FEATURE:
Modern-Day Queens
Sugababes for years now. Their debut, One Touch, was released in 2000. Since then, the group has experienced shifts and line-up changes. The original trio of Keisha Buchanan, Siobhán Donaghy, and Mutya Buena come together for a new album, Sugababes will be released on 12th February, 2027. It is quite a big moment. You do wonder whether Sugababes will perform at festivals next year. Few people expected that original line-up to get back together. This is a new phase for one of our best groups. Because of that, I did want to highlight them for Modern-Day Queens. There will be more interviews and discussion closer to the release of their eponymous album. It is clear that the trio have this enormous following. It is not just listeners who were listening to them back in 2000. There is a new wave of younger fans who are connecting with them. Their performances at Glastonbury in 2022 and 2024 were the stuff of legends. Although they might not be playing Glastonbury next year, there will be demand for them to tour when their eponymous album is released. There are a couple of interviews I want to highlight. One is from September. I want to start by going back to last year and Glamour. They were named Women of the Year. You do hope that this reformed original line-up continues strong for years more:
“Over the years, the slow disassembly of the original Sugababes has been somewhat trivialised by over-simplified tabloid narratives and online snark, but the long, careful pause each of the women takes before speaking about the road they took to reconciliation is still heavy with emotional weight. That early ice-breaker meeting was a therapeutic first step. “We wanted to feel confident that we were gonna approach each other with the sensitivity that the situation needed when we talk about childhood trauma like that,” says Siobhan. “We needed to know that we had each other’s back.”
Talks snowballed into studio sessions and then a major new label deal. The group’s first shot at a second chance – under the name Mutya Keisha Siobhan (MKS) put their newfound solidarity to the test. They released a single in 2013, Flatline, produced by Dev Hynes, which was critically well-received but commercially unsuccessful, which led to the entire project being shelved. They also faced complications over the ownership of the Sugababes trademark. But, they tell me, they stood their ground and fought – and won – for their original name.
These battles, Keisha says, made their relationship “way more solid. Being able to go through those trenches, to constantly be told no, constantly told who we should be, to have those frustrations… We had every reason to give up, but then God was like, ‘It’s your time.’”
In 2019, they got both their name and their groove back. They collaborated with DJ Spoony on a cover of the Sweet Female Attitude classic Flowers and hit a new chart peak with the 20th anniversary rerelease of One Touch in 2021 which included brand new remixes from MNEK and Blood Orange, as well as previously unheard demos. They booked a handful of festival appearances for 2022, “to test the waters and see if our nervous systems could take it”, making a triumphant return to the stage with an all-killer, no-filler headline performance at Mighty Hoopla that year, their first live show since 2013. The rapturous reception they received came as a surprise.
“We were gearing up for the struggle again,” Siobhan explains. “But then we did Mighty Hoopla,” says Keisha, “and it was like people really wanted us to do well.” But even Mighty Hoopla couldn’t prepare them for Glastonbury, a few weeks later. As a completely unprecedented number of fans flooded the Avalon stage, the festival was forced to shut the field down to prevent dangerous overcrowding. “It really was too much to process. It was very overwhelming,” Siobhan says. “They had to make the PA so loud to project it past the tent into the field. I think I was in shock when I came off stage.” Mutya adds: “I literally went deaf for about half an hour. I couldn’t walk, my knees were wobbling.”
Glastonbury 2022 marked a turning point for the group’s new public perception, as well as the way they perceived themselves. They shriek with laughter when I tell them about a rowdy (but remarkably respectful) group of young men I stood next to at their sold-out London show earlier this year, who lost their minds every time the choreography called for them to roll their hips. “I always get really nervous before we go on stage because you never know what the crowd is,” Mutya confesses. “But they’re starting to get younger and younger. There was one show we did that turned into a mosh pit. We were singing and the lads were just moshing. Hilarious.”
So now, to the future. A new album, finally, in early 2026. It will be their first full-length project since dropping their cancelled 2013 release The Lost Tapes on streaming services as a thank you to fans and finally bringing the Mutya Keisha Siobhan chapter of their story to a close. “Everything that we’re doing now is what we hoped MKS would have been back then,” Keisha says. “People talk about selling records and stuff, but I genuinely think the goal is to make an imprint. It’s actually so humbling, 25 years later, to sit and think: this is the dream.”
Their unwavering conviction in the intrinsic qualities the three of them bring to the table and a firm insistence that they be recognised for those contributions have held them together during the long fight for ownership of the legacy they created. Now, having survived the “trenches”, they are able to fully appreciate the powerful example their quiet resolve has set for other women.
“We’ve really worked our arses off throughout the years and been really humble about it as well,” says Mutya. “We’ve stuck through so much shit that’s been said about us. We could have all quit at different times, but we decided to stick together.”
“I’d like to think that what we reflect is strength and resilience and sisterhood,” Keisha says in agreement. “I’m just glad that we never compromised. It was never about the money, never about the fame. We love what we do and it’s now in our hands”.
