Bebe Rexha Is Done Waiting for Permission to Want More
Bebe Rexha has never exactly had the straightest line from point A to pop star. She wrote for other artists, bounced between New York and Los Angeles, fought to be taken seriously as a performer in her own right and eventually built a career out of refusing to stay in whatever box the industry had ready for her.
On a new episode of Angie Martinez IRL, Rexha sits down with Angie to trace that path from songwriter in New York City to recording artist in Los Angeles — and to talk about the confidence it takes to stop circling what you want and actually go all in.
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Bebe Rexha Goes All In
From songwriting rooms to pop stardom, Bebe Rexha’s career has always been about betting on herself — even when the route gets messy.
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Before the Hits, There Was the Songwriter Grind
Rexha’s story has always had one foot behind the curtain. Before her name was on the marquee, she was writing songs and learning how the machinery around pop actually worked. That New York songwriter period gave her a front-row seat to the business before she made the leap toward becoming the artist herself.
That transition is one of the central threads of the conversation with Martinez: knowing when being good at the supporting role is no longer enough because you want the whole thing. For Rexha, moving toward Los Angeles and pursuing her own artist career meant taking that risk in public.
Dolly Parton Made “Seasons” Feel Like the Right Kind of Full Circle
The interview also returns to one of the warmest moments in Rexha’s catalog: “Seasons,” her 2023 duet with Dolly Parton. The song closes Rexha’s self-titled Bebe album and pairs two very different generations of women around a lyric about time, change and still feeling like the same person underneath it all.
Rexha has spoken before about wanting to work with Parton and waiting for the right song. “Seasons” became that song — reflective enough to fit Dolly’s voice without turning the collaboration into stunt casting.
That is part of what makes Rexha’s catalog interesting when it works best: she can move from club-pop maximalism to something intimate without pretending those sides of her contradict each other.
And Yes, She Slid Into Drake’s DMs
Then there is the very 2020s version of networking: Bebe Rexha sliding into Drake’s DMs. The episode gets into what she actually said when she reached out, another reminder that even established artists sometimes still have to make the first move themselves.
That detail fits the larger conversation more than it sounds like it should. Confidence is not always some grand cinematic moment. Sometimes it is sending the message, asking the question, moving cities, leaving the comfortable role, or deciding you would rather risk being ignored than wonder what would have happened.
Confidence Is the Through-Line, Not the Punchline
Martinez’s IRL format works best when the guest stops giving the résumé version of their life and starts talking about the decisions underneath it. With Rexha, that means the distance between ambition and self-belief — and how long it can take for those two things to finally catch up to each other.
The title of the episode says it plainly: having the confidence to go all in on what you want. Rexha’s career is basically one long case study in that idea, from writing for other people to putting her own voice at the center, from chasing improbable collaborations to sending the DM anyway.
Very Bebe. Very “fine, I’ll do it myself.” And, honestly, very INYIM.
Watch Bebe Rexha on Angie Martinez IRL
Rexha talks with Angie Martinez about her move from New York songwriter to Los Angeles artist, working with Dolly Parton on “Seasons” and what she said when she reached out to Drake.
Sources: Angie Martinez IRL; Power 105.1; Bebe Rexha.
