“You hear him before you see him,” a member of the Gabriels entourage tells me, as a resonant cackle erupts from the rear of a black van. That’ll be Jacob Lusk, the soul trio’s singer, sharp dressing focal point and one man charisma machine. Even before releasing today’s debut album, he’s been a Brit Award…
While most bands are still edging back carefully into the idea of gigging, one musician has already nearly finished an epic UK tour. West Londoner Charles Costa, who has released three albums under the stage name King Charles, ought to be hitting Bristol around now on a solo run from John o’ Groats to Land’s…
Little Simz arrives to meet me outside a King’s Cross brasserie sporting enormous headphones and a mustard yellow hoodie advertising her own album. The title of the imminent release is on the back: Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, which is both grammatically suspect and doesn’t bode particularly well for a candid interview. On the front…
There are a few lyrics on Laura Mvula’s forthcoming third album that will make the listener think she’s been through a nasty break-up. Take this, on Conditional, for example: “I don’t cry no tears for you/I needed love unconditional.” Or this, from the comeback single, Safe Passage: “Never imagined I would ever be free from…
History, a song on Julia Michaels’ forthcoming debut album, is a conversation between two new lovers, asking each other a range of getting-to-know-you questions as they embark on what they hope will be something that lasts. It sounds like it would also work as a list of helpful interview queries, so I decide to try…
Exploring Tion Wayne’s back catalogue of music videos on YouTube, it’s easy to get an overview of the Edmonton rapper’s enthusiasms. He puts a big budget lifestyle on proud display: sports cars spinning donuts, motorbikes and helicopters, boobs and bums in close-up in shiny white houses that look like they’ve never been inhabited. It all…
The poster on the wall in Flohio’s bedroom is a cartoon of a member of the rap crew A$AP Mob, drawn in the style of Casper the Friendly Ghost, whose T-shirt reads: “This is my last year being broke.” When was that for her? “That was about two years ago,” she says, and laughs. In…
“This morning, I had a little cry,” Bree Runway tells me. “I’m someone that is very spiritual. I pray a lot. And I cried because I feel like this new phase that’s coming is so different from everything that I’ve asked for up to now. It’s a different level of success. I was looking around…
It’s no trouble getting ready to interview Fraser T Smith. He’s already sorted the questions, and given that they’re all about the meaning of life, it shouldn’t be hard to fill an hour. At 49 the Bucks songwriter and producer, following years of working behind the scenes with everyone from Stormzy and Dave to Adele…
This year, fans of Kali Uchis began suggesting that the Colombian-American singer had the gift of predicting the future, because in 2018 she titled her debut album Isolation. “It was a little joke among themselves. It was cute,” she says. “I just like my titles to be whatever mindstate I was in while I was…