t’s Wednesday night at the Box, the notorious erotic club in downtown New York, and Tokischa is stripping off her lingerie onstage. She cheekily steps behind a white, backlit curtain so that the crowd can only see the shadow of her body as she dances sensually. The room of devoted fans roar at each gyration.
A few moments later, Tokischa sports a skirt and cropped T-shirt as she lies face down and claws at the stage in painful desperation, channeling the heartbreak that overflows on her new album, Amor & Droga. She’s delivering this dramatic performance for an album listening event, and each theatrical move speaks to the duality at the heart of Latin music’s favorite provocateur.
“You guys think I’m just a horny bitch? I have a lot of feelings. I’ve gone through a lot,” the Dominican musician tells Rolling Stone. It’s the day after her listening event at the Box, and Tokischa is a quieter, more mild-mannered version of herself. It almost feels like she is a different person with her bare face and casual low-rise jeans, though the graphic T-shirt she wears does feature a naked woman with a bushy crotch and the slogan “Happiness is a tight pussy.”
“The world got to know this cute bellaca [wicked] girl that was just horny, writing songs in her room,” Tokischa says, referencing the past five years she’s spent in the spotlight, courting controversy and shaking up the music industry with her sexually explicit lyrics and provocative demeanor. Now, with her long-awaited debut album, the 30-year-old is showing a more emotionally-charged side of herself and her art. “I wanted to take the inspiration from what I lived at the time and bring it into this new space and show the world what really happened,” she says.
Tokischa first started releasing music in January 2021. By that summer, she’d gotten co-signs from major stars like J Balvin and Rosalia, jumping on tracks for each. The next year, her riotous, sexually liberated energy caught the attention of Madonna, and the pair collaborated on a remix of “Hung Up.” Since then, the fans that fell in love with Tokischa’s IDGAF attitude have been clamoring for her debut LP. So what took her so long to get her own full-length project out into the world? Partly, Tokischa blames management woes.
“The lack of experience in a project can mess up a lot of things,” she says. “The budget for this album was crazy because I was not experienced.” She claims that she spent nearly a million dollars of Warner Music Group’s money to make the project.
This past January, Tokischa sorted the business side of the album’s release and focused on how to bring it out into the world. Over 17 tracks, Amor & Droga chronicles her toxic relationship from a decade ago, when she struggled with substance abuse issues in the Dominican Republic, and how each moment led to her new, healthier reality. (She’s been sober since 2020.) Tokischa pulls no punches, showcasing her sexual desires alongside her family trauma and every dark thought in between. Below, Tokischa breaks down key tracks off the album, and just like on the album, she doesn’t spare any of the raw details.
“Mi Novio”
I was 20, 21 when I had the idea for this song. I first came to Miami and I met Diplo. I’m a big fan of drum and bass and I was like, “I want to make a drum-and-bass song for my album.” I had an idea of how I wanted to tell this story, to start from the beginning of when I met this guy [in the Dominican Republic]. Diplo put out that beat and I just started writing. I wanted to make sure everybody knew that’s when my life changed. That’s when I tried ecstasy for the first time. I started seeing the world differently.
I remember we were at the Malecón in front of the open sea. I was feeling high and the sea called to me: “Jump in, you’re a part of this. Come now, in the middle of the night.” That’s the beginning of the story. I loved the high. I loved having fun. I loved tripping, but I didn’t want to do it every day. [My boyfriend and I] had a lot of problems at that time and we used to physically fight.
“Vacía”
This song went through a lot of different sounds with the instrumentals because the vocals were so strong. Those are some of the best vocals I’ve ever done. I wrote it in such a different environment, too. It was a few years ago, in 2022. I was away in Jarabacoba on a mountain with my friends and my vocal coach and she was playing guitar. I think that’s the first time I ever wrote a song on a guitar. But then I was like, “I want this beat to be kind of alternative. I don’t want it to be a ballad.” We reworked it for the album and I added a little bit of reggaeton and it hit really nice and smooth. It took me a long time to finish it, but it was worth it.
