FEATURE: Spotlight: Shygirl — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Shygirl

__________

AS she…

releases her debut album, Nymph, next month, I wanted to include Shygirl in this Spotlight feature. The London-based artist is hard to definer and categorise. I have heard some call her a Grime artist; others feel she is more of a Pop artist – albeit one that is more experimental. I will come to that album at the end of this feature. I want to bring in a selection of interviews from through the years that give us more depth and story about Shygirl. Although she has been on the scene for a few years now, this is a year when she will become known to a wider audience. In 2018, COEVAL profiled and spoke with the incredible Shygirl:

“South East London born and raised, Shygirl (or Blane Muise to the government) is a 25-year-old musician and DJ. She’s not too different to mere mortals, - she’s been avidly collecting precious stones and crystals since she was 10 years old, and her day in 3 words – ‘Uber Uber everywhere.’

But Shygirl is best known for her spygirl antics – she is a Jekyll and Hyde. With her trusty fan in hand, she is allusive. But she isn’t cocky or in-your-face, she’s the intentional dark horse because as she puts it, ‘I like to be underestimated.’

A self-proclaimed mashup of garage, grime and general ´club vibes', Shygirl’s sound has definitely provided many of London’s (and my own) club moments. But if PDA is anything to go by - what is a club night and what is a genre ? Shygirl is not defined by any normative label - she is shy, she is rude, she is bossy, she is herself an ‘acquired taste’ and works by no one else's standard.

Her music is the hard-core energy fuelled rollercoaster that leaves you reeling with joy and rage – you want to let loose but her relatable lyrics trigger you to bitch. It’s a wonderfully bitter experience where Shygirl’s ‘pep talks’ become the power anthems we all need to ‘gas ourselves up’. Here, she shares an exclusive editorial shot with friends in her ‘playtime’ and explains the scenarios behind her music - and me being her ‘good time gal’ got to listen to a sneaky bit of her debut EP, Cruel Practice.

Who is Shygirl?

Aspects of my personality but she definitely has a life of her own.

And is Shygirl really shy? Or does she just not like small talk?

She’s not down for small talk, time is precious.

What genre would you say you fit into, or do you even fit anywhere?

It’s more of an amalgamation of genres born in the club but not tied completely to it.

Who are your long-time musical influences?

Moloko, Faithless, Massive Attack are the old school ones but also a lot of grime and UK drill.

Who are you currently obsessed with?

Currently obsessed with this guy Loski and his song mummy’s kitchen, I play it every day.

So, when did Shygirl's magical journey/ spiral start?

I think maybe two years ago the beginnings of Shy started to appear when I started to try some stuff with Sega Bodega but really came through with the first single, ‘Want More’”.

I have been following Shygirl a short time, and it has been interesting reading back at older interviews and checking out her earlier music. An artist who has definitely grown since 2018 (and before), she is going to continue to grow and take her music to the masses. I think Nymph will take her t new heights. Last year, Rolling Stone spoke with Shygirl. It was at a time when things were starting to open up during the pandemic:

“As the world re-opens and live music and nightlife return, you can sense a significant shift of energy in the air. A fluctuation in the cultural mood. More people are returning to the summer parties and club nights that once cemented us in the present moment and reified our participation in living amongst other people. The artist and DJ Shygirl has emerged as the soundtrack to the moment. The 28-year-old musician has seen a steady rise in the U.K. Grime and queer club scenes and is known for her unique synthesis of the two. At one moment, she’s rapping over industrial house beats and at another, she’s floating on internet-y pop beats (SOPHIE was a prominent collaborator of hers, alongside Sega Bodega and Arca). Shygirl utilizes her deep vibrato and smutty lyricism to generate energy that’s raunchy and infectious. Naturally, her sharp and danceable sound has found an audience on Tiktok, where it’s rising in popularity in the same way that nightlife — and specifically, the underground club world — is experiencing its own kind of renaissance.

Shygirl’s upcoming live experience, Blu, is a short film that she conceived of and directed. It uses tracks from her critically-acclaimed 2020 EP Alias, as well as the debut of a new single, “BDE,” featuring the rapper Slowthai. Shygirl’s sound is a gift to our inner hot girls this summer, something we can all get down to in a time that we should use to celebrate being alive.

