The Emotional Evolution Of Tayla Parx's Coping Mechanisms

By Alex Gonzalez


In the songs she’s co-written for Ariana Grande, Khalid and Normani, Troye Sivan, Janelle Monáe, and several others, Tayla Parx relies on emotion. On Grande’s “Needy,” she writes about the necessary for reassurance and validation, while Normani and Khalid’s “Love Lies” sees her diving into love while questioning the intentions of a potential partner. Yet as she often expresses her feelings through other people’s music, the 27-year-old’s own solo output as an artist permits her the chance to focus the spotlight on herself. On her sophomore album, Coping Mechanisms, out today (November 20), she confronts her inner self, leaning into what she’s learned since she first got involved with love without any inhibitions on her 2019 debut.


“[I] began off Coping Mechanisms with, ‘How do you cope with that?’” Parx tells MTV News. “Now you have this whole new discovery of who you are, what you learned about love, what you need from love, and what you need from a partner. I went through that phase of saying, I'm gonna wild out and party in my early twenties,” a time that gave way to a more centered “Zen mode.” “I really wanted to prepare ensure that this album showed that developments emotionally.”


While her previous album, We Need to Talk, opens with the carefree “I Want You,” a song about wanting countless people at once, the album’s closer “Easy” perhaps pointed the way toward the heartfelt explorations she mines on her follow-up. “Did something click off in your brain to aid you not think of my name?” She sings. “Wish I may mention the same.”


Indeed, the groovy lead single of Coping Mechanisms, “Dance Alone,” is inspired by Parx’s girlfriend. This past September, she identified as bisexual in The Advocate’s LGBTQ&A podcast. She tells MTV News that writing Coping Mechanisms allowed her to explore new parts of her queer identity.


“In my old old defense mechanism, [as] I call it, I used to push things away categorize in attempt to not feel and to possibly not be hurt, which is a very common thing to do,” Parx says. “With ‘Dance Alone’ in particular, it was that moment of saying, well, why not?”


“Maybe it's not the person that I fall in love with for the rest of my life, yet why cut off my nose to spite my face? And then it eventually turned into something much, much more pretty than I ever could have expected.”


Parx might’ve expected it growing up in Dallas playing basketball at the nearby rec center and living in a residence full of music. Her parents weren’t musicians themselves, although they each had a “great ear” and helped foster her love of R&B by playing greats like Angie Stone, Erykah Badu, Brian McKnight, and Babyface.


“The thing that a lot of these people have in regular is a really strong sense of melody, harmony, and vocal arrangement,” Parx says. “Those are things that, of course, I drifted towards a writer, As soon as I discovered that.”


By nine years old, Parx was taking “intimidating” dance classes at Debbie Allen’s Dance Academy in Los Angeles, and five years later, she landed the role of Little Inez Stubbs in the 2007 big-screen adaptation of the musical Hairspray. She continued acting and nabbed a songwriting deal with Warner Chappell Music at 19. One of her first credits includes co-writing “Call Me Crazy” for R&B singer/songwriter Sevyn Streeter’s debut EP Call Me Crazy, But… in 2013.


Growing up in the South, Parx’s parents raised her to cook, something that remains very crucial to her. In a particularly humorous line in Coping Mechanisms’s “Sad,” she rage-sings, “You can’t cook for shit, adore your Happy Meal tonight,” a lyric she says is inspired by bad culinary experiences with actual exes.


“One thing that [my parents] mentioned was that they're not going to raise a child who doesn't know how to cook, and so they didn't,” Parx says. “When you get into that moment any time somebody is really wanting to show off what they made, and they're so delighted of it, I love that person, so I just pretended that it was good. I just took it like a G for the both of us.”


That’s the sort of thing expected from the songwriter who penned “Residue,” a sole Parx says refers to her own coping mechanism of being avoidant. “I guess I’m very used to writing things down and having people hear them in an other way. It's a sneaky way of getting my emotions out to that person,” she says. “I'm like, listen to this song. And I'm saying something that you may not like, however I'm gonna sing it in a pretty melody. And maybe that'll soften the blow.”


Parx says that the most complicated Coping Mechanisms track to write was the Tank and the Bangas-assisted “Justified,” as it came from a turning point while in her healing process immediately after a painful breakup. She says that she had to unpack her own selfishness and acknowledge that she could have hurt others once she was healing her own damaged heart.


“‘Justified’ was a moment where I had to have a sincere conversation and mention, look, am I justified in treating this person in a way that they don't deserve?” Parx says. “And I think that a lot of people have to ask themselves that question. I think that was a little tough because you really have to take a look in the reflect and mention, ‘What does it come down to?’”


At the time of the interview, Parx says she has written “about 60” songs during quarantine at residence in Los Angeles, where she’s been since March. She also used that time to star in the “Dance Alone” music video, produced by the female-owned Hyper x Residence visual storytelling collective, where Parx dances in pajamas during various rooms as different colored lights strike her face. Among the songs she’s penned this year are ideas for movie soundtracks and melodies for both herself and other artists. Five of these songs landed on Ariana Grande’s sixth studio album, Positions.


One of the songs is the album’s saccharine, weak closer, “POV,” which Parx co-wrote with Grande, Tommy Brown, Oliver Frid, and Mr. Franks. It became an instant fan preference. “The melodies take us through so several emotions alone,” Parx says of the song, “so just listening to that because the last song of the album is an experience."


Parx’s resume boasts a few Billboard Hot 100 top 10s, including Grande’s “Thank U, Next” and Panic! At the Disco’s “High Hopes.” While her pen has extended its reach across various genres, she says that as a Black woman, some music industry figures have pigeonholed her solely into R&B and hip-hop categories.


“You hear it in words like, ‘OK, we're gonna put her in, we require a R&B writer for this session,’ and also you visualize it in the sessions that you show up to that you're clearly there to add a specific thing to that session,” she says. “But one thing that [experience] also did was it allowed for me to be exceedingly confident and knowing, wow, I visualize that there really is a problem here, and I visualize that I could also be a solution to changing that.”


additionally to songwriting, Parx has also recently become a “plant mom,” nursing a grapefruit tree back to health and seeing little green sprouts grow because the days pass.She has also spent a lot of time bike-riding, something she’s loved to do since she was a kid.But most importantly, she makes sure she takes time every day to relax and breathe.


“I think a lot of us are really mean to ourselves, and we forget that,” Parx says. Just be a little bit easy on yourself and accept yourself for what you are. That permits you to get down to the root of the offer, and also you could cope.”