FKA twigs

00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. F Gay Twigs is spent over a decade redefining the boundaries of pop music through her innovative blend of electronic production, experimental R and B, and striking visual art. Her album's LP One and Magdalen earned widespread critical acclaim establishing her as one of the most forward thinking voices in contemporary music. Last year, she put out two albums. In November, she released Usexua Afterglow, a companion to her Grammy winning rave inspired album Sexua that she'd released earlier in the year. Both of twigs new albums address identity, bodily, autonomy, and resistance. On today's episode, just hours before she walked on stage to pick up her first Grammy, I talked to F Gay Twigs about her experiences growing up mixed race in rural England and how going to Jamaican clubs as a teenager inspired her dance forward twenty twenty two mixtape capri So. She also explains why, despite being a phenomenal dancer, she's not a fan of TikTok dances, and breaks down the precise moment when all the forces align at a rave that have brought her to the realization that this is the most important moment in culture. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my interview with Fka Twiggs. Head over to YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast to watch the interview.

00:01:43
Speaker 2: My whole life is fucking moment. My whole life is like back against the wool, Like that's when you're like one way out, like to come out like kicking and punching. Do you know what I mean?

00:01:52
Speaker 1: If you had to go back and think about it, when was the first like fuck it moment? Like when did that become a.

00:01:58
Speaker 2: Staple the whole of my life? Like I've always had the Yeah. My stepdad said to me the other day that he's known me for the whole of my life. He was like, he was like, you've spent your whole life in final flight. Yeah, he was like, you've had or you're just like ever since a kid, you've been in like fileflight, Like I've just it's just been like I don't know, like maybe a combination of like the way my life has been the stress of being an artist, you know. Yeah, but even going on stage is fight or flight, you know, like it's kind of do you freeze in front of an audience or do you come out kicking and screaming. It's like everything like even going on tour is file flight. Like even doing like a massive project, do you have that moment like before a big shoot or anything where you're just like, am I going to be able to do this tomorrow?

00:02:38
Speaker 1: And there's got to be with an album, there's got to be at some point where you're like, Okay, I've been tinkering or working for years, this has to work at some point, like this has to be the.

00:02:48
Speaker 2: Thing, right Like yeah, I mean I'm going through it now, like I'm at that point when I was speaking to a director last night and we were talking about the moment when you're at that point in a project where you've swum out so far that you can't see the island behind you, but you can't see the island in front of you. And I'm literally there right now, Like with my next music projects, I'm that like I can't see the island behind me and I can't see the island in front of me, and I'm just like, do you like bolt back and think like don't worry, do you know what I mean?

00:03:13
Speaker 1: Safety?

00:03:14
Speaker 2: Yeah? Or do you like go forward and finish it.

00:03:17
Speaker 1: Are you one of those people, Like I've heard people say, you're performing live, you get butterflies, or you get extreme anxiety or whatever the range of degrees of that is. But there's some people who are addicted to that, almost like adrenaline, as like an adrenaline junkie. Does it feel good? Do you enjoy that feeling?

00:03:35
Speaker 2: I change it around in my head. So sometimes when I'm really nervous, you know you're doing a big show, especially some of the festivals I did last year, like I'm performing a front of eighty thousand people, and you peek around the cut and you think, whose idea was this? I always think that I'm just like, I'm sorry, who so this is a good idea? And I'll get really nervous, And then I always say to myself in my head, and no, it's not that I'm nervous. I'm so excited and I've like got these amazing dance moves, and I've been practicing so much, and I'm so excited to show everybody this thing that I've got. And then I try and psychologically say like, I'm not nervous, I'm not scared. I'm excited to show what I've been practicing like that feeling. You know when you're a kid and you have lunch chopsticks on the piano and you're like, mom, Mom, what's just you know, like that kind of feeling where or you have a picture you've done at school and you want to come home and you're like, look at this. You know, it's like that feeling. I try and make myself think it's that, and it works. It does work.

00:04:33
Speaker 1: That's a great trick.

00:04:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're just excited to show people, like you just can't you can't wait to get out there and show people.