ADVERTISEMENT“Banda”
This song is so old, I still have the demo. When I wrote that song, I was with the guy [that “Mi Novio”] is about. The relationship lasted like three, four years maybe. It was really hard [to write], because I was heartbroken because of him. He had this thing where he never left the house; I had to beg him to come over to my house 20 minutes away. When I recorded that song, I was screaming. But it was so hard to recreate that emotion because I’m so happy in my life now. I have a beautiful boyfriend that loves me and cares for me. It took me a few sessions to get into that emotion, specifically, and feel it.
“Perreo Llorando”
I love this album because a lot of the songs are so old. People might think, “Oh, now she wants to do this type of music after she got lit.” No, these songs are old. This was my first time doing a reggaeton song with an actual Puerto Rican producer [Súbelo Neo]. We worked on the beat and I was like, “I like raw dembow. I like raw reggaeton. I want to feel that drum hit. I want to feel the bass.”
I made this when I first came to Miami in 2021 and I saw how everything was sad. I had stopped doing drugs in 2020, so I was still super sensitive to everything. I saw all of these people outside in Miami, rich people with all the money in the world, all the Gucci, and everything is still sad. So I wrote the song and I recorded it and it was instant. I knew it was an amazing song. But my management back in the day was like, “We can’t put that out now… We have to keep doing dembow.” That’s bullshit. As an artist, we should be allowed to just go whatever direction we feel like. This song was kept from the world all that time.
“Diva y Depresiva”
This one comes right after me begging this guy to call me [on the track “7pm”]. So I’m like, “Wait, I’m that bitch. I’m the diva.” I’ve learned that. I was so obsessed with my first boyfriend. When I moved, my idea was to try to see him again and propose to him. I brought a ring to propose to this man. I was so delusional. The day that he was going to return to D.R. and we were going to meet up, he never showed up. I was so sad. That day, I did molly. And when I was high, it just hit me. I felt so stupid. I was like, “What is wrong with me? I’m so creative and amazing and I’m crying over this guy that I was with a few years ago.” I got back to myself. I walked down the park with my blunt and my beer and I was like, “I’m that bitch. Watch out everybody.”
“Lola”
She’s one of the only friends that I have from back in the day, like 10, 11 years ago when I was living what I’m talking about on the album. In the song, I’m talking about our relationship, her mood swings, her relationship with her sister and just how we used to be. We used to drink rum and listen to this song “Tear You Apart” that she showed me from the band She Wants Revenge. We used to listen to that song on the train all the time. The inspiration for the sound [of “Lola”] came from that song. We just reunited last night. She came [to the Box] and I showed her the song. She was like, “You’re making me blush!” When I make a song about somebody or show somebody a song, I like to do it in person.
“Mona”
On that song, I’m rapping hard. When I was working on the album in 2025, I was like, “Maybe I could invite [Spanish rapper] Kase.O because I already know him.” He matched the energy perfectly. I’m so proud of that one. That collaboration, it’s like part of my core. KaseO is a rapper that I appreciate and I love. I used to listen to him a lot when I was a teenager. Everything that he raps, it’s so personal, and he’s a Pisces, too. I just felt connected to his music. I know that people that are fans of hip-hop en español, they’re going to love it because he’s an icon.
“Su Frida”
You know what’s so funny about “Su Frida”? I held back a lot of things that I was saying there because I didn’t want to hurt people. It was too raw. When I wrote that song, I was mad at everybody around me. I had a lot of family trauma. I grew up around a crackhead. I grew up around a thief. I grew up seeing and saying a lot of crazy things and then it took me years to unlearn that behavior. I’ve suffered a lot and I wanted that song to be the second to last because I wanted to give context.