The next interview I want to highlight is from British Vogue from September. Sugababes discuss how they don’t see them as a girl band. Compared to their peers, there was an edge and a roughness. Not polished and as commercial as others. I think that a lot of the groups coming through now that are called girl bands are indebted to Sugababes. So many look up to them and what they achieved:
“I wonder if they still see their teen selves when they look at each other. Whether they feel as though any time has passed. “I do feel like we are just elevated versions of our teen selves,” says Keisha, her eyes flicking to the others through the camera lens. “A lot of things are the same as they were, but a lot of things have changed... Our personal lives have been very, very different from each other. That’s great for our writing because when we’re able to come together, it is from different perspectives.” Mutya agrees. “I mean, I still look at myself as quite young,” she says. “It doesn’t feel like as many years as it’s been. I find it quite refreshing to always keep going out with new material and performing with the girls.”
Lead single “Ghost”, out today, is a collective favourite. “It came from something that happened to me with my first love,” explains Siobhán. “He essentially ghosted me before we even had the terminology for it. I remember joking at the time that in some ways it would have been easier if he’d died – which is obviously incredibly dramatic, but there’s something strange about grieving someone who’s still out there.” Musically, they wanted it to feel scuzzy and imperfect, “rather than over-produced. There’s something about that looseness that gives the song its character. We weren’t consciously trying to make something that sounded like an old Sugababes record, but once the three voices are on something with that slightly raw, soulful quality, I think it naturally starts to feel like us”.
It took a while to get to a place where everything felt smooth sailing. “Where do we start?” Keisha laughs when I ask how she got their name back. “I had the rights to the name from old contracts, and there was a lot of tricky things going on behind the scenes and, pretty much, I had to take on a few giants in order for that to happen… It wasn’t easy. There were a lot of things that went on financially.”
What Keisha is most proud of, she says, is how they did it at a time in which there wasn’t much going on for them as a band. “What I really admire about our journey is that we were doing things when there was no support, even by the industry. There was no management. No one saying ‘Girls, you’ve got to do this’, you know?” I ask whether they’ve had any encouragement from former Sugababes members, and there’s an awkward pause. Keisha breaks the ice. “It’s all love,” she smiles, diplomatically. “We just wish everyone the best.”
I bring up their famous Glastonbury performances. In both 2022 and 2024, the band drew such mammoth crowds that security had to shut down certain sections of the festival, lest there was a stampede. I personally remember having to crawl through a bush on my hands and knees during that first year, just to escape the mania. “It was insane. It was very overwhelming. I think we all came off kind of in shock,” remembers Siobhán, who couldn’t hear her own voice over the screams. “I just remember being in a really big leather jacket, and feeling like I was gonna faint because of the heat,” adds Mutya. “I came off literally feeling like I had lost my hearing”.
This is a wonderful time for Sugababes. With an album out next year, I wanted to discuss them here, as they are one of our greatest groups. Attitude wrote recently how Sugababes fought to perform and use that name. It has been a battle for them, but they are using their platform now to speak up for L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ rights. What you get from Sugababes now as was true back in 2000, is that they are authentically themselves. They do not pose and smile for the cameras on demand. They are very much like “real girls you might see walking around London rather than a group who had been created in a boardroom”:
“They use their platform to its fullest with their LGBTQ+ allyship, which extends far beyond festival stages into direct activist fundraising. When hostility towards transgender people escalated across UK public discourse, the trio put themselves on the line. Joining forces with Olly Alexander and Mighty Hoopla, Sugababes signed on as marquee performers for Trans Mission, an all-star charity concert aimed at fighting discrimination which took place in March at Wembley Arena. The initiative raised critical funds for trans-led advocacy groups, including Not A Phase and the Good Law Project, with Mutya and Siobhán both opening up about having transgender loved ones and personal connections to the trans community.
And perhaps that’s what makes the Sugababes story so remarkable. This isn’t simply a group being brought back because people remember their old songs. The trio have had to fight to reclaim something that was taken away from them, and they’ve come back stronger because of it.
For Mutya, Keisha and Siobhán, The Music Award, supported by M&S, at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards 2026, in partnership with M&S and electrified by Polestar, honours something far more rare: complete ownership of their artistry. They survived the machine, fought to regain the rights to their legacy and emerged at the absolute height of their vocal and artistic powers”.
Ahead of the release of Sugababes on 12th February, 2027, they have a string of tour dates, so fans can catch them in the flesh. The dates are as follows: 16th March, 2027 - O2 Institute, Birmingham, 17th March - O2 Institute, Birmingham, 19th March - O2 Academy Glasgow, 20th March - O2 Academy Glasgow, 23rd March - O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, 24th March - O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, 26th March - Manchester Academy and 27th March - Manchester Academy. It will be great to see Sugababes on the road. After the album comes out, I suppose there will be more material after that, though they will want to concentrate on the album and take one step at a time. I was very keen to write about…
THIS legendary trio.