00:04:39
Speaker 1: And then by the time you're on stage, is it are you super in your body, super conscious of everything that's happening, or is it just does it just rush by unconsciously?

00:04:51
Speaker 2: I think for me, the first song is always a bit jelly legs, Like sometimes I just feel a bit like I'm not centered in the first number, like usually with my shows, because I know, for me, the first song is a bit tentative. I tend to start very slow and then you sexually. I thought, I'm gonna try something different, and I'm going to try with the start with the biggest dance number. So I started with perfect Stranger which is like the poppiest song and the biggest dance number that required. I mean, it's not like a super difficult dance routine, but it's like precise because you're dancing with ten people doing everything the same, so it's not really like a lot of room to like mess up. And that was really interesting. I definitely learned a lot making myself go to one hundred first, but now in Body High, I'm not going to do that. Would no, Now I'm gonna actually, do you know what, it is still one hundred for me because Body High. In my next tour, I'm gonna start like playing instruments, which is something that I've never done on stage before, so I guess there will be like a lot of nerves, but I think I'm just forcing myself to like get over a new thing.

00:05:53
Speaker 1: Is that because you need to play instruments on this one or or is it just you want to feel like what would compel you to want to do that at this point?

00:06:03
Speaker 2: Because I play instruments in a non conventional sense in the studio and it's how I produce like drum machines and pads and analogue instruments and noises and like kind of like push them together into some sort of resemblance of something that sounds like a music or a beat. But I've never done it before on stage, and i think I'm reaching a point where I'm searching for autonomy as well even as an artist, because I've never been able to do this thing where it's like, if you are like Twigs, will you come and perform at like my wedding tomorrow? I would have to call a pianist or call my band or say I need to check who's free, you know, to help support me in that, Whereas I have the skill set and the ability to be able to do a set by myself, but it's been fifteen years and I've never tested that. So on body high, I just decided that I was going to start testing that theory of playing instruments a way that I do in the studio. But I've also got an amazing MD. His name's Matt, who is helping me find my way of doing that by triggering things and relating my in studio process to something that is on stage and makes sense, like beyond playing an acoustic guitar or playing the piano, how most like traditional musicians would do.

00:07:22
Speaker 1: That are so these going to be songs off of Afterglow or.

00:07:27
Speaker 2: It's the whole of my discography. Really, yeah, it's everything. I mean, I've been doing this now for fifteen years. It's amazing because there's a song for every mood. And I think I've realized how diverse my music is and that's been really eye opening to me as well, to realize how many different tempos and genres and you know, I've really over the last fifteen years create created like such a vast sonic palette, and I'm learning a lot about myself. I feel like humbled by the amount of music I've created in different ways. I didn't even realize it until putting together Body High. Because Body High the tour, there's lots of different size to me. I can like dance and be a pop star in that sense and do those big group numbers. Then there's also some really experimental electronic music. They're completely like genre defying sounds and it's industrial and it's moody. And then there's a lot of like sensual music. And then there's music that is inherent to who I am, like dance, wall, em bashment and more rhythms that are associated with the music I was brought up on in my own black culture, and like, there is a full picture of who I am as a person, which is so cool.

00:08:39
Speaker 1: It's wild. I couldn't it kind of I went back and listened to your whole discography to do I hadn't done like I actually I had never done that just when one sitting Wow, but you say fifteen years and it did kind of shock me because and it's not that it's it's also that there's been a lot of eras of the music business since you've been around, you know. I mean, it's been a lot of permutations of what music is or how people receive it or listen to it, or how it's distinct. You kind of first came out sort of in a pre Spotify world, you know, and I.

00:09:16
Speaker 2: Sort of it was it was right. I mean I literally remember my manager at the time calling me and being like, there's this thing it's like moving like music streaming platforms, Like you don't have to go on it, but like artists are going on it now if you want to. And I was just kind of like, I mean, yeah, sure, if you whatever, if you think so. I mean I literally remember that conversation of just like it's something that like I could potentially opt out of and it's not that much of a big deal cut to you now, that seems like a hilarious conversation to have, like opting out of streaming because it's not that relevant, you know. And I think I was probably quite late even to going on it, really, I think so, like I just don't remember it being a big part of like my first record, And it was only really when I did Magdalen that I kind of realized that I'd like not been working.

