Styling by Simone Beyene and Matthew Josephs
Where to begin? In 2015, at just 19 years old, Mabel broke through as a teen pop star, and has since added 12 top 20 UK singles, two top three UK albums, a Best Female Solo Brit Award and more than 4.5 billion global streams to her list of big wins. She’s experimented with her sound in public, trying everything from slick pop-R&B and afrobeat features to empowerment bangers, like ‘Bedroom’, the hip-bumping exploration of a messy situationship off her 2017 EP of the same name. Then there was her 2019 post-breakup hit, ‘Don’t Call Me Up’, which displayed a certain level of shoulders-back toughness as the accolades came tumbling in.
But there is also a dark side to experiencing so much success, so young. A self-described introvert who “didn’t have socials before I started making music”, the now 28-year-old daughter of Neneh Cherry and super-producer Cameron McVey admits that the wave of public critique (and praise) was destabilising at times, especially as people fixated on her looks online. “I separated myself so much from my music, because I think I wasn’t entirely happy with everything. It was kind of like a train that was running, but I didn’t really know who was driving it,” she reveals.
It’s a feeling Shygirl can certainly relate to – the way you’re treated, or almost consumed, by people who see you as a borderline-untouchable sexual being who is nevertheless a part of the public domain. Which is why the multidisciplinary artist flipped the script, building a whole narrative around declaring what she wanted – and needed – sexually on her 2016 debut single ‘Want More’, produced by longtime collaborator Sega Bodega.
Shygirl has made a point to set the terms ever since – how she’ll be spoken to, touched, loved, amused. It took a declarative voice like hers to make desire this unambiguous over beats that clatter like a cutlery drawer one moment then swallow you into the wobble of a bassline the next. Since releasing her 2018 EP Cruel Practice and its 2020 follow-up, Alias, the now 30-year-old, who also runs the live club experience-turned-EP Club Shy, has established herself as a singular voice in the sweaty, smoke-machined blur between dance music, rap and an early morning afters. Her 2022 Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut album, Nymph, saw her exploring, in ever closer detail, the delicate strands that hang between intimacy, sex and yearning. Her feature on Mabel’s new single ‘Look at My Body’, has just the right timbre to effectively turn the male gaze on its head. The song seems to say (with an arched brow): you can look – but don’t underestimate us.
It's a collaboration that was always on the cards. “We have a lot of friends in common and I feel like you can really tell something about someone by the company they keep. So, even before we met, I knew we would get on,” Shygirl says of her immediate kinship with Mabel, who she met in Barcelona at Primavera Sound in 2022. “That’s how I wanna collaborate now,” adds Mabel. “Working with people I know I can hang out with. It’s so long, otherwise!”
With its speaker-shaking hooks, their first collaboration hints at this collective bond while also offering something of an anthem for all women who are caught in the glare of public objectification. “The song is more about reassuring and being there for yourself, because before anyone else can give you that, you have to give it to yourself.”
Let’s start at the beginning: what was your creative meet-cute leading up to making ‘Look at My Body’?
Mabel: We met properly at Primavera, right?
Shygirl: It was that hectic, ‘coming back from Covid’ festival season.
Mabel: A sensory overload, all summer, where you’d see people and think, [sighs] “How do I…? I’m awkward!”
Shygirl: Haha, literally very awkward. Rina [Sawayama] was there as well, so it was nice to all meet up. But I’ve been a fan for ages. And obviously I’ve worked with Oscar Scheller, who’s a good friend of yours as well.
Mabel: We went to school together.
Shygirl: When we finally got in the studio, it took two seconds to lay down the verses.
How do you both see the song’s duality, when it comes to body image and finding confidence as women?
Mabel: I don’t know if you ever, 100%, get to that place of confidence.
Shygirl: Yeah, this song’s gonna be hard to sing some days.
Mabel: That’s the truth. I know I found myself getting self-conscious even when we were shooting the video, and I realised: that’s the whole point. I am so much closer, in general, to being in a place where I’m like, “I’m so much more than my physical appearance.” For years, I definitely placed a lot of my value on the way I looked.
Shygirl: That’s why you have to leave messages for yourself in a song, or find it on stage – or when you don’t have it, to offer it to someone else. It’s been something that I can imagine is the same for you. It’s kind of thrust on you when you’re just like, “I’m only here to make music.”
