You mentioned recording everything on your phone. Are you using the voice notes?

I just use the voice notes, yeah.

How many do you think that you have by now?

Oh, my gosh. I have thousands and thousands…I’ve got…full from the iPhone 5 and 4. Just endless. Endless, endless, endless. Tons.

Your album has breaks, or what would be sketches on a rap mixtape, of voice notes. On one of them, I was surprised to hear someone singing “Say Yes” by Floetry.

Yeah.

Were they a big influence for you?

Well, I love that song. It’s just a really beautiful song. Oh, it’s just so tantalizing. But actually, it wasn’t about the song. It was more about the people involved. The guy’s voice you hear is a singer called Kwabs, and I used to sing backing vocals for him before I started doing my own project. That recording of us singing in harmony, first of all, means a lot to me. I love singing in harmony; I love voices. Something about singing in harmony is just so amazing for the soul. I do that in my intro. I just use voices to create a palette of music. I remember enjoying that moment. It was also a nod to me being a backing singer—that was probably the last thing I did before doing my own music. It was a little moment to say, “Look how far you’ve come.” Those are the two reasons I put it on there. It was a secret message to myself: Thank you for the past, which was that really beautiful moment of being able to sing with your friend, and being able to be a backing singer, but also thank you to the future—because look, here I am now, making my own album, about to put it out. That’s what I was trying to say in that voice note.

How do you determine what you’re going to put out there and what you’re not in your music?

It’s been changing a lot, really. At the beginning, I didn’t reveal anything. There were no pictures. My artwork was hands. It was a way of trying to make sure it was all about the music. But then I understood that people like to put a face to things. They like to know the personality, and as much as I didn’t want to be, like, on proper social media, all over Snapchat or whatever, I felt like I could reveal some more of myself. Not everything, but the artist side of me. Because that’s what we engage with in this day and age.

I realize times have changed [from] when I was younger, when I was listening to bands or whatever. At that time, I didn’t know who else listened to, let’s say Usher. At that time, I didn’t know anything about Usher apart from that I knew he made some really cool jeans and he was a good dancer. [Laughs] And the music videos. And I quite like that; that’s quite nostalgic. But what we look for in an artist [now] is different. Moving along with those times, I decided to reveal a little bit more about myself, which means putting some more personal [things] on my Twitter, because people relate to it. It’s human, isn’t it? Maybe showing some more less obscure photos, and some moments that I enjoy as an artist. I’m still trying to find that balance, but I don’t think it will ever get to a point where it’s proper pop star status, where everyone knows everything. Where I am now is a good place.

What were some of your musical influences growing up? Do you think they factor at all into the music you make now?

Yeah, for sure. I was just putting together an album influence list because I thought people maybe might want to hear. So that got me thinking about who’s influenced me. There’s never one person; there are so many people. They’re usually from eras, so I’ve got my parents’ era in there, and they loved Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder. And I love them because they’re vocalists. They’re wicked musicians, but they’re also just the best singers in the world. I love it for that reason; I learned so much from them.

And then there’s the stuff that I was listening to when growing up in that time when you find your own opinions, and you’ve got a bit of money so you can go and buy those records. Those first albums would have actually been ’90s music, and especially R&B, because that was super in there, and I could relate to it as a person. You know, I could aspire to it—in R&B there were a lot of black singers. Being a black singer, naturally I was like, “Oh cool, there are some people. I can sing like them.” [Laughs] And they’re wearing their hair kind of like me. Especially where I grew up, where some parts weren’t that diverse, I hooked onto that side of things, for sure.

I was thinking, listening to your music as a whole, you have a really heavy and intense use of guitars. It sort of reminded me of Prince’s music, his R&B, and some of Janet Jackson’s stuff. In terms of the production of the music itself, you produced almost the entirety of the record. But you’ve also collaborated with other people. How do you decide when to listen and take the opinion of the other collaborators and when do you decide to rely on your own judgment?

That’s a good question. [Laughs] I don’t know that there are any rules to that. All you can do is what feels right, but you have to be open enough to try something. Someone might suggest something that you’ll immediately dislike, like, That is a very bad idea. But you don’t know if it is until you try it. That’s always my motto–never say no. Try it first, and then you can rein it back. Usually, between us all, you can tell if something’s not quite the right melody, or if it doesn’t quite feel right.

Also, space is a good thing to try. Leave it for a day or two and come back. Then I can usually just decide on my own. I can say, “Actually, that guitar part’s not very good.” I’ll just take it out and say, “Think of a new one and we can lay that one down instead.” Usually instinct and space helps me discover what’s right and what’s wrong. And the people I work with are super open to that. They’re not trying to strangle the music, and they appreciate that I’m a leader in what I do musically for myself. They’re really respectful of that and allow me to make the decisions because, after all, it is my music.

What would you say was the most difficult part in creating a record?

The most difficult part is [Sighs] the moment between finishing it and deciding what is going to go on it. I spent a lot of time writing and writing and writing, and just putting out lots of ideas. Then there comes a moment where you can’t write anymore, you’re out of energy, you’re out of ideas, you have to stop. And then you’ve got all this stuff—it’s like, So what of this is actually good? What is going to make a good story? How do I know, when I finish this song, if it’s actually going to sound better? I don’t know. So that’s quite a difficult moment—to choose what you’re going to put on your record—and to know that you have enough variety and that the song at the end of the day is going to come out strong. Because usually you write and write, but it’s all demos, so they’re not really fully formed, and you don’t know how they’re going to turn out. But you can’t see all of them through, because that would just take years. You have to let some of them go, which is difficult.

With the release of this album, is there a goal or an accomplishment that you hope to achieve for yourself? 



Even getting to the point where I wrote an album, and I’m releasing it—that is the biggest goal in the world. Because I never even set it as a goal; I didn’t think it was even possible. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t think I’d make it this far. To have done it, to know it’s coming out, and to know that actually, there are some people who want to listen to it. I don’t mind if it doesn’t sell in the hundreds of thousands. I was never in this game to be Adele. But I trust that I’m proud of it, and hopefully people will spread the word if it is good, and that way, over time, it might get to a good amount of people. But that was the goal. Now is the goal. ♦