s revealed her ‘Get Ur Freak On’ hitmaker idol has agreed to work with her on solo material.
She said: "I’ll be working with Missy Elliott soon, and the fact that she’s even willing to take a chance on me as a new artist means a lot, considering that she’s the one I’ve looked up to since I was a little girl.
"I literally remember dancing in my grandmother’s living room to all of Missy Elliott’s records.
"She’s such an innovator, and there’s no one else out there like her. The fact that she is willing to work with me … I’m like, ‘Who? Me?’"
It comes off the back of Normani’s hit song ‘Love Lies’ – which was produced by Jack Antonoff – with Khalid, which she says they always knew was going to be "special".
Normani added to Billboard magazine about her collaborator: "[Khalid] is like my spirit animal.
"We had no idea what we wanted the song to sound like.
"We had no expectations going in.
"We knew it was going to be special because of the connection we had as friends, but we didn’t know about the sound.
"It all happened so organically. It was just one big jam session."
Normani – who is joined by Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane and Lauren Jauregui in the girl group – previously admitted to being nervous about going solo.
The singer claimed she was "scared" at the thought of going it alone, following the group’s decision to take a break.
She explained: "[It was] very scary. And heartbreaking for me personally. The first day that we even put out the announcement for the hiatus, it was the toughest day …
"So many people saying, ‘Oh my god, what happened? What’s wrong?’ Just having that attention on something that you already know is real and the fact that now everybody else knows it’s real, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is really happening.’"
Normani Kordei set to work with Missy Elliott
