FOR HER UPCOMING sixth album, Katy Perry worked with some of the producers who helped craft hits on Teenage Dream and Prism, Rolling Stone has learned. The pop singer reconnected with Max Martin, Dr. Luke, Stargate, and several others for KP6, the informal name for her first album in more than four years.
“Katy knew exactly the album she wanted to make and put together the team to make it happen,” a Capitol Records source confirms to Rolling Stone. “And that includes previous collaborators including Luke, Stargate, Max Martin, and Sarah Hudson, and some new heavy hitters such as Vaughn Oliver, Rocco Valdes, and Theron Thomas.”
The news comes two days after Perry shared a 15-second TikTok video teasing an electro-pop, self-empowering single titled “Woman’s World,” out July 11.
Luke and Martin have worked on many of Perry’s biggest hits, including smashes from her first three albums like One of the Boys‘ “I Kissed a Girl.” The production pair teamed up on Teenage Dream‘s title track, “Last Friday Night,” “California Gurls,” “E.T.,” and “The One That Got Away” along with the vast majority of Prism, including chart-toppers “Dark Horse,” “Unconditionally,” and “Roar.”
Meanwhile, Stargate co-produced “Firework” and “Peacock” from Teenage Dream, “This Moment” from Prism, and “Resilient” form Smile. On the songwriting side, Hudson worked with Perry on Witness‘ “Hey Hey Hey” and Smile‘s “What Makes a Woman.”
As for Perry’s new collaborators, Oliver and Valdes have co-produced many of Kim Petras’ records, with Vaughn taking on most of Problématique and Valdes producing much of Slut Pop. Thomas, for his part, has writing credits with Petras, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, and Charli XCX.
Perry has been teasing a new era of music for almost two years now. In late 2022, she told Rolling Stone she was “never not” writing. And just before the conclusion of her Las Vegas Play residency, she told Good Morning America, “I think that I’m writing a lot and have written a lot from a place of love because I’m feeling so much of it — so much unconditional love, that love you never knew existed.” Perry announced she was leaving American Idol in February, after seven seasons on the competition show, to focus on music. She’s also teased a world tour.
The news of her KP6 collaborators on the new music comes about a year after Kesha and Dr. Luke settled his defamation lawsuit, years after Kesha filed against the producer in 2014 alleging sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. Luke countersued, claiming the singer had defamed him. In statements last June, Kesha said that “only God knows what happened” on the night she claimed she was raped, while Luke maintained his innocence.
