Baby Queen on sexuality, anti-perfectionism, and baring her soul through her music: ‘I completely ripped the Band-Aid off with some of those lyrics’

Which brings us to the present day: as GLAMOUR speaks face-to-face with Baby Queen via Zoom, getting a full-view of her backdrop of electric guitars hung up on the wall. Our conversation turns out to be a rollercoaster that moves from the creative challenge of making music during a pandemic and the inside scoop on being mentored by Courtney Love to the differing attitudes towards queer sexuality in the UK versus Baby Queen’s native South Africa and, finally, her predictions for the future of the music industry (“When the Kardashians start dating rock stars, that’s when you know, because those Kardashians – I’m telling you – they’re ahead of the curve…”).

You signed to your record label, Polydor, over Zoom in 2020. How did you find navigating such a ‘making it’ moment, during a pandemic?

It was weird, man. You’ve got these expectations on you – you have this image in your of what that moment’s going to be like, because it’s a big one. I mean signing isn’t everything, but as a kid you think it is. So we all popped on Zoom and everyone went “woo!”. And then we logged off and I was like, cool. It was kind of sheltered because everyone was at home. It’s not the same as being suddenly thrown into being a professional musician, when you’re out in the world. So the whole thing was weird until we could play shows.

I guess it’s a tale of two extremes: either you’ll be on stage or you’ll be at home writing in your bedroom feeling introspective.

It is. I’m busy writing at the moment, trying to finish an album, and it is a very different thing. And you sort of use the experience from playing live in writing as well – because you write with the idea you’ll be playing to a live audience. But you never know with the creative process: I was super inspired at the beginning during the first lockdown – and I’ve never found that same sense of productivity creating until right now.

I want to ask more specifically about one of your most popular songs, ‘Wannabe’. It’s been described as an underdog anthem. What appeals to you about being an underdog?

I’ve had that feeling my whole life. I’ve got an older sister and it’s a classic trope. You always feel in the shadow of someone. I felt like no one expected much from me because I was much quieter. I was at school and I had people telling me I couldn’t sing. I think there’s something about that that I loved… because part of my ambition came from this desire to prove people wrong. It was like a huge driving force in me to be like [Baby Queen does a middle finger gesture]. That’s given me a lot of fire.

Fuel is fuel, right?

Yeah, exactly. Like you get it from where you’re going to get it from. That’s something I speak to a lot. I speak a lot about that with my producer and my manager – like wherever you’re going to get the inspiration from, you’ve gotta just accept, accept it from that place, you know?