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Claressa Shields spent two decades building one of the most decorated records in boxing. Her next chapter is music, and in this interview she walks through the work behind her new single, “Party,” from how her songs start to why this one came together quickly.
The conversation took place live from the Rolling Out studio, hosted by Jalisa Raquel for SHEEN Magazine and My Girlfriends Network.
The same goal, a different arena
Shields describes her ambitions in music as a continuation of what drove her in boxing: to inspire, encourage, make people happy, make people dance and help people stay true to themselves. In her telling, the arena changed, not the mission.
How her songs come together
She describes arriving at the studio with an idea rather than a finished beat. Producers send her tracks, she listens, picks the one that moves her and gets to work. Sometimes a song comes together quickly. Sometimes it takes months. She says the ones that come fast are usually the ones that feel like hits to her.
The hardest part: patience with the process
Asked what has been most difficult about learning the craft, she points to two things: carving out the time and not being too hard on herself. She describes hearing a song a certain way in her head and then having to chase that sound take after take in the booth. She says she is now used to recording take after take, in the range of forty or fifty, until the track matches what she hears in her mind.
Boxing, she says, came naturally after a lifetime of training. She feels rapping comes naturally too, because she has always been sharp in verbal sparring. What takes repetition is the technical side: landing the flow, making sure the delivery is neither too fast nor too slow, and doing it over and over until it sits right.
Why 'Party' came easy
“Party” was one of the fast ones, she says. She credits producer Dwane Rock and Sheree, the featured artist on the record. She praises the hook and the energy of the track, and describes its message as simple: she wants to party and she wants to dance.
She says the song shows up in her training too. She describes asking her coach to play it when she walks into the gym for warm-ups and dancing to it for a few minutes. She also frames “Party” as a deliberate follow-up to “Good Life,” which she describes as the story of her life, her boxing and building everything from nothing. “Party,” she says, is the record for letting all of that go and dancing.
She adds that she does not enjoy being in clubs where everyone stands around looking at each other. She wants people moving. That, she says, is what “Party” is for.
A listening event already behind it
Atlanta Wave TV covered Shields’ “Gloves Off, Mic On” listening event in Atlanta on November 2. The event introduced the music chapter to a live audience. Atlanta Wave TV’s event coverage shares more about the evening.
Public reporting by Complex and AllHipHop says Shields previewed nine tracks from her forthcoming debut album, What Did You Expect, at the event. Complex reports that the listening party drew more than 500 guests. The coverage also identifies “Party” as the project’s lead single. An album release date has not been announced in those reports.
More from Atlanta Wave TV: Shields on legacy and respect
In an earlier Atlanta Wave TV interview, Shields addressed rivals she says stopped acknowledging her accomplishments once relationships turned, her place atop ESPN’s women’s pound-for-pound rankings, and the Kaye Scott rivalry, which was already settled in the ring: ESPN reported that Shields stopped Scott in the sixth round on August 15, 2026, at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, reclaiming the WBC and WBA middleweight titles.
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What we couldn’t verify
The available transcript for this interview is machine-rendered. Atlanta Wave TV cannot verify the exact wording, so this article paraphrases the conversation’s clear themes and does not present any comments from Shields as direct quotations. The spelling of the host’s name could not be confirmed from the machine-rendered transcript. The album’s release date also remains unannounced in the reports cited here.
Watch more from Atlanta Wave TV
The interview brings Shields’ studio process, her time-to-hits philosophy and the story behind “Party” together with the wider public context of her music rollout. Visit the Atlanta Wave TV newsroom for more entertainment coverage, and follow the Atlanta Wave TV YouTube channel for new interviews and videos.
