Skylar Grey has been in the industry for over 15 years, but she’s still looking for new ways to innovate. Many of her greatest successes have come as a songwriter -- first with Eminem, with co-writes on his 2010 hit “Love the Way You Lie” (featuring Rihanna) and the Dr. Dre-Eminem single “I Need a Doctor” (on which she guested), and later on hits like Zedd‘s “Clarity” and Macklemore’s “Glorious.”

After signing to Interscope in 2011, she left her prior management in 2017 and then finalized a split with the label this summer. (Grey describes the latter as “amicable” and the result of “creative differences.”) The 33-year-old went looking for new representation with a finished album, and after receiving recommendations to connect with Crush Music co-founder Jonathan Daniel, the two met in mid-2018. “He wasn’t trying to sell me some crazy ‘I can make you a superstar’ story,” says Grey. “It was real, and he seemed like somebody I could look up to.” Since the meeting, Grey has been in frequent contact with various members of the Crush team, including head of A&R Evan Taubenfeld.

Now officially on the roster, she’s preparing to self-release her new album; lead single “Shame on You” is due Aug. 26. Grey says the concept project “could end up having a hundred songs” and that she’s going to continually add tracks to digital service providers. Taubenfeld is confident that Crush can present Grey as more than a behind-the-scenes star: “She has an incredible amount of fans inside the business. The next phase for us is creating a large amount of fans of her artistry.”

This article originally appeared in the Aug. 24 issue of Billboard.