00:10:03
Speaker 1: It, like working the systems.

00:10:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I was like I have any monthly listeners because I not been working it, whereas there's been other artists. I'm probably gonna get this wrong. I'll probably be like corrected whatever. But like I think Frank Ocean had done some deal with with Apple or some streaming things easy.

00:10:19
Speaker 1: He did a deal though, but I don't think it was.

00:10:22
Speaker 2: But I don't know he'd done something with streaming or like artists were at that time doing things with like exclusively giving things.

00:10:28
Speaker 1: Did something. He did something. His album was exclusively on Apple I think for like a week or Yeah, I think it was something like that, kind of.

00:10:34
Speaker 2: Just working it like that like making everyone swarm to this one place to like support that platform or I can't remember. I just remember like artists were like doing cool things and the platforms were kind of like paying people to create, you know things. It's like in that early time, it's like, you know, if you don't get on TikTok or something in the beginning, then like it's just really hard to like get on it afterwards.

00:10:54
Speaker 1: Well you on TikTok at the beginning, because that I was the other big you know, like no.

00:10:58
Speaker 2: I was like, what is it? I still am terrible at it?

00:11:01
Speaker 1: Do you care about it?

00:11:02
Speaker 2: I mean, I think I'm supposed to, Like I try. It's I'm so bad at it, like I mean, the truth is honestly, Like the truth is, I'm literally almost forty and like I just like the.

00:11:20
Speaker 1: Kick in.

00:11:22
Speaker 2: I'm just like just like I mean, I do it like it's fun. If I feel too, Like I don't you like to dance your day?

00:11:28
Speaker 1: You love? But I like to.

00:11:30
Speaker 2: Dance and like I'm gonna train woosh you sword for like I'm gonna like become a black belt at or I'm gonna I like to dance like I'm gonna become a pole dancer, and there's this trick where you like hang off your ankle and like hold on to your foot and fucking spin around.

00:11:44
Speaker 1: You know.

00:11:44
Speaker 2: Like I'm like, I don't even like to dance. I like to just do very extreme things with my body under my rules of things that I want to do in terms of like TikTok dancing, Like it's a very like it's a very like specific way of moving because you don't really like move your body. And I'm not from that school.

00:12:04
Speaker 1: When you say you don't have to move your body, it looks like you have to move your body. My daughter tries to teach me totok, I can't move my body.

00:12:11
Speaker 2: This is how I see it, and like, you know, I'm just gonna be honest. It's like because I'm from more old school dancing, like I started like jazz dancing or like doing tap or like ballet or something. And when I did even like street dance and hip hop, we're talking about the era of I'm trying to think when it was like when I was a teenager and I was learning hip hop dancing. We're talking about like early Chris Brown or something like that. It's kind of like in the wake of of kind of like Michael Jackson like that kind of way. Yeah, it's like the post Michael like R and B wave of dancing, which is even I mean in the most pop sense I'm thinking of. You could even imagine like Aliyah or like Destiny's Child or that kind of way of dancing. That's when I was coming up learning commercial dancing, which is one thing. But okay, so like this is the way I describe im probably gonna sound so crazy, but like to dance a TikTok dance, it's it's like making your head like the center of the screen. So it's like this way of dancing where like you don't like.

00:13:17
Speaker 1: The movement is limited limits, which is exactly.

00:13:21
Speaker 2: So it's like really interesting for me because I just don't move in that way because like I'm just from a different time, So ay time when you won't.

00:13:27
Speaker 1: Worried about being in the fucking frame.

