Songfacts®:

• Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock signed a solo record contract with Warner Records in February 2022. Three months later, following their Confetti Tour, the girl group stunned fans with news of an extended hiatus, enabling each member to pursue their solo aspirations.
  
  Breaking free from the group's umbrella, Leigh-Anne makes her grand entrance into the solo scene with "Don't Say Love." Released on June 16, 2023, the track marks the first musical offering from any of the three active members of Little Mix.
• Leigh-Anne teamed up with songwriter Gregory Aldae Hein and producers Jon Bellion, Jimmie Gutch, and Pete Nappi to craft this blend of UK garage and dance-pop.
• The "Don't Say Love" lyrics emanate from Leigh-Anne's profound frustration with feeling invisible within her career. The song serves as a powerful anthem, symbolizing her journey of no longer seeking external validation. It represents her quest to reclaim confidence and self-assurance in a world where she often grappled with being misunderstood and unheard.
• Leigh-Anne's rise to stardom began when Little Mix formed on The X Factor back in 2011. With "Don't Say Love," the multiracial singer channels her raw emotions that stemmed from being consistently overlooked and undervalued.
  
  "The pop industry is very white, we did have a predominately white fan base," she told Vogue. "It took me so long to understand why I was feeling so undervalued. I just blamed myself. My family would be like, 'Oh, Leigh, you're getting the same money. It's fine.' I just couldn't accept that."
  
  "I wanted to get that across in my first single, so I could just leave that girl and that feeling in the past," Leigh-Anne added. "'My Love' is a celebration of every type of love: owning who I am and stepping into my solo career and this new being, who gained all of her confidence back and knows who the f--- she is."
• The song's dance sound surprised some of Leigh-Anne's fans. She told Apple Music 1's Rebecca Judd that her debut solo album takes listeners on a journey through the music that inspired her growing up. "All the different genres that I've loved listening to reggae, R&B, Afrobeats, and a piano," she said. "There's just loads of these incredible genres that I've sort of merged or mixed, and I guess I have my stamp on it."
• Helmed by Emil Nava, the music video unfolds as a captivating narrative, chronicling Leigh-Anne's quest to rediscover her true self.
  
  "Within the group and in my career, I really felt like a lot of the time I was overlooked and undervalued," she told Vogue "I really wanted to get that emotion across in the video: frustration, sadness, anger."
• Leigh-Anne previously touched upon the song's theme in the BBC documentary Race, Pop & Power. Released on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in May 2021, the documentary explores racial issues and colorism prevalent in the music industry. It offers a glimpse into Leigh-Anne's personal experiences as the only Black member of Little Mix, shedding light on the challenges she faced and the impact of these issues within the industry.