In the D.R., the word sufrido [sufferer] was popularized by [rapper] Trentisiete. Whenever somebody in their art is sad, it’s like, “Estoy sufrido hoy, me siento como un sufrido, yo estoy solo.” [Trientisiete] was going to be on the track, but then he told me, “I’m not suffering enough to be here. I need to go and suffer some more because of what you’re saying here.” The official Dominican sufrido was like, “It’s too sad.”
“Nani”
The last song of the album I decided to call “Nani” because that’s the nickname my dad gave me. I wanted to give the album a happy ending by talking about my actual relationship right now. My boyfriend calls me “baby girl,” and I just love it because it gives me this peace and it’s so loving. He’s the sweetest and I’m very happy and grateful. Then, the song transitions into me saying “daddy issues.” Even though [he’s] perfect, I’m still going to have trust issues. It closes the album with a happy ending, but I still have that darkness running through.
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Those small opportunities became part of the festival’s identity: a place where established acts and future stars could exist side by side. That philosophy remains central to the festival’s return. While Warped Tour’s biggest names will draw crowds, Lyman believes the real magic has always happened away from the main stages.
A portrait of Rivas Hernandez on display as authorities announced murder charges in the case in April. Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Burke at his arraignment in April. Ted Soqui/Pool/AP
Sheeran performs onstage last year in Newark, New Jersey.
More Pop Stars Should Call Ed Sheeran to Write Their Songs
It has been two years since the Netflix series Pop Star Academy brought Katseye together, and the girl group still hasn’t had a truly universal hit. They’ve had popular songs, sure. There’s the smooth, Latin-pop-inspired “Gabriela,” which peaked at Number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100, and of course “Gnarly,” the skittering viral track about fried chicken, Takis, and Teslas. “Internet Girl” seemed promising when Katseye premiered it on tour, but the studio recording that arrived at the top of the year features some bizarre vocal choices that unravel the track. “Pinky Up” barely cut through the discourse about their future as a group after HYBE and Geffen announced member Manon Bannerman would embark on an indefinite hiatus.
Katseye have been downplaying their full potential, and their years of training, with each release. A likely pop figure might be the key to getting them back on track. Their latest single, “Animal,” penned by Ed Sheeran alongside Johnny McDaid and producers Omer Fedi and Blake Slatkin, is one of their best. It’s not an incredibly ambitious song, but it’s catchy and spirited enough to not come across as predictable — and it gives them a real shot at longevity in the pop arena. Sheeran knows how to write a pop hit that sticks, even when it’s not for himself. In fact, more pop stars should call him to write their songs.
“Nobody knows you’re outta control/But I see a side behind the closed doors,” the girls sing on the chorus from “Animal,” trading off on the role throughout the song. “They get a glimpse here on the dance floor/You move like an animal.” It’s classic boots-on-the-ground reporting from the dance floor, a pretty hard trope to mess up in pop. Lara gets the best one-liner on the song, with the pre-chorus: “Your body gets twisted and tangled in mine/Love so good, how could this be free?/I keep your secret safe with me.”
For a minute, “Animal” sounds like it could have been ripped from one of Bruno Mars’ Unorthodox Jukebox-era hard drives. But when the chorus kicks in over plucky acoustic guitars, any number of Sheeran singles spring to mind: “Sing,” “Azizam,” “I Don’t Care.” In an Instagram post, Sheeran revealed he got in touch with Katseye after hearing “Gnarly” for the first time. “I was in Mexico and loved it,” he wrote. “Said I was a fan and reached out to them to see if I could write them a song.” On Katseye’s “Countdown to Animal” livestream, hosted on the evening of the song’s release, Lara teased, “A very special person wrote it, which is also really cool.”
Asked about the difference between “Pinky Up” and “Animal,” the group members quickly pointed out that they’re actually (and finally) singing on this one, and it’s geared toward more widespread consumption. “‘Pinky Up’ is more like a rave in the club,” Daniela said. “But ‘Animal’ is more like you’ll listen to it at the grocery store, in the car on the radio, or you’ll hear it at the mall just walking around.” It’s just what Katseye needs, and it proves their ambitions as a group extend beyond brand deals and dance breaks.