00:13:29
Speaker 2: I don't have to worry about the frame. We didn't film ourselves doing it, you know. I'm from like an era of when I was training to be a dancer. I would go to class the way that you see kids going to class now, but you wouldn't film the end of class, whereas now it's completely normal. They have these like amazing like sticks sticks, and it's like it looks so good, little X yeah, and you do like a move and the camera shakes and stuff Like I'm not saying it's bad. I think it's good. If anything like I genuinely do think is good. It's just like I'm so like in my era of being like a mover, I'm so past thinking about that. Like I'm literally at a point in my movement development where I'm like body mobility and safety when movement is very important to me. So I'm very much kind of like how do I keep spine mobility into my forties And how do I do like hip opening exercises and how do I safely go on to the floor and how do I keep my flexibility and the movements that I'm doing, Like even on the pole, I'm really thinking about like, oh, when I did that back movement, I feel like I'm moving too much in my lumber spine, Like how do I find extra movement in my upper upper shoulders to support the flexibility that I have in my middle back which I don't want to rely on so that I can keep on doing this for ten years, and like, I'm so in another part of my journey as a mover to donate my time to doing TikTok dances, which is fine that it's fucking so cool, actually, but I just like I can't do it, and I can't do that and do that. I have to do my hip opening exercises more than I have.

00:15:16
Speaker 1: To be great TikTok pages, probably because I look, I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm like, I'm just telling my guy been here. I'm like, I haven't run in fourteen months, not because I don't love to run, but because I keep sucking my my hip up or my ankle.

00:15:30
Speaker 2: Like that's something for another period of life, like not running.

00:15:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I have no other way to get like my fucking.

00:15:37
Speaker 2: Walking uphill on a treadmill. Yes, it's quite meditative. Yeah, it's good. Like if you've got like knee hip issues, it's like walking uphill on a treadmill forty minutes. Put on a podcast, put on this fire game. Yeah, on this podcast.

00:15:56
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're talking about.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: It's not all It's like fucking amazing. I feel so young. I'm getting younger in many ways.

00:16:05
Speaker 1: I feel younger than for younger.

00:16:07
Speaker 2: But that's what.

00:16:09
Speaker 1: I don't say that. Don't say that that is true. I thought I was, you know, because when I was young, I used to think I was old, Like I really thought it would. I have a friend I tell her all the time like she's like now like doing really great music. But I remember in college, like we're graduating college and she bought a fucking keyboard. I remember looking at her being like the fuck are you doing? Like we're we gotta go figure life out and now and then like now she's killing it, and I'm like, how dumb was I? Like I felt like we were. I thought we were like middle aged at that point, you know. But you know, did you you have that same Yeah?

00:16:41
Speaker 2: I had that same thing too.

00:16:42
Speaker 1: Yeah how did you get past that to actually then applying yourself to create and make things and and have a go at a career.

00:16:51
Speaker 2: And like I mean I speak about it, I'm trying to meet this cross section where I look young, feel young, like I'm within youth culture, which which I still am, and like I'm becoming more wise and I'm learning my lessons and I'm like not a fucking idiot anymore. And if I can like hit that cross section where I'm like sexy and fresh and I'm not an idiot, you know, and I can feel it coming haven't really like I'm like and then when I hit that cross section, you know, like I'm it's like, it's not that I feel old or young. For me, it's about like learning my lessons in life, not repeating patterns, developing as a friend, an artist, a daughter, or a girlfriend, whatever it is I need to do in my personal life and my mind, and keeping my relationship with myself healthy, which is obviously in this industry very hard to do. If I can do that and still be having new ideas as an artist, still be affecting culture, still be you know, I like leading ideas, ways of making music, ways of moving Like I don't mind being like the first of things and people not quite understanding it straight away. Like I'm really okay with that. That makes me very excited to kind of be a part of like even sometimes just a droplet of inventing a new sound or a new moment in an era or a decade. I feel so lucky, I mean with you sexually, I feel so lucky because I feel that it's like made its mark in this era of time, and so to be able to have done that in like twenty twelve, and then to be able to be a part of the conversation again yeah in twenty twenty six is like incredible, you know. So, and then it's not about age. Then it's about development as a person and as an artist, and it's about growth.

