NOVAI
“You don’t have to have everything figured out to start healing. Sometimes all you need is the willingness to turn around.”
There is a particular kind of artist who earns trust in layers. Novai arrived with “No Regrets” — a declaration, a door swinging open — and followed it with “Back to Your Heart,” a song that steps back into the quiet and stays there. The contrast wasn’t accidental, and it wasn’t calculated. It was sequenced by life.
The Pittsburgh-based pop, R&B, and gospel singer releases music that moves between independence and surrender, confidence and doubt, the club and the pew — not because she’s chasing range, but because all of those things are true simultaneously. In this interview, she talks about grace, vulnerability, the artists who shaped her, and why the lines that scare you are the ones that need to be heard.
One song had to happen for the other to exist.
“No Regrets” introduced you as a bold, independent voice. “Back to Your Heart” reveals something much more intimate and spiritual. Was that contrast intentional, or did the song just arrive when it needed to?
I think the contrast was intentional, even if I didn’t fully realize it at the time. “No Regrets” was me reclaiming my strength outwardly — learning how to walk away from pain and stand on my own again. But once you strip away all the noise and all the hurt, eventually you’re left alone with yourself… and with God. When Michael Stover brought me “Back to Your Heart,” it came from that quieter place. It wasn’t about proving anything anymore. It was about healing. So in a way, one song had to happen for the other to exist.
The lyric “Jesus, You found me when I was running in the dark / You never stopped calling” is deeply personal. How do you decide when a line is ready to be heard by the world?
Honestly, I don’t know if you ever fully feel “ready.” Some lyrics scare you a little because they’re too honest. When Michael shared that line with me, it immediately connected to a very real place in my life where I felt disconnected, lost, and spiritually exhausted. But I’ve learned that the lines that make you vulnerable are usually the ones somebody else needs to hear the most. Once I realized the song wasn’t just about me anymore, I was ready to let it go into the world.
That shift — from “this is mine” to “this belongs to whoever needs it” — is where gospel and personal songwriting meet. Novai navigates that line differently than most artists in her lane, in part because she’s upfront about where the material comes from and where it goes.
“Back to Your Heart” deals with returning to faith after doubt and distance. How do you write authentically about an experience that is still ongoing rather than something fully resolved?
For me, authenticity comes from being honest in the performance and in the connection to the song. Michael wrote “Back to Your Heart,” but the emotions in it felt incredibly real and personal to me. Faith isn’t always this clean, finished story where suddenly everything makes sense. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes you’re still questioning while you’re praying. I think people connect to the song because it doesn’t pretend to have every answer — it just speaks honestly about wanting to come home spiritually.
Your sound blends contemporary gospel with pop and R&B in a way that feels natural rather than calculated. Did that fusion develop deliberately, or is it simply what comes out when you write?
That fusion honestly happens naturally for me as an artist and performer. I grew up listening to gospel, R&B, soul, and pop all at the same time, so emotionally they’ve never felt separate in my heart. Gospel taught me honesty. R&B taught me vulnerability. Pop taught me melody and connection. When Michael writes songs for me, I think all of those influences naturally come together because that’s genuinely who I am musically.
That formation — gospel’s moral weight, R&B’s emotional precision, pop’s reach — is doing real work inside This Is Novai. It’s a record that moves through emotional registers without treating them as contradictions.
This Is Novai was my way of saying, “This is all of me.” Not the polished version — the real version. The girl who’s healing, learning, growing, questioning, believing, and still trying to find her way sometimes.
Your debut album is called This Is Novai — a title that feels like both an introduction and a declaration. What did you want people to understand about you that they might not have known before hearing it?
I wanted people to understand that I’m not just one thing. I can be vulnerable and confident. I can sing a song about heartbreak and then turn around and sing about faith and redemption. This Is Novai was my way of saying, “This is all of me.” Not the polished version — the real version. The girl who’s healing, learning, growing, questioning, believing, and still trying to find her way sometimes.
Tracks like “My All” and “Washed in the Water” sit alongside your pop and R&B material on the album. How do you think about sequencing music that covers that much emotional and spiritual ground?
For me, sequencing the album was about emotional honesty. Life doesn’t stay in one lane emotionally or spiritually, so I didn’t want the album to either. One moment you’re dancing with your friends trying to forget your pain, and the next moment you’re praying alone in your room. That’s real life. I wanted the album to feel like a full journey — heartbreak, confidence, doubt, joy, faith, healing — all connected together through the songs Michael wrote for the project.
The sequencing mirrors the way people actually move through their own lives — not thematically, not neatly. Novai’s willingness to hold those contradictions on a single record is one of the reasons the debut has the reach it does.
“No Regrets” reached the Top 15 on the UK iTunes charts. Did that chart success change anything about how you approach the music, or does the writing process stay the same regardless of what happens after release?
The success of “No Regrets” was honestly surreal and incredibly humbling. Seeing people connect with that song around the world reminded me why I do this. But creatively, I never want charts to control the heart behind the music. Michael writes from a very honest place, and when I record those songs, I try to stay emotionally truthful to them. That part never changes.
Faith-driven music asks something different of an artist than pop or R&B — the vulnerability required is of a different kind. How do you prepare yourself to perform that kind of material live?
Faith-driven music requires a different kind of openness because you can’t hide behind performance. People can tell when you’re just singing lyrics versus when you truly connect to what you’re saying. Before performing songs like “Back to Your Heart,” I usually take a quiet moment to center myself emotionally and spiritually. I remind myself that the song isn’t about perfection — it’s about connection.
The lines that make you vulnerable are usually the ones somebody else needs to hear the most.
Who are the artists — gospel, pop, R&B, or otherwise — that shaped how you think about what a song should do for the person listening to it?
I’ve been inspired by so many artists across different genres. Whitney Houston is huge for me because she could move between gospel and pop so effortlessly and still make everything feel emotional and true. I love CeCe Winans for the peace and sincerity in her voice. Brandy taught me subtlety and emotion in R&B. And artists like Alicia Keys and Tori Kelly showed me that vulnerability can actually be strength.
It’s a lineage defined less by genre than by a shared commitment to emotional truth over technical performance — a tradition Novai is actively working within.
“Back to Your Heart” ends with a message of restoration and hope. What do you want someone who is genuinely lost right now to take away from this song?
I want them to know they’re not too far gone. I think a lot of people carry shame, disappointment, or this feeling that they’ve drifted too far away to come back — spiritually or emotionally. But the whole message of “Back to Your Heart” is that grace keeps reaching for you, even when you’re running. You don’t have to have everything figured out to start healing. Sometimes all you need is the willingness to turn around.
What Novai is building across two singles and a debut album is something that doesn’t arrive fully formed in an artist’s first act very often — a coherent emotional world, one where independence and faith aren’t opposites, where chart success doesn’t compromise the material, and where the audience isn’t just listening, they’re being trusted. “Back to Your Heart” is a song for the people who feel too far gone to start over. That Novai is willing to stand in that space, without pretending to have every answer, is exactly the point.
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