She - Harleighblu Interview
“I am a feminist making music for women.”
- Harleighblu
BY KYLE WJ GONSALVES
Hey, how you doing today?
Yeah I’m bless. Life is good. Running around like a blue arse fly, trying to sort my life out before I go to LA but yeah good man.
Sweet. I’m going to start with more basic interview questions, then we can move on to some more specialised ones and finish off with some quick-fire fun questions. Sound good?
Ooooo okay.
Cool, we’ll start with this old chestnut: when and where did you start your musical journey?
I started it in Nottingham where I’m from, in a little community centre. It was a space that offered a place to get kids off the street, where I used to write raps and sing on top and that. We used to perform at Nottingham Carnival/Caribbean Carnival and sing in church. Been singing since a little nipper really.
What were your first musical influences, and what was the first physical piece of music you owned? E.g. Vinyl, CD, etc.
My mum actually is a mad record collector. So she basically bought me up on like Reg-Roots, Jazz, Funk, Soul, Reggae. She should have been a DJ basically. When I was about 10/11 I started getting into Neo-Soul and she bought me “Jill Scott - Who Is Jill Scott?” That was my first CD and I’ve been obsessed with her ever since. But yeah then I got into obviously Lauryn Hill, and Erykah then led me into Hip-Hop, Amy Winehouse and then just grew from there. My mum’s just been a huge influence. You know when you’ve got a Treasure Trove of a record collection that your mum just buss out and listens too then like yeah you’re going to be influenced by all sorts.
She will have rarest of grooves ya know. “Mad Marlena Shaw”, records like the “Jones Girls” and “Go Away Little Boy”. She used to go crate digging and that, you know the ones that aren’t even labelled properly?
Yeah like Dubs or white labels?
Yeah! Like that kinda shit, where I can’t even… It’s an awkward question some of them I don’t even know the name of, but if you played it I could sing every word ya know?
Yeah, I feel you. That’s a big answer I’ll be typing up later haha. All jokes aside though, I feel you. I anticipated it. I’m an artist myself so I could go on about my influences for hours, specifically the first piece of music I owned. You know Plan B, Mike Skinner?
I was just listening to Mike skinner this morning actually!
He’s A DON!
Yeah, he is a don.
I used to listen like stories when I was a kid and then when I came into my teens, I got “A Grand Don’t Come for Free” as like bedtime stories haha.
That’s what I was genuinely listening to this morning. There’s this girl on it called Simone [“Get Out My House”] and she’s actually a Notts girl!
LOVE THAT! So fast forward to now, who are your top 3 artists you are listening to at the moment?
Errrrm hard one there’s loads, so let’s go with Anderson Paak.
Jheeeeeeze.
Yeah I always listen to him, as I’m a bit of a super-fan of his. Then I will saaaaaay “Moon Child” they are an LA underground band who are super super super dope. There’s to many. Well I’ll say I was working out at the gym to “The Internet” so let’s go with them; Sid is just really amazing to be honest and makes really beautiful music. I just love how there are modern American artists not afraid to do a proper R’n’B track. It felt like a few years ago R’n’B tracks were more underground. I even use to get told “oh you sound too American” or like “you’re Retro, a throwback you’re too soulful.”
How can you be too soulful??
I know right! The thing is that over the last few years this style of music has blown in this country now. You know like Giles Peterson did a whole massive fucking Jazz Festival specifically celebrating it.
Yeah and obviously Jorja Smith aswell.
Yeah Jorja Smith, Mahalia, like Kamaal Williams, Iamddb.
Even Kojey dropped his poetry style and his more soulful on his last project, and do you remember Eliza Doolittle?
Yeaaaaah she’s mad connected.
I feel like we may have said the names already but specifically, who would be your top 3 female artists at the moment?
I feel like I really want to say girls around my age as who I mainly look up to: Your Gill Scotts, Your Erykah Badu’s, Your Amy’s. So I’ll say at the moment, I love Little Simz. I absolutely love her. Gill Scott’s been my idol since I was about 10 so I gotta say Gill Scott, I just have to. I want to do like a third one that’s more like obscure, I don’t just wanna be bait about it. Ahh, that’s who I’m going to pick, Yasmin Lacey. She’s super underground and a local Notts girl, born in London but she’s incredible and I always want to give props to someone that I know.
What is the meaning behind your name?
Erm, it’s my real name. Harleighblu all is one, it’s why I’ve not changed it. So basically I was meant to be a twin and as I told you my mum was a mad Vinyl collector. So she was into this jazz singer called Peggy Blu and it was without the E. So she was going to call her twins Harleigh & Blu. She was telling everyone, “I’m having twins: Harleigh & Blu, Harleigh & Blu, Harleigh & Blu”, and then she lost one because I wasn’t identical. Luckily I wasn’t identical, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, but she loved both the names so she just put them together, and that’s why I have an 11 letter first name. I always get promoters like, “why can’t I separate your names?”, I’m like “It’s my real name bro”
Your most recent album was produced entirely by Bluestaeb. However, “Futurespective” was a combination of producers. Which way do you prefer to work and why?
I personally prefer a little bit of a combination to bet honest; they are both different ways to work.
With just the one producer it was really intimate, we would sit down, create the beat and get musicians, [some of them mine - I’d fly over to Germany] and we would literally just create it there and then. That was the beauty of it really. It was so organically done and everything we wanted on that album just happened naturally.