Mabel: How much time do you think you spend in glam? I spend so much fucking time in glam, right? And I love that.
Shygirl: It’s the transformativeness of it.
Mabel: It becomes an armour, right? That’s what I’ve felt. That when people were being really horrible to me, there was power in the glam, in how I chose to present myself. I’ve gone through some very tough times as an artist, even thinking I wasn’t gonna do music any more, maybe two years ago. You have to find the power in glam by doing it for yourself.
Shygirl: I’ve gone back and forth, between a full face and literally not doing anything just for the fun of it.
Mabel: But you’re making the decision, you know?
Shygirl: It’s theatrical, what we do. Part of getting glammed up, or how you dress, is it’s the uniform in which we come to work. And when I take that off, I can actually relax. It’s why I wear a wig for work, and not my hair out, so that when I go home, I can have some separation between church and state, almost. That there’s something I’ve yet to reveal to those people in my personal space.
Mabel: On my own, I take really long showers, with my waterproof speaker.
Shygirl: I need that! I’m so bad with taking my laptop into the bathroom [laughs].
Mabel: Girl, you’re playing with fire! I’ll be in the shower for ages, listening to music, and then I have a steam shower. I sit there for so long, just pruning. I have a little glam room upstairs, and find it so relaxing to put my trash reality TV on and do loads of skincare. I will sit there for hours like, “I’m gonna do this face mask, and that one.”
Shygirl: Taking care of my hair is my biggest ritual: taking out my hair and washing it are such relaxing things. And I’m very much a water baby. I need an hour-long bath – running the water out, pouring it back in. When Real Housewives is on, that’s when my boyfriend knows it’s my time.
Mabel: Do you party at Club Shy? Do you find that it’s relaxing?
Shygirl: Yeah, I do party. I have a really great team who help put on the shows because I know what it was like putting on parties back in the day. I was like, “I’m not doing that again.” So now the one place I do put the money in is production. Everyone I ask to play is a friend, and I know what they like and what I would like – and that’s a big difference. It’s not about me hiding backstage for half the night. I want to be out and make sure what’s going on outside is what I would want to be in myself. I wanted to get that back for myself because it is hard to find anonymity in the club space now. But I really want to see my friends. I want to see you.
Mabel: I’m coming to Club Shy at Fabric. Listen, from the age of 30, it’s pre-planned turn ups. You can’t call me on a Friday night and just be like, “Do you want to go out at this big age?” I’m gonna say no. Before, I was such a club rat. I’d go to the opening of a letter.
Shygirl: I was watching your 2020 Brits performance the other day, and I thought, “It is actually insane that you did this, so early on as well.” And it’s so good.
Mabel: I was a baby!
Shygirl: Honestly, for me, I find that so inspiring. Because when things feel too big, I do look at performances like ones you’ve done, and I’m like, “Wow, it’s insane that you accomplished that so early on.” And now being in the studio with you, I see how there’s so much more.
Mabel: There’s so much more. I think I wasn’t ready for what happened to me. I’m so grateful. I got through it, but that’s how everything felt for a long time: I was getting through it. I’d see those big stages, and all of a sudden I was getting negative comments from people. But now I’m so excited, when I get those opportunities again, to show people that I’m really in it.
Shygirl: Same with me – I’m so ready to do better.
Mabel: That’s what makes great artists though, isn’t it? You have to find a balance.
How much inspiration do you both find in late-night “deep and meaningfuls”?
Mabel: It’s where most of it comes from.
Shygirl: I’m a big oversharer, and there’s something about me that makes people just go there with me. And those human interactions inspire me. Sometimes they break loose things you’ve been trying to put into words for ages.
Mabel: I feel like it’s the most important part of it. It might go into your subconscious and then you’ll be in the studio and remember, “I had this conversation with the Uber driver…” Working on all my new music, I went into those deep and meaningfuls in sessions so much, writing with my brother.
Shygirl: Yeah! The studio is like therapy. I used to really attach to being in turmoil because it’s so much easier to gravitate towards that kind of emotion to draw something from. I was intimidated by the thought of being happy, for writing. But I’ve been really content, and since then I think I’ve written some of my best songs.
Mabel: Life still lifes. You don’t have to be the drama.
