In 2017, Katy Perry has been busy promoting her fifth album Witness, playing Glastonbury and supporting her friend Ariana Grande during One Love Manchester. Now, Perry has released a lyric video for “Swish Swish,” featuring Nicki Minaj.
For a single full of push back on haters, the lyric video is full of joy. Starring Brazilian pop star Gretchen, who is best known for the ’80’s hits “Freak Le Boom Boom” and “Conga Conga Conga,” the singer dances around a basketball court while backed by the dance group Fit Dance. Neither Perry or Minaj appear in the lyric video, but there’s still plenty of dancing and attitude to go around.
In May, Katy Perry dropped the new single and finally confirmed something that’s been coming for years: She was the inspiration behind Taylor Swift’s 2014 single “Bad Blood.” There it is.
The singer made her Carpool Karaoke debut on The Late Late Show With James Corden (weekdays at 12:37 am on CTV) one week after releasing “Swish Swish” and not only sang her new single with Corden, but also confirmed the track was in response to “Bad Blood” and all her haters.
Confirming that the feud was started over back up dancers, Katy says, “Okay, so there’s, like, three backing dancers that went on tour with her tour, right? And they asked me before they went on tour if they could go. They asked me before they went on tour if they could go. I was like, “Yeah, of course, I’m not on a record cycle, and get the work, and she’s great, and all that. But I will be on record cycle probably in about a year. So be sure to put a 30-day contingency in your contract, so you can get out if you want to join me when I say I’m going back on.”
Perry went on to say that when she was preparing her tour she texted the dancers to let them know and suggested they speak to Swift’s managers. “And they did, and they got fired. And I tried to talk to her about it, and she wouldn’t speak to me,” says Perry in the Carpool Karaoke clip.
Katy says she tried reaching out to Swift to “do the right thing,” but her requests for a conversation were denied. “It was a full shutdown, and then she writes a song about me. I’m like, ‘Okay, cool, cool, cool, that’s how what you want to deal with it? Karma.’ But, but, but, what I want to say is that, like, I’m ready for that BS to be done. Now, there is the law of cause and effect. You do something, and there is going to be a reaction. And trust me, Daddy, there’s going to be a reaction.”
Perry promoted the video on her social media accounts this week, describing the “Swish Swish” visuals as ‘the lyric video you didn’t ask for but the internet needs.’ We would agree with that. Sometimes pop stars know what’s best for us before we do.