Grammy Award Winning New Zealand Producer Joel Little Tapped for New Rita Ora Album

Rita Ora has been “inspired” by Grammy Award-winning New Zealand producer Joel Little. So much so, she’s tapped him for her next era of music.

The British singer worked with Little on her latest single “All Natural”, which she described as one of her most personal, and the start of something new.

In a recent online exclusive with Rolling Stone AU/NZ, Ora said: “He comes from, like, a darker place, and I think with my tone, we both really found a new sound for me that I actually haven’t done before. We approached my vocal different. I’m, kind of, more ‘talky’ rather than ‘singy,’ whereas usually I’d really try and show off my vocal as much.

“I just wanted to try something that felt uncomfortable for me because then I knew that that was like the right thing and direction to go in.”

The New Zealand producer is best known for helping put Lorde on the map in 2013 with her debut album Pure Heroine, and has since gone on to work with the likes of Taylor Swift, Noah Kahan, Gracie Abrams, and Sam Smith.

She met Little for the first time over the holidays, during her stay in New Zealand with her husband and Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi, and before long, they hit the studio.

Of her desire to make new music, Ora said she needed to “let it out”, feeling like she wanted to strip everything back and find her identity. And Little helped her put things into perspective.

“He was like, ‘Look, there’s no expectation. What do you feel like you wanna do?’ And I was like, ‘I feel like I want to feel uncomfortable. I wanna do something super different that’s exciting.’ And he really took that out of me,” she told Rolling Stone AU/NZ.

Little will also produce the “majority” of Ora’s album, due for release next year.