You have a very open social media presence, for example in one TikTok you ranked every single Taylor Swift Song, now as an Ex Kanye Super Fan, I know that you could be absolutely slated for that online if it ends up on the wrong side of TikTok. Do you ever have any doubts or worries when being so open online?

I don’t think so, I do a lot of research into marketing and stuff as I’ve learnt how the music industry can be quite a scary place, especially when you’re just starting and trying to grow your own audience. There’s a lot of people who are looking to take advantage of you for your money in terms of “promotion”, so I really love using my own social media because like it’s just me and I’m completely in control.

And yeah I love being open on social media; I once thought to myself like “what do I bring to the table as an artist? Who is my ideal listener? Who am I looking to help here,” you know? And I thought, people like me, overthinkers, like I’ve always been told I’m “too sensitive” or “too emotional” but those are the things that allow me to make music so I thought to myself, like, if I’m very open [about it] and share those thoughts and experiences, I can then reach the likeminded people that I want to connect with.

But yeah there’s definitely boundaries and limits, like there will always be certain things that I won’t speak about, but I also realise that, the more that I’ve been open and willing, the more I’ve been able to connect with my audience because I only really started posting consistently like this year and my TikTok followers in the past few months have doubled because I’ve actually been posting things.

The growth was on a level I hadn’t really seen before because I was posting so rarely. Like, I have had a TikTok for the last year or so and [while] I was sharing videos and music on Instagram, I was shy, I was a little bit scared, and I was like shying away from it but when I started to completely go for it, the growth was like crazy. I know it might not seem like much, obviously I haven’t gone viral or anything, but I am starting to see something I haven’t before which is seeing the same people who always comment and interact, like I have people who consider themselves my fans and it’s nice to see but I’ve only got that after, like, breaking down that wall of who I am.

Beforehand, people listened but I feel like they didn’t really care and that’s fair because they didn’t know who I was but now I’m putting it all out there, I now have my own little community which I love so much.

So then would you say that being more open and vulnerable about your struggles is something that should be more common amongst artist nowadays?

I think that it completely depends on the artists branding, like what they’re going for. I’ve been very lucky in studying music currently and getting accepted into a music mentoring program so I’ve been able to speak to some music publicists and different people within the industry and ask them “how are us artists perceived by you guys?” and they mentioned how there’s two different routes that people can go. There’s the people that, you know, just make their music and they do a lot of brand deals, but they don’t really connect with who they are; for example, Dua Lipa, she’s very fashionable and she’s very successful but she doesn’t have a very strong story that is like, straight out there in the media you know? Whereas someone like Maisie Peters, who is someone that I’m very much inspired by; she very much went down the route of saying “here’s where I come from, here’s why I write” and they’ve sort of built brands in the same space in very different ways and I think because of that, I certainly feel more connected to being open.

For example, I really care a lot about the lyrics in songs, I love it when artists write their own lyrics whereas for some people in a very different pop space it’s just purely about the sound so for me it very much depends on what you’re doing and why. Is there anything that you could tease for us in the foreseeable future? I have a lot of things in my little vault, I always call it that (I love that Taylor Swift uses that term too because that is something I’ve been saying for years) but yeah, I have a lot of stuff going on. I work with production students at my University and lest semester we had an exam where the whole test was how well we were able to collaborate with other people. I ended up working with a producer, a drummer and another songwriter and we made a track but obviously I wasn’t allowed to share anything about it until we had the exam completed so that’s a completed project that we’ve all just been sitting on but now that the exams are over, going into the next year of Uni I’m free to put that out there.

Final question, is there anything you want to say or advice you want to put out there for the readers?

Whenever I think about giving advice I always think about what I needed to hear before, I think what I would say is don’t let anyone make you feel embarrassed for making art or sharing things. Nowadays there’s a really weird culture where like it’s embarrassing to do anything at all until you’re successful then it becomes like, everyone says stuff like “oh my god, you’re amazing!” but when you start it feels so awkward. I definitely wouldn’t have started posting and sharing my music to the extent that I do if I hadn’t left my hometown because it made realise that there are people out there that will want to support you, you just don’t know them yet.

Like where I’m from, in Nottingham, I was considered quite strange for wanting to be a singer. Like, I’m the only person I know from my school that has gone on to pursue music. Like, it was considered weird over here, but in London it’s incredibly normal to want to be a singer, you know what I mean?

Yeah I couldn’t agree more with you. Hometowns are awful for creative people.

Yeah… I guess that if you feel awkward for doing what you love, you’re probably just in the wrong space for it.

It’s not you, you just need to find the people out there who are willing to support you because there are people out there who are going to support you, they are out there somewhere, you just need to find them.

Listen to ‘Broken Bones’ here!

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