Songwriter Sasha Alex Sloan spent this past spring in a state of anxiety, fearing she had accidentally disclosed a major music industry secret. She had been entrusted with news that Olivia Rodrigo recorded a duet with Robert Smith of The Cure. Sloan, who co-wrote the track “What’s Wrong With Me” alongside Rodrigo and producer Daniel Nigro, admitted she would wake up panicked, worried that her obsessive-compulsive disorder might have led her to accidentally tweet the news.
The secret remained safe until Rodrigo debuted the song with Smith at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona this June. Sloan described watching the performance from her home as one of the most significant moments of her career. The track subsequently fueled the success of Rodrigo’s third album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” which secured the second-largest opening of 2026, trailing only BTS’ “Arirang.” Rodrigo has since cited the duet as the standout song on the record. In fact, the 31-year-old songwriter kept a lid on the news until Rodrigo surprise-debuted the tune with Smith himself at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival in June — an occasion Sloan calls “one of the coolest moments.
Industry expectations suggest both “What’s Wrong With Me” and the album could receive multiple Grammy nominations when the candidates are unveiled on November 16. Sloan finds herself competing against her own work, as she also co-wrote the Karol G and Bruno Mars ballad “Still” with Isabel and Thomas LaRosa. That track has already surpassed 75 million streams across Spotify and YouTube. Her 2026 credits include collaborations with Tucker Wetmore, the K-pop group Aespa, and R&B veteran Ne-Yo, alongside the upcoming release of her own bedroom-pop album, “And the Crowd Goes Mild.” In addition to the hit duets, Sloan has racked up credits this year on a wide variety of tunes by country singer Tucker Wetmore (“Yours”), the K-pop girl group Aespa (“Switchblade”) and veteran R&B star Ne-Yo (“Wish I Di. Though Karol G came up as a reggaeton artist in her native Colombia, “Still” is an English-language pop-soul ballad; Aespa’s clubby “Switchblade,” meanwhile, features a guest verse by R&B singer Ty Dolla Sign. Because she writes for herself in addition to other acts, “people will sometimes ask me, ‘How do you know when the song is for you or for them?’” she says. “But it’s so different. It’s really not about you — it’s about them and their ideas and how to take what they’re feeling and craft it the best possible way.”, when you’re with an artist.
Reflecting on her diverse output, Sloan notes that the modern music industry relies heavily on genre fluidity. While she once aspired to pop stardom, her perspective has shifted significantly. After studying at the Berklee College of Music and signing a publishing deal at 19, she built a career writing for artists like Camila Cabello and Charli XCX. She released her own debut EP in 2018 and the 2024 album “Me Again,” which featured “Tiny’s Song,” a personal account of pet loss. Sloan’s stylistic range reflects a music industry in which the borders between genres have never been more porous. Sloan, who’d originally come to L.A. in the mid-2010s after studying at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, signed a publishing deal at age 19 and began scoring credits with the likes of Cabello, Idina Menzel and Charli XCX. Including 2024’s “Me Again,” which included a devastating account of losing a pet. (It’s called “Tiny’s Song,” and I’d advise you to prepare y, in 2018 she released her debut EP as an artist; a handful of albums followed.
Today, Sloan is more comfortable behind the scenes. She candidly admits she never fully enjoyed the spotlight of being a performing artist, citing her dislike of cameras and her struggle with an eating disorder. She views the role of an artist as becoming a corporate product, whereas she prefers the craft of songwriting. During a recent stay at her residence in Glendale—she lives primarily in Nashville with her husband, producer King Henry—she balanced studio sessions with plans to attend a Bruno Mars performance at SoFi Stadium, noting a fond, if hazy, memory of seeing him live years ago at Lollapalooza. The producer King Henry, moved from L.A. to Nashville in 2020, though she reckons she’s back here for work every two weeks or so, sloan and I are talking in the living room of the Glendale house she calls home when she’s in Los Angeles; she and her husband.
Sloan rejects the idea of being a “jack of all trades” and instead emphasizes the importance of creative adaptability. When writing for others, she focuses entirely on their unique perspectives and emotional needs. Whether she is working in the studio with high-profile collaborators or preparing her own music, her priority remains the song itself rather than the pressures of celebrity life.