Not a particularly polarizing artist, Sheeran was the logical songwriter to turn to. He’s still selling out stadiums over a decade into his career, even after wedding ballads like “Thinking Out Loud” and “Perfect” pushed many to write him off as corny. More flashy swings, like “Shape of You” and “Shivers,” have eclipsed the acoustic singer-songwriter craftsmanship of his first two albums. And yet, it’s their success that has allowed him to sustain a career of this magnitude for so long. He’s worked this magic for other artists, too.
When Justin Bieber returned with Purpose in 2015, he released “Sorry” and “Love Yourself” just over two weeks apart. “Sorry” served as the big party hit, a Skrillex and BloodPop production with Julia Michaels in the credits. Bieber had already racked up a few like that by this point in his career, including “Beauty and a Beat.” But stripped down to just his vocals and a guitar, “Love Yourself” added new dimension to Bieber’s position in pop. Sheeran originally wrote the song for his album Divide. “Going from a song that would have never been released to the biggest song of last year,” he said in 2017, “it just shows you that you shouldn’t always write stuff off.”
It isn’t rare for Sheeran to think of other artists while in sessions. “Every single album that I’ve ever done, I’ve always gone, on the side, ‘Let’s try and write a song that we can pitch to Rihanna,’” he said last year. While he hasn’t landed a hit with her, his songs have ended up on albums from One Direction (the acoustic ballad “Little Things,” written by Sheeran, followed up the bubbly “Live While We’re Young” in 2012) and Shawn Mendes. Sheeran gifted Mendes the hook for what would become “Fallin’ All in You” from 2018’s Shawn Mendes. The snap and sway, first-dance-ready ballad remains one of Mendes’ highlights.
In a perfect alternate universe, Sheeran would have sent him “Bad Habits,” too, instead of keeping the hit for himself. The upbeat record would have marked a much needed return to form for Mendes, one of pop’s most consistent hitmakers until he started down the confessional singer-songwriter route. Coming from Sheeran, who doesn’t play the main pop-boy role as efficiently — he’ll always prefer an acoustic guitar, at the end of the day — it did little to restore the balance in a post-pandemic pop ecosystem dominated by bedroom pop and quarantine hits crafted for TikTok.
Pop has been in a peculiar place for a little while now. Newer acts are breaking through with slow-burning hits, but are also struggling to maintain that success over time. Meanwhile, more veteran artists are scoring late-career breakthroughs, or leaning heavily into diaristic releases that trade off on their personal narrative. Some artists are enlisting fewer collaborators — preferring to write in tight-knit camps with friends — and taking the songwriting lead themselves more often, like Ariana Grande’s solo effort on “Hate That I Made You Love Me.” Still, sometimes great performers aren’t great songwriters. That’s OK. Balance restoration comes through remembering collaboration and timing are key.
Before “Gabriela” ended up with Katseye, it had been recorded by both Little Mix and Anitta. The song earned them a nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 2026 Grammy Awards. Way back in 2018, Little Mix launched their fifth album, LM5, with “Woman Like Me,” co-written by Sheeran and Jess Glynne, who began the song for her own album, Always in Between, before passing it along. When the group hit pause to pursue solo projects, Sheeran appeared in the credits for Perrie Edwards’ debut single, “Forget About Us.” The track was criticized for being too impersonal, the kind of song anyone could sing. Sometimes that’s the point. At least it’s catchy and she’s actually singing.
Between HYBE and Geffen, Katseye have too many resources at their disposal to add duds to their discography. In about two weeks, the girl group will release its third EP, Wild, featuring both “Pinky Up” and “Animal.” The EP release model has allowed Katseye to hedge the debut album conversation for a while, but the day will come eventually. When it does, it wouldn’t hurt to see what else someone like Sheeran might have up their sleeve. It could be another hit.