Zayn Malik has shared a preview of a new song that appears to address the racism and Islamophobia he endured during his time with One Direction. The track, seemingly titled “Fuchsia Sea,” was teased on Instagram on Friday, July 4, with a caption stating it is “coming soon.”

In the clip, Malik shifts away from the soft rock and country textures of his 2024 album Room Under the Stairs and leans into a more pensive hip-hop sound. Over a minimal beat, he raps candidly:

“Do you remember every conversation? / ’Cause I have been conscious of every connotation.

I’m a convert to the concert, and I did that for inflation / ’Cause I worked hard in a white band, and they still laughed at the Asian.”

Malik, the son of a Pakistani Muslim father and an English mother of Irish descent, was the only person of color in the group’s original five-member lineup. He joined the band in 2010 after auditioning for The X Factor alongside Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, and the late Liam Payne.

As One Direction’s fame skyrocketed in the early 2010s, Malik was subjected to relentless online abuse, much of it rooted in racism and Islamophobia. In a 2012 interview, he publicly addressed the harassment, saying: “Nasty things like I’m a terrorist, and this and that. How can you justify that? How can you call me that and get away with it?”

The hateful rhetoric intensified in the years that followed, with Malik frequently the target of baseless conspiracy theories, including false accusations linking him to terrorist groups. In a 2015 Fader cover story shortly after his departure from the band, he reflected on the pressure of being a visible Muslim artist in the mainstream Western pop industry: “I’m just a normal person as well as following my religion, and doing all the normal things that everybody else does. I feel proud that people actually look to me and can see themselves in that … I always felt good that I was, like, first of my kind in what I was doing. I enjoyed that I brought the diversity.”

Malik announced his exit from One Direction in March 2015. The group went on to release one final album as a four-piece, Made in the A.M., before going on indefinite hiatus in 2016.

Nearly a decade later, Malik has re-emerged with new creative energy. His most recent full-length project, Room Under the Stairs, was released in 2024 and debuted at No. 15 on the Billboard 200. Earlier this year, Malik wrapped his Stairway to the Sky tour in support of . In an emotional moment during the final two shows in Mexico City, he performed One Direction’s “Night Changes”, his first live rendition of a 1D song in nearly a decade. The performances took place around the anniversary of his 2015 departure from the band and just months after the passing of Liam Payne, adding another layer of poignancy.

No release date has been announced for the new version of “Fuchsia Sea,” and it’s unclear if the track is simply a single or part of a larger upcoming project. But the lyrics shared so far suggest Malik is ready to speak more openly about the isolation he once faced as a young artist of color navigating global fame.