With a combination of producers, the sound isn’t as cohesive.
In contrast though, sometimes you get a little more control. So, for example, I’ve always wanted the album to be called “She” and Blue was like… “ Why do you want the album to be called she when I’m a bloke?” And I had to justify it as being as much his art as it’s mine. The thing with multiple producers is it’s mine you know what I mean? There are pros and cons of both, I would say because obviously “She” was a collective album it was made how you're meant to make a record, and that’s what makes it special. However, the biggest con was the constant fight for creative control. For instance, I really didn’t like the front cover, the original one, not the ones that happened it was like a red, not a romantic red like fighting red, but there are way more pros than cons.
Your most recent single “Queeen Dem” seems very inspiring to young women out there. What is your main reason behind that?
Well as a young woman myself you hear a lot of negative words: slag, slut or even Diva if you’re a little bit gobby like me or know what you want. I wanted to write a song that was the polar opposite of that and something that was bigging up women in every single sentence. I credited Jan Robinson because her poetry was a big inspiration for writing the song. “This is for the women who don’t give a fuck” made such a big impact on me and that’s why I start the song with that sentence. The poem had such an impact on me. I wanted to give that same feeling to young women as there’s not a lot of that at the moment. I want to be like fuck this shit lets lift each other. The word queen is something that really resonates with me and is something I represent as an artist. Very young women should feel like they’re a queen. That message is lost sometimes, so I wanted to portray it in a track. We made it proper old school and hip hop and obviously it had to be a big bop.
Yeah even the video had that 90’s hip hop feel.
Yeah, Awks Media is actually the director behind “Blue Story”, that new film with Rapman coming out. I knew what ideas I wanted and I came with the models but he made it look like a movie. I knew I wanted it to look London-centric as it’s such a melting pot of cultures and I could represent so many different types of women.
So would you class yourself as a women making feminist music, or a feminist making music for women?
A feminist making music for women I think. I am just what I am, my mums a single mum and she raised me on her own and the way she raised me was to be a strong woman, so I couldn’t make music telling anyone else’s story but my own. Like even “Present” - a track from the album - is based on a true story, which was basically my best friend tried to sleep with my man and that’s why the lyrics are quite explicitly written. I’m not deliberately making a specific type of music, I’m just naturally making music that means a lot to me.
Describe Feminism in one word.
I’m going to say empowering, that is the word. Everything we as feminists are trying to do is just to empower other women and have equal rights, there is no anti going on. Same with racism or homophobia, you’ve gotta fight the good fight. It’s empowering, it’s not to put anyone down. Even with the song like “Call” that’s basically like anti harrassment. I’m doing it in like a tongue ’n’ cheek way, I’m not trying to be preachy I’m just saying my message. I’m just highlighting stuff that’s happened to me. Whatever my story is, I just want someone to take something from it.
Yeah, speak your truth man. So who is the most influential women in your life?
*Without hesitation* My mum, yeah definitely my mum.
Yeah fair enough I thought you would say that to be honest. I know this could be quite awkward a man asking a woman this, but let’s just shed our egos, forget our genders for a bit. You use the word mansplaining in one of your songs, what do you mean by that?
It means like a very bias male perspective on maybe a female issue. At the end of the day, you can only have an opinion from your perspective, so I’m not saying anyone’s a dickhead for accidentally doing it or even purposefully doing it but sometimes it’s a bit like yoooo as a woman I have experienced something over and over again, like catcalling. I might, however, get some mansplain and say “Why are you wearing a short skirt if you don’t want anyone to compliment it?” And I could go one deeper. “Well why can’t I just wear what I want as it’s my body?”, and then he will go one deeper: “at the end of the day if you’ve got it on show, then someones going to say something about it”. That’s an example of mansplaining because you’re not even trying to get it from my perspective. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault, it’s just a lack of education and ignorance.
I’m glad you are speaking about it. So, last question. It’s a bit of a doozy so I’ve saved it for last. How would you describe the term Toxic Masculinity?
I have this conversation with my boyfriend a lot, you know. This is something he tries to make me explain and I don’t think I can in the way I want to. Toxic Masculinity can mean a lot of things but I see it as meaning aggressive and/or hyper-masculine. So you know if someone was like “I’m going to knock him out, I’m going to do this”. That is toxic in itself. However, for a lot of young men they don’t know what they are doing. It is just a way that young men express themselves and is the norm. It’s a difficult thing to pinpoint. Another thing is when we say young men can’t cry, like why? Because you gotta be a man. Why should we teach young men to hide their feelings? It’s not positive and it’s not healthy.
Yeah I agree with you. It’s not as prominent, however in the same breath I just felt as a male who would class himself as a feminist, I needed to bring attention to the fact it’s not spoken about nearly as much as Toxic Masculinity is, we don’t have go into detail about it, that’s a story for another day. Okay, I have a quickfire 10 fun questions to finish us off. Are you ready?
Yeah sweet, let’s get it.
Kendrick or Cole? - Kenny
Apple or Pears? - Pears
Coke or Pepsi? - Coke
Maccy D’s or KFC? - Maccy D’s
Albums or Singles? - Albums
TV or Netflix? - Netflix
Kebab or Pizza? - Kebab (Gluten Free)
Staying in or Going out? - Staying In
Salt or Pepper? - Peeeeeepper
Savoury or Sweet? - Savoury 100%
Sweet, I love that.
I’ve really enjoyed this interview.