First performed during her set at TIDAL-X, “Waves” premiered on Beats1 Radio along with promise of a debut album to come early 2019. The song is accompanied by a music video, which released on February 12, 2019.

On the moody R&B jam, Normani and 6LACK, fresh off dropping his own East Atlanta Love Letter, team up to conquer the tumultuous nature of on-again-off-again relationships. In an interview to Billboard, Normani said that she felt this song pointed to a new direction in R&B:

I feel like we’re taking a different direction, especially musically in the R&B space. And I think that “Waves” definitely does set the tone for the direction that we are taking.