Shygirl talked to Rolling Stone about her inspirations, defying genre, the power of the dancefloor, and being a woman who doesn’t shy away from knowing what she wants.

PHOTO CREDIT: Trinity Ellis

How has the club scene influenced your approach to making music?

I’d been working at a modeling agency for three years, and I started DJing whilst I was there. I had links to fashion parties. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. Like, I literally just started learning on the job. It was fun. In that respect, it influenced me, because the way I approach music is [similar to DJing] in terms of how I’m selecting sounds and how the development of the track goes like I’m mixing within the track. When I first started making music, I didn’t have any technical terms. I was talking about energies and I was referencing soundtracks or beats. I’m still painting this picture of the club that I imagined long before I ever started being in them, you know? It’s what we chase when we go to the club, this idea I had when I was listening to club music when I was 12 or 13. You imagine this space where you’re free to completely be in tune with your body, the music, and just lose yourself. That is what I’m still trying to bring forth.

Maybe more important is my core friendship group [that I’ve met] in that club space. We’ll always have that connection of finding each other in that space, especially when you’re in the queer community. I sometimes think of the queer community as this elite group who managed to forge themselves through the flames of the club, you know? Something where people often associate loose morals and fast friends, but we’ve actually found family.

Have you met a lot of the producers through that scene, or more through the internet and social media?

I’m a really sociable person. [When I was still at] uni, I was interning at this design agency as a creative consultant, and one of the things we were doing was rebranding club entities. So through that, I wrote a blog and I ended up interviewing Sega Bodega at this gig, and then we just became friends. We’ve [now] been friends for over 10… Oh, I don’t even know. It feels like a long, long time, through our formative years and adulthood. When I first met him I was finding my feet. I’d just started clubbing and doing things by myself. I think I’d said to myself that year, “I just want to meet people.” And I met so many people when I was in that mood, you know? I would always say yes to things. That’s before I was making music. And then, in 2016 when I did start making music, those same friends were like, “Okay, do you wanna try something out? Like, call us.”

When I first started making music I felt so lucky to be around some people like SOPHIE, who I’d known for a long time; and then to gain their respect [in music], which is something I never thought I would have. I think sometimes you’re probably more self-conscious when you’re in proximity to so many talented people. I thought I was encroaching on their space. They didn’t [think that], and it’s still a constant surprise to me when someone reaches out, new or old, and respects what I’m doing.

How has your mindset changed with making music since when you first started in 2016?

I have more ambition for things, sonically. Once you start doing anything you’re constantly testing your limitations and boundaries. The edges start to form of what you think you can or can’t do, and what you haven’t done yet, and what you want to do more of. When I first started making music I felt so reactionary, like I was treading the shallow end of this huge pool that was available to me. Especially with Alias, it felt way more directional. I had this feeling that I was following. With songs like “Slime,” where I was working with Sega and SOPHIE, at one point everyone was saying,”That’s done, sounds good,” and I was like, “It’s not done.” I know what I’m trying to make. I can’t explain it, but I know what I’m trying to do, you know? I had an inkling of it in the first EP, with “Asher Wolf”. I had to really push Sega to work on it ’cause he was like, “I don’t think this is good,” and I was like, “No, I know what it needs. It should sound like this”.

Before coming to a more recent interview, there is another from 2021 that I was to highlight. Shygirl has made a name for herself here in the U.K., but her music has also reached American audiences. She is someone who is primed for long-term success. Pitchfork sat down with the amazing Shygirl last August:

“Growing up, her parents encouraged matching a wide-eyed approach to the world with pragmatic, stability-first ambition: “They really encouraged me to be studious,” Shygirl explains. “They said, ‘Go get a job that has holiday pay and sick pay.’ I was such a goody-goody. I listened to my parents, because I really respect them. Then I was like, ‘Okay. Now I’m going to do some shit for myself.’” In her early 20s, after leaving home to study practical photography at university, she bloomed, finding asylum in London’s expansive creative community. She worked at a modeling agency during the day, DJed at night, and built a network of like-minded friends. Her music career was a happy accident borne of those friendships. “When people take in the work that I’m making, I didn’t just sit in my room alone and make all that stuff,” she says. “It takes a village. It really does.”

