Madison McFerrin Knew Her Time Was Coming

That conviction has been with McFerrin since childhood. She decided she’d be a singer in kindergarten and never looked back. Now 33 and based in Los Angeles, she’s spent the past decade quietly building a body of work that reflects both her artistic lineage and her distinct vision. Her father is Bobby McFerrin, the legendary jazz vocalist behind “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” and Madison says watching someone live out their passion daily gave her permission to believe it was possible, too.

“I never had any kind of question that it wasn’t a possibility for my life,” she recalls. “People keep asking me what I'm going to be when I grow up. I’m going to be a singer. And I just stuck to it.”

That belief is paying off. This year alone, she’s delivered a standout NPR Tiny Desk set and released Scorpio, her second full-length album, both of which show an artist in full command of her craft. And now, she’s found herself alongside Yebba and Pharrell as one of the few featured voices on Tyler new project.

“It’s the fact that I get to go to this album and I see my name in it is really cool. I feel really fucking cool. I'm not even going to lie,” she says. 

The collaboration with Tyler began to take shape in May, when he posted her video for “Ain’t It Nice” to his Instagram Story. Not long after, he slid into her DMs with a cryptic promise: He’d need her help with something soon.

“I've been a Tyler fan since Odd Future, and in terms of male rappers, it’s like him and Kendrick would be the two co-signs that I would want,” she says. “When he messaged me, I was like, ‘Say less. What do you want?’”

Since Tyler’s been on an international tour, bringing his last album, Chromakopia, to the stage, McFerrin didn’t think that when she met up with him at an L.A. studio in mid-June, she would be recording vocals for his next release. 

“He didn't talk about the project,” she says. “I thought I was just coming in and recording this song.”

It turned out Tyler already had the song mostly written. For McFerrin, who typically pens her own everything, the experience was both unusual and refreshing.

“I came in and supplemented some lines and helped with some melodic stuff and some stacking stuff,” she says. “But, I think you can tell from all of his projects, he has a very clear vision for what he wants.”

Her presence on “Don’t You Worry Baby” continues Tyler’s tradition of handing the mic to an under-the-radar vocalist and letting them glow. Kali Uchis on “See You Again,” Fana Hues on “Sweet / I Thought You Wanted to Dance”—now McFerrin joins the lineage, bringing her own celestial softness to Tyler’s latest world.

“Ninety percent of the song is me,” McFerrin says. “That’s such a crazy way to be on a Tyler record, and I’m totally blessed to be in that company—the two other features on this album are Pharrell and Yebba. I’ve been working at this for a long time, and I’ve been feeling like my moment is coming and my moment is due. I feel so honored.”

Although Tyler had been hinting at dropping something, she didn’t even know the track had made the final cut until his listening party in Los Angeles last Sunday, a day before the album’s release.

“All of us had to get our phones taken,” McFerrin recalls. “I saw two people with phones. One was Tyler; the other one was clearly a woman on his team.”

“He literally got onstage and was like, ‘This is a dance album. People don’t dance enough. I’m just going to play the record, and we’re just going to dance together.’”

In a hyper-surveilled era in which parties and concerts often feel like content farms, Tyler’s no-phone policy felt almost radical. McFerrin saw it as an invitation to surrender.

“For him to drop a dance album, it’s kind of similar to when Beyoncé dropped Renaissance,” she says. “They could tell in the energy people probably need to dance right now. It makes me sad that people are more concerned about being perceived than they are just, like, being themselves. We’re dealing with so much suppression right now. And I think dancing is a type of abandonment where you can just really let everything go. There’s so much power in dancing and sweating with people and just having a good time and not staring at the DJ.”

Despite the moment of mainstream shine, McFerrin isn’t switching gears. She’s still independent—and still moving on her own terms. This summer, she’s headed out on tour, determined to continue her momentum.

“I've gotten so many messages from people being like, ‘Wow, I can't wait to dive into your catalog,’ and that’s such a big win for me,” she says. “If you're going to be independent, you have to have confidence. You can't be independent and be like, ‘Oh, I don't think I'm very good.’ It’s not going to work that way. I had to stick to my guns and just be like, ‘I’m really that girl,’ and now the rest of the world is going to find out.”