00:18:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, We'll be back with more from FK Twigs after the break. You know, listening to your discography makes me think of certain people. I didn't really connect the dots, but those people probably are people who perhaps had similar approaches, you know, like like Prince you know, when you think about how he was, he was never quite chasing. He's never chasing youth culture, chasing being cool. He was just after doing his fucking thing and you caught up or you didn't, or you moved along. And Madonna, same thing. Like I don't think, you know, I don't want to speak for these people or speak for you, but it seems like they had similar modes of creating and relating to themselves as people and creative people. Creative probably Pad yeah, the same. You know. I know you have his daughter on your sexual which is super cool.

00:19:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the best. I think that the differences is back in the day, artists had a lot of time to develop. Like even when you look at Prince like he had a few records that he released or Bowie, there were records that were released that only became popular after they blew up. Yeah, you know, and I think I'm probably gonna get this so wrong, but I think like Bawi did Let's Dance, and I think he was like maybe forty or like I think he was. Yeah, I think he was like in his forties and he just lets dance and that was like a huge hit for him. And I think that was such like a breakthrough moment for him as an artist to like enter into like the living rooms of like many nations and and that was completely normal then. I think even like Elton John had released like a few records that you know, his fans like, but then he later on like he then started having like the big hits and there's just just this time the artists back in the day.

00:20:34
Speaker 1: But it's crazy too because I mean, like there was like a bunch of records too that we love now that I mean like Diamond Dogs. Yeah, not commercially and critically but you find that Americans no one gave a fuck, you know, critically exactly, you know.

00:20:45
Speaker 2: Like exactly. But then you discover them after they have like their big hit or whatever, and you can go back and you can see this like breadth of work, and that's the artists back in the day had that time to develop. So for me, I still feel like a new artist because I've still not had my Let's dance yet. I've still not had that moment yet.

00:21:06
Speaker 1: This feels pretty This feels like a let's dance in a way like me, no, no, no, okay, what would make what would make it feel like? That's what your moment? Like that moment is.

00:21:16
Speaker 2: For artists like myself that tend to either be like very like off center of the curve or like sometimes like to ahead of the curve. It's a kind of magical universal gift that's slightly out of your hands. The culture and what you're doing hit at the same time, and you can't really control it, you know, you can't actually like quite control that, like the cultural consciousness and narrative needs exactly what you're doing at that time. And then that's the moment, right, like I've actually not had that moment, I'm either like way off to the left or or like I'm almost a bit too ahead of it sometimes with sounds or with ideas. And that's so fine, Like honestly, I love my careers so much, Like if this is what it is for me, Like I'm so blessed, I'm so happy. But Bowie or Bowie? What do you say?

00:22:13
Speaker 1: Bowie Bowie? But just but I think in the UK, Bowie, which is it?

00:22:18
Speaker 2: I'm not going to Okay, Tomato, Okay, so Bowie, like you know he had that moment with Less Dance or Byork had like it's also quiet? Yeah, And it's not that what is that? Is it also quiet? The Bork song? Is that what it's actually called her?

00:22:34
Speaker 1: Is it? I'm really bad with it?

00:22:36
Speaker 2: But it's okay shush the title, Yeah, okay, so shush, so quiet for Byork. It's not that that song is like better or worse than any of the rest of her songs before that. It's that at that point with that video that I think Spike Jones directed, that is what culture needed to put her on the world stage. And when I was a kid, that was actually the first time I'd heard of Byork, you know, because I was I think I was. I was a kid, and I can't remember. I think I was in my early teens maybe when that came out or when I became aware of it, but then that was the entry point to something way way, way, way way deeper. Yeah, but she just had that more like global moment because that's just what culture needed and that's what it latched onto.

00:23:24
Speaker 1: But no, it's amazing though, too, like that because there are some artists who have that moment that you're talking about and then and then chase it or that's what now they think they need to do. And then there are people like York like Bowie who have it and it's great and to keep on their pay Yeah, yeah, stay weird. Yeah yeah. Maybe Neil Young's the same, right, like had a lot ton of misses and then early nineties has Harvest Moon or whatever, you know, and that's like, you know what he's now he's used again in his forties or fifties, even like that's probably the song is most known for at this point.