When her pal, the producer Sega Bodega, asked her to hop on a track in 2016, she gave it a go. The result, a trippy industrial banger aptly called “Want More,” was spectacular. In a tone equally disaffected and at ease, she narrates her terms for a sexual encounter: “You wanna go slow, I ain’t into it; you wanna talk shit, I ain’t into it; you want more, I ain’t into it.” Through that expression of desire and control, Shygirl had found her voice, and herself. But where her articulation of the corporeal brought her both delight and existential peace, others saw holy terror. “In my everyday life, me and my friends kiki about sex all the time and we’re healthier for it—because if something fucked does happen, we’re talking about that as well,” she says. “A lot of my process has been writing about stuff that wasn’t very fun for me and giving it a new context, something that is touched by bliss or happiness.”

Over the next few years, Shygirl continued to experiment, racking up releases with Sega and a couple of other friend-collaborators, with whom she co-founded the label and collective NUXXE. Her 2018 debut Cruel Practice, a five-track EP that excavates the contradictory grit and gloss of London youth culture, yielded global attention. When she pranced all over the Sega-produced 2019 single “UCKERS,” cooly challenging a partner to be “the one to turn [her] out,” Shygirl arguably broke through. Her music had already been synced in Fenty ads and runway shows, but soon there were gigs in Asia, link-ups with Arca, and a slot alongside Kendall Jenner and FKA twigs in a Burberry campaign—all inroads to a uniquely sovereign career.

You have a background in creative agency work. Has that helped you navigate the music world?

For the most part, creative stuff is still difficult in this industry. There’s a lot of misogyny. I went on a [Shygirl] video shoot the other day. It was a three-day shoot that I was directing. I tend to take co-direction credits or work with another director because I don’t really like to work with the film crews because a lot of them are hella misogynistic. They don’t listen to female directors anyway, let alone someone wearing two hats as the artist and the director.

But this one in particular, I was like, “If I work with another director, that’s kind of rude because right now I just don’t have the space for someone else’s ideas.” We were in pre-production [for months]. I felt like we had a really, really good team. And then on the day, the [director of photography] was so misogynistic, not listening to anything. Because I’m in the edit process now, I’m seeing where that attitude affected the shots. And one of the guys who was operating the crane for the camera, he ended up being really racist. I was like, “If it comes to between cutting the shot and this guy, I’m going to cut the guy and [lose] the shot. I can’t have a rogue racist on set.”

In my experience it’s often Black women who are put in the position of having to stick our necks out for everyone else.

I think it’s really important for someone like myself who is intersectional in these spaces to speak up, because there’s lots of people who can’t. They’re not supported. And I do feel like [ignoring bad behavior] is a gateway to other things like misogyny, racism, sexual assault. They keep finding people doing those things and exposing them, but then not exposing the industry that supports it. I think we do really have to tackle this antiquated idea of how the system runs. I want to make sure that when I’m working with people, they know that they’re entering into a safe space.

A lot of people say things like, “Oh, you’re being too sensitive.” I would rather be sensitive. I don’t think it’s a badge of honor to be stoic. It’s something in the last year that I’ve really kind of taken on board, especially after BLM was being spoken about so much. I really realized that there were a lot of behaviors that I had normalized and in turn had made space for. And I made a promise to myself in order to remove that behavior, I am speaking out more and I have less of a tolerance for it. And I want anyone else I’m working with or who wants to work with me to know that. I don’t want to put up with bullshit at work. I don’t want it anywhere”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Richard Burbridge

The final interview that I am keen to reference is from this year. V MAGAZINE spotlighted a genre-bending artist who is entering a new era with her highly anticipated debut album, Nymph. She is someone that everyone needs to be aware of. She is definitely one of the best and brightest young British artists:

“V: What would you say the conceptualization process for the album was like, what was the recording process like for you?

