ZAYN MALIK says it is “fully liberating” to be a solo artist in a video conversation with The Fader Magazine. It is his first interview since quitting One Direction earlier this year.

    In the short video the 22-year-old also reveals a snippet of a new track, called “Befour,” from his forthcoming album.

    He also speaks “candidly about life as a Muslim pop star” according to the U.S. music site. The full interview will be released later.

    “Life experiences have just been influences for the album and just what I’ve been through especially in the last five years, with being in the band and everything,” Malik explains.

    “It’s quite a personal album and we recorded a lot of it actually out in the woods and stuff like this, which is quite weird.

    “But it was just something that we wanted to do, because we wanted to make it quite real and genuine.”

    Malik also talks about influences on the album, including his dad’s rap records.

    He added, “You know I used to listen to a lot of Bollywood being a kid and stuff, so yeah, that definitely influenced the music a little bit and then as I got older, I guess I just started to listen to a lot of my dad’s old records, like ’90s stuff. Like a lot of R&B and a lot of rap.”

    Malik also says in the video, “It’s a nice feeling to come out of a place where you are being told what to do and behave a certain way.

    “Because of certain expectations or certain things that people want to see. It is just all my perspective and that’s fully liberating.

    “I wouldn’t be able to give you one stand-out moment where I was like ‘this is what I want to do’ because I guess I always kind of knew.”

    Malik’s former bandmates recently announced that One Direction will be taking a break in 2016.

    But they revealed, during a Radio 1 Live Lounge performance, that they will definitely be back. (SD-Agencies)