00:24:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:24:03
Speaker 1: Jones has Dad Thriller in his fifty you know what I'm.

00:24:07
Speaker 2: Saying exactly, But it takes that long, like it's just about learning your craft. And I've learned so much, and I've had to have weird moments in my musical journey that I feel kind of like were like off kilter for me. But those weird moments have made the moments that have worked possible because I've learned how to structure a song, or I've learned how to eke you a drum, or I've learned about a rhythm that I hadn't done before. And sometimes it's just about a few tries, you know. Sometimes you try a song and you think it doesn't quite work, but you release it because you know release it, you think okay, and then you actually like almost do that song again, but better, like two or three years later. It's like the same song, it's the same DNA of the song, and you do it later and then that's the one that works. It's so strange how that works. But you had to have the kind of not so good version before for the next one to kind of hit.

00:25:01
Speaker 1: There's an example of that that stands out to you.

00:25:04
Speaker 2: I think like as a project catpre songs, I mean, it was never like album, It's like a mixtape.

00:25:10
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it was a mixtape until it's a mixtape till this week. I didn't I thought that was an album.

00:25:15
Speaker 2: No, no, it's a mixtape. I mean I made it quick. It's like with after Glow for me as well, Like these are projects that I make quite quickly and in a different way to how I make like my record records. But there's a lot of like experimentation. But Caprio songs kind of like taught me how to write better songs, even though there's not necessarily like even well written songs, particularly on Caprio song. It's just but it's just like a bit hookier, Like it's just it's just like there's Caprio songs. It's like there's more hooks on it. They might not be in the right order, like the hooks probably aren't in the right order for like an amazing pop song. But I just learned, like, oh, I found my way to repeat a melody and do it in my way because in my usual songwriting, I don't give a fuck, I'll do a different melody for the verse, the pre and the chorus won't a'll only happen once because why not?

00:26:05
Speaker 1: You know?

00:26:05
Speaker 2: But do you know what I mean? Like sometimes I'm like whatever it doesn't matter. But but with Caprew songs, I learn about structure. I learn about like minimalism within sounds that maybe are like more palatable to audiences. And for me, it's like testing what I'm okay with because sometimes when something is too like palatable or normal, I'm like, okay, not for me, like I've lost my place in this now, this is for someone else to do very well, like I don't need to do that. But Capri Songs at the time was about me because I've just come off Magdalen, you know, kind of psychedelic. But but then Caprio songs, I'm like testing, Like, am I comfortable with a drum that doesn't change throughout a whole song? I don't know. I've not done that before. My drums change all the time. So am I comfortable with a rhythm this stays the same? Am I comfortable with a repeating bassline? And I have to like test it and I think, yeah, I can do I can do that, Yeah I can do I can do that rhythm, I can I can do a structure that is like verse pre chorus, verse pre chorus, Like I'm okay with that, But it's not. It's it's like an It's like an experiment, and Capri songs was all also an ode to uh my culture and the music I was brought up on, like like not at home so much, but with my friends, like a bit of R and B Bashman dance or like more like I guess like black rhythms, you know, because I'm biracial. So I'm just looking at a constant like fucking crisis, you know. Do you know what I mean about?

00:27:32
Speaker 1: Like is your mom white or your dad?

00:27:34
Speaker 2: My mom is Spanish and white and my dad is Jamaican, but I was raised by a Beijing man, so I'm even more confused because I have like different sides of like the Caribbean coming at me that are very like opposing, very competing. Yeah yeah, yeah, It's like I'm Jamaican in my DNA, but I'm did.

00:27:51
Speaker 1: You make it? I mean, come on culture obviously across all cultures, you.

00:27:55
Speaker 2: Know, Like yeah, you know, it's great. I feel it in my blood. It's great.

00:27:59
Speaker 1: No respect to your stepdad or anything. Yeah yeah, yeah.

00:28:03
Speaker 2: But like yeah, it's great. Like I feel my like black blood in me. I feel it tangibly like inside me, and it's.