SG: There's definitely some songs that stay true to what they were in their inception. But a lot of the music I recorded earlier that appears on the album went through a process to become what they are. There's songs like “Nike” that I made in the middle of lockdown around the same time that I made “Tasty” on the second EP (ALIAS) but we changed the production on the song to bring it up to where I'm at currently as an artist and in life. There are some things on the album that have a journey like that. Ultimately I do feel like you're saying a lot of things to yourself subconsciously when [conceptualizing] and recording a [project]—or at least I do anyway. When I'm making music, I start to see or read into the patterns in the messages of the lyrics. When I had everything in front of me and the more music I made, the more I realized what I was, and what kind of environment I was trying to build for myself sonically.

V: That’s interesting that the creation process for you has been more of a natural or organic process. When I think of the beats that your vocals are nestled in, I don’t think organic. When did you know you were done, what was the process like of getting to that place?

SG: It was around December (of 2021) when I probably had a bulk of the album and that's when I started to pull in little things that I'd already made, like maybe two years before that. But I felt I had the same messaging as what I was making currently. Like [the song] “Come For Me” was probably the beginning of this more sensitive side, I was like reaching out, almost like a siren song. I feel like there's a lot of this, siren-like, mythology within how I'm calling out to people to listen to how I feel, you know? Like that's what I identify with the most, a kind of fantasy of that almost. I feel like that ethos seeped into the importance of how I deliver my message and where I kind feel grounded. It is a weird thing to feel grounded in something that's much larger than me. This becomes an idea rather than the reality, but I think that's what I like most about it. We always methodized things like we have this idea of a grand of self-importance. And as soon as you start writing a song, you are sending up an emotion to the highest degree, you are making it important enough to write a whole song about. So I think there should be some mythology around it. And that's kind of how I came to Nymph being the backbone of the album’s energy. I wanted to almost look back on this and see myself encapsulated beyond the reality of me.

V: Leaning into the consumption of your art, we are a few months away from the release of this debut album that has been a labor of love for you, how are you feeling? You are more vulnerable than ever, you take the people who consume your music into a different realm of Shygirl this time around. Is that daunting for you? You just said how the world does affect you, so how does all of that play into how you are feeling ahead of this release?

SG: I hope people have space to consider this side of me, you know, without being blocked so much by their expectations. But I have always really pushed against what people expect of me because I don't understand how people can be so comfortable in their expectations when I don't even know what to expect from myself. I'm constantly trying to surprise myself and I am surprised by what I'm able to accomplish. So when other people have such clear expectations of me, I'm like, “Whoa, like why?” And if I can do anything to assuage those expectations, I would definitely endeavor to do that. But, yes, it is daunting because you're basically putting yourself up for public opinion. What daunts me more is I want to be affected by the space that I put the music out, but I also don't wanna lose sight of the things that bring me pleasure and bring me joy. I want to make sure that I'm always able to decipher what it is that I need from myself through that conversation”.

I am going to wrap things up in a second. Before that, I would advise people to pre-order Nymph. It is going to be one of the most important and best debut albums of this year. It is going to be really interesting seeing what comes in her future. She is an artist who can go very far indeed:

“Experimental pop artist Shygirl releases her debut full-length album Nymph via Because Music. The 12-track album was created with a close-knit group of friends and previous collaborators including Mura Masa, Sega Bodega, Karma Kid, Arca and Cosha along with the producers Noah Goldstein, Danny L Harle, BloodPop, Vegyn and Kingdom. Nymph reveals Shygirl’s inner self-reflection in experimental vocal tones and deconstructed dance melodies and exhibits a new level of intimacy and emotional depth in her songwriting. Simultaneously asserting her power and freedom and yet still longing for love, she delivers us lyrical harmonies and catchy hooks telling stories of relationships, sexual desires and romantic frustrations. Over lush production, Shygirl brings us on the journey of what intimacy is like for a woman who’s seen as ‘too hot to handle’, someone sought after and overlooked at the same time. Shygirl’s melodies intertwine with the sounds of bassline, garage, dancehall and hip hop, all seamlessly flowing together like an artful ribbon dance”.

Go and follow Shygirl and get her amazing debut album. A talent impossible to easily define or pigeonhole, her music is always evolving and being shaped. Even though it is still early days when it comes to her career, Shygirl is standing aside from her peers. You only need to spin one song from her to realise that she is…