Steve Lacy does not need to sound loud to make a song feel loaded.
On his new single “is it cool?,” the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, producer, and guitarist links up with SZA for a track that feels less like a glossy duet and more like two people trying to talk their way through emotional damage without fully admitting they are hurt.
Released ahead of Lacy’s upcoming album Oh yeah?, out July 17 via RCA Records, “is it cool?” arrives with the kind of anticipation that usually comes when two artists with strong, specific worlds finally meet in the same room. Fans had been waiting since March, when the pair confirmed that they had been working together in the studio. Pitchfork also reported that SZA previously teased a collaboration with Lacy during an interview with i-D.
The result is not a maximalist event single. It is more intimate than that. Lacy brings his usual loose, conversational writing, the kind that can sound casual until a line suddenly lands too close. SZA, meanwhile, gives the track its vapor trail, letting her voice move around the edges of the song with the emotional blur that has made her one of R&B’s most distinct storytellers.
Together, they build a song about self-sabotage, mixed signals, and the kind of romance where nobody is fully innocent, but nobody wants to be the first to say they care too much.
That tension makes “is it cool?” feel very much like a Steve Lacy record. His best songs often live in the uncomfortable middle: desire and distance, confidence and insecurity, coolness and confession. It is the same contradiction that helped turn “Bad Habit” into a career-shifting hit in 2022, when the song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and pushed Lacy from cult favorite to full pop conversation.
But Oh yeah? appears to be aiming for something more inward.
The album is described as Lacy’s most personal work so far, shaped by a four-year period of movement, dislocation, and self-reckoning. It follows Gemini Rights, which won Best Progressive R&B Album at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
Lacy has also revealed the full 10-track list for Oh yeah?, with guest appearances from SZA, Erykah Badu, and Cecile Believe. The album includes “is it cool?,” the previously released “the feeling,” “pure colour” featuring Erykah Badu, and “lovesexdrugbomb” featuring Cecile Believe.
The guest list matters because it does not feel random. SZA gives Lacy a vocal foil for emotional messiness. Erykah Badu connects him to a lineage of future-facing soul. Cecile Believe, known for left-field pop instincts, fits the album’s promise of guitar music that does not want to stay inside guitar music.
That has always been part of Lacy’s appeal. He moves like a guitarist, producer, R&B singer, indie kid, and fashion figure at the same time, without sounding particularly anxious about where the industry wants to place him.
The Cut recently described him as potentially “Gen Z’s first rock star,” a phrase that works not because Lacy makes traditional rock music, but because he carries the old rock-star idea into a more fluid era: style-conscious, genre-resistant, emotionally slippery, and deeply online without appearing built by the internet.
For Filipino fans, the timing is sharper. Lacy is also set to perform in Manila on August 21 as part of LaLaLa Fest Manila at the World Trade Center Manila, where he joins a lineup that includes Two Door Cinema Club, FLO, Dermot Kennedy, Ben&Ben, Maki, Dilaw, Over October, and other regional acts.
That makes “is it cool?” more than a pre-album single. It becomes the opening signal for a new Steve Lacy season, one that will reach Asia just weeks after Oh yeah? arrives.
If “the feeling” reintroduced Lacy’s gift for folding pop, alternative R&B, and guitar textures into something smooth but strange, “is it cool?” sharpens the emotional stakes. It is not just a collaboration with SZA. It is a reminder that Lacy’s real power is not in chasing scale, but in making private confusion sound stylish enough for everyone to project themselves onto it.
For an artist who became a viral fixture without losing his oddness, that may be the smarter move.
Oh yeah? is not out yet, but “is it cool?” already suggests where Lacy is headed: less concerned with proving he belongs to any genre, and more focused on building a world where all his contradictions can stay intact.