00:28:12
Speaker 1: Like it's Spanish but that's kind of deep too, though. I mean, you know, you think about the Moorish influence and all that, you know running through that music, and that's like it's not something I haven't dolved into as much as I you know, want to in the future. But you know what I mean. When I listened to that stuff, it's like incredible.

00:28:30
Speaker 2: Yeah it is, it is. There's lots of stuff going on in there, and yeah, Cabriot Songs was like more of an ode to the rhythms that I think like that I first latched onto maybe as a teenager going out. I went to a lot of like bashman and dance hall clubs and stuff. That was like my first experience of like going to like illegal like nightclubs and stuff like that. Was like dance hall clubs.

00:28:54
Speaker 1: Were those like cool places to get that time or just a place to be. So I don't know what the layout of London's sort of nightlife is.

00:29:03
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm from the country, so I'm like a country girl. And where I grew up I was in place called Gloucestershire and there's lots of different pockets. It's a really interesting place because I was born in a place called Cheltenham, which is very white, very very very white, and it's very interesting because it's like in some ways when I was growing up there, it is very affluent and it's known as a commuters town, so it's where like a lot of middle class people live that commute into London, and it's very beautiful, Like there's a beautiful area called Montpellier which is like just beautiful buildings and everything is just so. And on the other side of it, there's a very big, like lower working class and working class community and there's a lot of like travelers and it's very a lot of farmers there, and on the other side of it, you know, like it it's very raw and it's very working class. And my upbringing was kind of confusing because like my family's very working class and they're from Birmingham, like working class Birmingham, which anyone that's like from Birmingham or from England like knows exactly what that means. But I think Birmingham's an amazing place. Is often left out of the conversation a bit of the UK, but I think it's a place that's very rich in culture, and I think it's a place that's like there's like a really big Aid, Indian and Asian community there, and a really big black community there. Cheltenham is this one place, but then Gloucester which is very close, it's just like fifteen minutes away, and then Bristol, which is very close, it's maybe like half an hour forty five minutes away, is very rich in black culture and specifically Caribbean culture, and it's a lot of people that have come straight from the Caribbean, like have been there. And then this is basically where like trip hop like laid its roots. So this is like where Tricky's from Porter's Head, this type of like music and music that its like trip hop, but then also kind of a lot of dub as well and jungle really like laid its roots in these areas. There was this bus that went from Cheltenham to Gloston. For me at fourteen, this bus was like a fucking godsend because I went from this area where I was the only black person in my area other than like my stepdad. Yeah, I could get this bus after school like twenty minutes and I was around then something completely different. People that were from like the island I'm from, you know, or half of me is from. And so when I first started going out, Like there was this club called the Jamaican Club that was like an illegal kind of like I guess, I don't know a lot of like rasters would go there and play dancehall, batsman reggae and just like sit and hang and there would be food and you would just go and like smoke until and dance. And these are the nightclubs that I first started like frequenting as a teenager. Anyways, So when I make Capbrey Songs, it was kind of like an ode to that side of me.

00:32:06
Speaker 1: In the idea of it come out more as a mixtape than an album. Was that always the intention it was was to experiment and then release something that didn't feel as definitive as an album.

00:32:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's like not really finished gapfree song. It's not like exactly finished. I would say, it's like something that was made. But it's same with after Glow, you know, like after Glow is like not exactly finished.

00:32:32
Speaker 1: I'm shocked at you. So you said, I don't even know if we were recording then, but you said you made that very quickly.

00:32:38
Speaker 2: I made in twelve weeks.

00:32:40
Speaker 1: Twelve weeks pretty much like one.

00:32:41
Speaker 2: Or two songs I thought.

00:32:42
Speaker 1: I just for some reason, it sounds it really does sound like of a piece with To me, it sounds like related enough that I thought maybe they were created at the same time. You know.

