Rebecca Ferguson has the voice of a soul classic and the receipts of someone who’s seen too much. In her return to music with the shimmering disco single “No Words Needed,” the British singer sounds freer than she has in years. But that freedom was hard-won.
“I had to imagine I was back in my early 20s,” she says, describing how she got in the zone to write the track—equal parts sultry and empowering. “On the dance floor, locking eyes with someone. That first line: ‘We can take it slow, let’s just start off with hello.’ That was me dipping my toe in.”
The song is co-written and produced by none other than Nile Rodgers, the undisputed king of groove. And they recorded it at Abbey Road, just to seal the magic. “You never leave Abbey Road without something special,” Ferguson says. “It forces you to be at your best.”
But beneath the joyful exterior of her new work lies a ten-year fight for autonomy. She’s spent the past decade wrestling with industry predators, contract coercion, blackmail, and emotional sabotage that would’ve driven a lesser artist to quit. At one point, she nearly did.
“I was suicidal,” she admits. “A very senior record exec had to step in. He started calling me in the studio just to check if I was okay.”
Her posts on Twitter reignited the conversation about unregulated abuses in the music business. “It’s not okay. It’s billions of pounds and no oversight,” she says. “If a manager gets five complaints, they should lose their license. There’s nothing right now. Nothing to protect artists.”
Ferguson’s not just sharing her story—she’s pushing for a formal regulator in the UK music industry and wants it to be a model worldwide. She’s had phone calls with other artists—many of them scared to speak out. “They whisper to you on the phone but won’t say anything publicly. They’re afraid the bullying will start again.”
Some of the tactics she endured would sound paranoid if they weren’t so well-documented: people bribed not to work with her, her music blocked from release in other countries, demands for planted compliments in magazines. She logged it all.
“There’s this idea: if a record didn’t sell, the artist vanished,” she says. “But my second album Freedom sold 150,000 copies in two weeks. Then it was just... shelved. Fans couldn’t even stream it in the U.S. I had to ask the label to lift the block years later.”
Now, she’s back. Unapologetic, unsilenced, and finally in control. “I was starting to feel like I’d had enough,” she says. “But then I met Nile. And it felt like a blessing.”
The new album is shaping up to be as empowering as it is fun. “Upbeat, honest,” she says. “I want people to dance. But I also want them to hear me.”
It’s been a long road from the precocious, soft-spoken singer of Nothing’s Real But Love to the woman spearheading an industry reckoning. But Ferguson, with her Scouse spirit and disco defiance, has no intention of fading away quietly. “I hate bullies,” she says. “I can’t bear a bully. And if I’m in a position to fight back now, I’m going to.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the tracks below.
