Were you already pursuing music in England, or is that something you started in Berlin? I’ve been singing since I was a kid. My whole family is really musical, my dad used to be a DJ and singer, my mum could sing, my dad and my sister could sing, and there was also me. From a young age, I was really into music. I tried to be in a band in the UK, but it didn’t work out, so I gave up. <strong>In</strong> school, my teachers said to me that I wasn’t a good singer, which put my confidence down. I didn’t listen, but it’s still in the back of my mind even now, and I’m questioning if I’m doing the right thing. Then I moved to Berlin, I settled and from 2018 to 2019, I kept trying loads of bands, but it didn’t work out. We had a couple of shows or rehearsals, but we never clicked. Then during the pandemic, at the beginning of March last year, I said to myself that I’m going to try and learn to produce my own music. I always thought about making music, but because I don’t play any instruments, I always had to rely on other people to make something for me. Then I tried it myself and started using this music production website called BandLab. It’s really easy, and I just started playing around <strong>with</strong> it and created some tracks. It pretty much started there, I’m still not an amazing producer, but I’m a much better singer-songwriter now. From that, I started playing <strong>with</strong> Bandlab, which then created my first two singles “Take Me Back” and “Fucks Us Up!”. I’ve been doing that for most of the year, and then in October 2020, I found a producer. His name’s Rafael Prado, and he is a student at SAE. He told me that they were looking for people to record, and then they’d give them two mixed and mastered songs. So, I did that. When I was in the studio, they said that I have to release this music. I was a bit unsure, but Rafael and Vitor both said that I needed to put this music out there. So I said, why not? From that, I got a huge boost, and I thought, maybe I should do it. Rafael and I became really good friends, and now he’s my producer. We’ve released four songs together now, and we’ve got plenty more to come. That’s really cool! I have two questions now. Berlin is all about electronic music. Did you find it harder to pursue a non-electronic genre, such as R&B, here? And the second question is about your songs, when Rafael told you to release your music, did you self-release them? I wouldn’t say it’s harder, but I didn’t know many artists that were doing Pop, R&B, Soul. I didn’t know that many at the time when I first started. I wouldn’t say it’s difficult, but obviously, Berlin is known for Techno, so you have to find the right events, the right people to follow on social media and connect and the people who are making different music to Techno. From my experience, it took some time to find all the artists making music somewhat similar to mine, or different to Techno. If I wanted to, I could easily try and produce Techno music, but then it’s the same as everybody else. And to answer your second question; everything I released was self-released. I use distrokid, and everything that I’ve done in the last year I just learned as I went along. I didn’t know how to release music, I didn’t know how you’d get onto Spotify, and then I was researching all about distribution, and I thought shit, there’s so much stuff I need to know about! Then figuring out how to get people to listen to my music, and it’s all just so complicated. I just wanted to put my music out there and have people listen to it. There are so many layers to it because, for one, I am a fat dark skin femme. There’s already that barrier. It turns music into a real business. 100%! That’s what I’m trying to say. The way that I look and the way that I sound is very different in Berlin. I don’t know many people that look like me that are doing music. There’s that part which is really cool, it’s a slight niche almost. Releasing music or gathering the information to learn how to release music is something you have to try to figure out as you go along. I’m still doing it. I’m hoping that people listen to my music, and it gets shared. Let’s see how it goes because not many people know me now. This is the perfect time to figure out how to do all this music stuff. 8
“I don’t want to change for anyone. I’ve worked too hard to battle <strong>with</strong> my demons to get where I am now in such short space of time.” 9