Teyana Taylor is ending her five-year musical hiatus, announcing Wednesday (June 4) that she’ll drop her new Escape Room album in August.
And Taylor is giving fans a spicy taste of the new music with the release of her new single “Long Time” and its red-hot music video, starring actors LaKeith Stanfield and Aaron Pierre. Hell hath no fury like a woman scored, and Taylor embodies that rage as she repeats, “Shoulda been walked out this bi— a long time,” throughout the pulsating club track and then locks up Stanfield and leaves him behind. But in the second half of the video — where Taylor shows off a number of conceptual, high-fashion looks that call for her return to the Met Gala red carpet — finds her lying in despair and heartbreak (“You said that you would love me till you die/ But I guess our love must be a lie/ Why won’t you love me back to life?” she sings over sweeping R&B instrumentation) before Pierre comes to the rescue.
Escape Room will mark the first full-length album from the Harlem-bred multi-hyphenate since 2020’s The Album. The 25-track project included collaborations with her ex-husband Iman Shumpert (“Wake Up Love”), her daughter Junie (“Come Back to Me,” also featuring Rick Ross), Ms. Lauryn Hill (“We Got Love”), Erykah Badu (“Lowkey”) and more. It reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 6 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
Taylor will perform at the 2025 BET Awards on Monday at the Peacock Theatre at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. Lil Wayne, GloRilla, Playboi Carti and Leon Thomas were also announced as the first set of performers for the special 25th-anniversary show.
Watch the “Long Time” music video below.
