Enfnts Terribles

If you could define your artistry in a couple of sentences, how would you describe it?

I’m just here baring my soul in my music, trying to figure out my place in life. I want people to know that I’m rooting for them as much as I’m rooting for myself.

What has inspired you to become an artist?

I grew up around music; I was that extra-curricular kid at school in all the bands and choirs—I just could never really let it go. I went from writing poems to songs to playing around on Fruity Loops to producing on Logic Pro. For me, it was this slow-growing confidence in what I was creating because of the support of my family and friends.

You released your EP Refraction last year. What was the impact of this project on your music and personal life?

I must have screamed every week. It’s been unreal and a major confidence boost because I couldn’t stop doing music even if I tried, but it’s hard sometimes! It’s hard, and it’s super nice to get these little nods of acknowledgment and to hit milestones that I had in the back of my mind like BBC1 radio play, first festival performance, a song on 300k streams. 

Numbers aren’t everything, but for smaller artists like me, it’s a treat—I can’t lie. The best thing, though, is being able to read a message from a lovely person saying how they heard my song or to get a comment on Youtube or to chat to people at a gig. Just amazing people being kind is what I’m so grateful for, and I’m a crier, so I have definitely cried. It’s the same musically: the confidence to go for what I want now that I know I can do it.

You’re very creative and do a lot of it yourself. Where do you find inspiration to translate your songs into visuals?

It’s contemporary art for me. I have artists who inspire me to go further visually: Missy Elliot, Rina Sawayama, Denai Moore … The list goes on, but me going to a gallery and just existing for a moment and emptying my mind is so freeing. I’m being invited to react to something at face value, and it quiets my mind for a bit, which I think helps give space to creative ideas. If something resonates with me, it finds its way out in my work, like Contact by [Japanese art collective] Mé with “Float”. Generally, whenever I start a project, I always say that I want people to want to walk through this project. I want them to want to experience it for themselves if it were to exist as an exhibit. This is usually how I end up making my outfits because I have grand ideas and a minimal budget. (laughs)

“Fantasy” was released a couple of weeks ago. Is the song the start of a new era?

It is. I’ve never been held in place by one genre, and I feel that fact coming into its own even more now. It’s also me being honest. “Fantasy” was one of the hardest songs to write. I’m just questioning my place in society right now, in contrast to what I’ve learned growing up and how people around me are living. It’s a process, and I’m exploring that in my music.

What’s coming up in the next few weeks?

I have my debut London headline show on the 18th March at Notting Hill Arts Club, and it’s going to be insane. Plus, new music will be with you very soon.