Joan Armatrading announces new studio album, releases single inspired by encounter with confrontational young person

Joan Armatrading’s twenty-first studio album How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean will arrive later this year

Singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading has announced her 21st studio album, How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean. The follow-up to 2021’s Top 10 release Consequences, it’ll be released on November 22 via BMG.

The album, which was written, produced, programmed and engineered by Armatrading at her own Bumpkin Studio, is preceded by the single I’m Not Moving, which was inspired by an encounter with a young person engaged in “alarmingly confrontational” public behaviour.

“He was like ‘I’m going to kill everybody! I’m not moving! You can get the police! You can’t move me!'” reports Armatrading. “All the lyrics just flowed, in one, and I knew it had to have an aggression, because that’s how he was. I did a version of it that was a little bit milder, but you could tell that wasn’t it.”