Summer Walker has built a career on exploring the fragile spaces between longing and self-preservation. Since the release of her 2018 mixtape “Last Day of Summer,” she has emerged as one of R&B’s most emotionally transparent voices, shaping her music around confessional storytelling and diary-like introspection.
Walker released her newest album, “Finally Over It,” Friday. It’s the closing chapter of a trilogy that includes her previous two albums, 2019’s “Over It” and 2021’s “Still Over It.”
On these, Walker captured the turbulence of early adulthood, heartbreak and complicated relationships with a rare combination of precision and vulnerability. In her newest work, she returns with a renewed determination: to choose herself, even when self-discovery is messy, isolating or misunderstood.
Across 18 songs, “Finally Over It” is divided into two parts, “For Better” and “For Worse.” The structure echoes the wedding imagery on the album cover, but it also works as a symbolic play on the vows Walker no longer wants to make.
By dividing the project this way, she sets up a framework that mirrors the emotional stages of letting go: the hopeful clarity of choosing better for herself and the hardened cynicism that follows when love no longer feels worth the cost. The separation isn’t just conceptual — it allows Walker to explore the full arc of moving on with a narrative cohesion that anchors the entire album.
An impressive roster of guest features — Latto, Mariah the Scientist, Doja Cat, Anderson .Paak, 21 Savage, Sexyy Red, GloRilla, Monaleo, Brent Faiyaz, Teddy Swims, Chris Brown, SAILORR and frequent collaborator Bryson Tiller — adds texture without overshadowing the intimate core of Walker’s writing.
The first half, “For Better,” spotlights Walker stepping out of emotional entanglements with a steadier sense of self. “Robbed You” and “Situationship” find her reckoning with partners who drained her, marking the starting point of a long-overdue emotional reset.
But one of the album’s sharpest moments comes on “No,” which reworks Beyoncé’s 2003 track “Yes” into a pointed rebuke of one-sided expectations. Walker sings, “You want me to cater to you, never tell you no / You want me to lose myself just to keep your home,” turning the song into an anthem for the firm boundaries she’s spent years learning to build.
Still, Walker doesn’t pretend stepping into a new era means the past stops tugging. “1-800-Hearbreak,” with its aching vocals and lingering melancholy, sits at the intersection of empowerment and loneliness, reminding listeners that even necessary endings can feel hollow.
On “Baby,” “Give Me a Reason” and “Heart of a Woman,” she revisits the softer, romantic inclinations that defined her earlier work.
These songs don’t contradict her growth. Instead, they highlight that self-love often requires acknowledging vulnerability rather than avoiding it. In these moments, Walker remains as compelling as ever — a narrator caught between desire and self-respect.
The album’s second half, “For Worse,” embraces a colder realism. Here, the optimism of finding “better” love fades, replaced by a pragmatic, almost defiant acceptance of transactional intimacy.
On “FMT,” she distances herself from her typical romantic type, while the swaggering “Baller” announces her intention to prioritize financial stability over emotional unpredictability. The album doesn’t glamorize this mindset; rather, Walker presents it as a reaction to lived experience, a survival strategy shaped by disappointment.
Tracks like “Stitch Me Up” and “Allegedly” complicate this hard exterior. Though she’s guarded, cracks in her emotional armor reveal someone still capable of tenderness — even if she refuses to lead with it anymore.
These nuances keep the narrative grounded, avoiding one-dimensional depictions of either bitterness or detachment. Walker isn’t romanticizing withdrawal; she’s documenting the ways people adapt when love no longer feels safe.
What makes “Finally Over It” resonate is its insistence on the imperfect nature of healing. The album doesn’t move in a straight line from breakup to breakthrough.
Instead, Walker presents a collection of stories —some defiant, some wounded, some deeply contradictory— that reflect the truth of choosing oneself: It’s not always empowering, not always graceful and certainly not always pretty. But it is real.
The production across the album underscores this emotional complexity. Dreamy synths, warm basslines and minimalist arrangements allow Walker’s voice and writing to sit at the forefront. Even with high-profile collaborators, the album maintains an intimate feel, as if the listener has cracked open a personal journal she’s finally ready to close.
In “Finally Over It,” Walker doesn’t reinvent herself; she refines her perspective. The album is less about triumph and more about honesty — about acknowledging the good, the bad and everything in between while daring to choose oneself anyway. It’s a fitting end to such an emotionally raw trilogy, and perhaps the start of a new era defined on Walker’s own terms.
Contact Aaliyah Evertz at aevertz@alligator.org. Follow her on X @aaliyahevertz1.
Aaliyah is a general assignment reporter for The Avenue. She's a second-year journalism student in her first semester at The Alligator. In her free time, she loves to bake, read and also write for Her Campus UFL.
