Bebe Rexha has released ‘Dirty Blonde’, her first album as an independent artist, dropping the 13-track visual record through Empire on Friday, 12 June 2026, and calling it a full creative rebirth.
The album marks Rexha’s exit from the major-label machine that powered hits like Meant to Be and I’m Good, repositioning her as an independent powerhouse.
She has described Dirty Blonde as her rebirth after leaving the label system, as reported by Collider, framing it as a clean creative reset.
What Dirty Blonde sounds like
Dirty Blonde runs 13 tracks and is built as a visual album, with each song paired to its own music video and treated as an individual release.
Rexha and her team have pitched it as a genre kaleidoscope, jumping between pop, dance and rougher, rock-tinged territory across its runtime.
The standouts lean into reinvention. On Tokyo, she rides a drum and bass pulse inspired by a late-night rendezvous in Japan, while Cike Cike, produced by DJ Snake, sees Rexha embrace her Albanian heritage by weaving traditional linguistic roots through modern 808 basslines.
The lead single, I Like You Better Than Me, tackles insecurity and self-scrutiny over a pop-rock edge, setting the emotional tone for a record that swings between vulnerability and swagger.
The closing collaboration with David Guetta, Sad Girls, ties the project back to the dance world that made her name.
For the completists, the full tracklist runs through Hysteria, Tokyo, New Religion, $hit, Cike Cike, I Like You Better Than Me, Drink And A Little Love, One Day, Time, The Way I Want You, Nobody’s There, Night Falls and the Guetta-assisted Sad Girls, a deliberately eclectic sequencing.
Bebe Rexha’s break from the major-label system
Rexha has been open about her frustrations inside the major-label world for years, clashing publicly over creative control and release schedules.
Dirty Blonde is her answer, an album made on her own terms and released through Empire Distribution, where she keeps ownership of both the music and the rollout.
It is a move plenty of artists dream about and few actually pull off, and Rexha is leaning all the way in. Going independent means more risk, but it also means every win on this record belongs entirely to her, which is exactly the story she wants to tell right now.
What comes next
Early user scores have landed around the high sixties, a sign that fans are still settling into the genre-hopping ambition of the record.
With the full visual rollout still unspooling video by video, Rexha now faces the real test of independence: turning creative freedom into lasting commercial momentum.