00:32:54
Speaker 2: No, I made after Glow because I wanted to like have a strike so I could get off one of my record labels. And I didn't want to be like totally because like I really like respected that label, and I didn't want to be like totally disrespectful and give them trash, because I know some artists do that they just think or whatever, there's another frank, Yeah, do you know what I mean. I didn't want to do that because I respect them and we've had a really good journey together. But I have this one song that for me, it's like one of the most beautiful songs that I've written, and I want it to come out this year and I need to I needed to own the masters to that song. Wow, and in like my record label, because I was on two record labels. So on the one that I'm still on now, I get my master's back, which is Atlantic. Yeah, so on that like in a timeframe, the idem is acceptable. I get those masters back and this one song on the record, it's like, you know, for me, it's it's like a cellophane. It's not in sound, but in how important it is to me and how important the lyrics are to me. You know, because when you're an artist and you don't own your masters, it's like painting and giving away paintings and you never get them back. But when you own your masters, then even if they live in a different gallery for a minute, you get to you say, yeah, sure you can put my work in your gallery for like ten years. That's fine, right, But then in ten years I get to take that work and I get to hang it back in my living room and it can just be in my little living room in Hackney, and I just get to hang it on the wall and I get to say, like, that's my work, you know, And that's that for me, is like very important psychologically.

00:34:34
Speaker 1: And obviously, I mean that's not on many people's radar when you're starting out, like that's.

00:34:39
Speaker 2: Not even not masters were No one even told me what masters will copyright. I was like, I was like, okay, what's incredible.

00:34:48
Speaker 1: You're getting on back. Then you're in a situation where you're able to get to a point.

00:34:52
Speaker 2: Where, yeah, my new music now I get them back. But I think that's the thing, you know, going back to when I started making music. It's not anything bad about my old label. It's just that deals looked different then, yeah, and I signed a deal that had like many records in it, and so now like it's more normal that artists like keep their masters or maybe even have like shorter record deals, which means that you can make choices that you do a record and you decide if you want to stay together or you decide if it's time to move on and stuff like that. But it's really, you know, I want to I'm always very careful. I want to be like very respectful to the relationship I had with Beggars and Young because genuinely, like I had a fab time.

00:35:29
Speaker 1: It's a great lay one.

00:35:30
Speaker 2: It's a great way for arts exactly, but it's just at certain point, like I grew to a point where, you know, if I write a song like Cellophane, or if I write certain music that has changed my life that's had like a visceral effect on my chemistry as an artist, and then I write that thing and it's sitting in front of me, and then I have to kind of like, you know, a certain point after over a decade of making music, like it's it's stunting, It's people don't really think about the psychological effect of contracts on artists.

00:36:04
Speaker 1: What is what's the new song called Bluebird? Bluebird? And do you know as you're writing it that it's that important? Is there feeling to you or is it only after the fact and after you're a kistos?

00:36:18
Speaker 2: Yeah? And it might not mean anything to anyone else, I don't know, but like to me sometimes I write things and it's like so about my life.

00:36:25
Speaker 1: So you knew where that was coming from as it was coming out. Yeah, And do you all do you always know where things are coming from?

00:36:31
Speaker 2: No? Like, sometimes I think I have moments of being like a really like special precious artist where I've done something and I feel like I'm so grateful that I was able to be a conduit for that moment and I feel really like, wow, I'm so grateful to be alive in this body and like have just made that almost makes me emotional. And then sometimes I'm like having fun or sometimes it's just like yep, you know, like just a little like flirtation and it's like not that deep, you know, but I need both because that's my personality.

00:37:02
Speaker 1: I feel like that personality comes through and a lot of your music, like when you're making pre songs you were trying to just make see if you could just stick with like you know, like a drum loop, that was like that's it. Like your songs expand and contract and move and like all like they're just malleable and these really cool ways that not a lot of people make songs like that anymore. Not a lot of people make records that way. They're like that feel that adventurous from like we're within one song, you've gone on a complete journey. And then when you think about some of the lyrics of these songs too, is that you can tell there's like there's a seriousness sometimes and then there's a play like all those I feel like that does come through.

00:37:41
Speaker 2: I think in your music, Thank you, that's my personality. I'm like either very serious and very like intense or I'm just like a kid. Yeah, I'm just so playful and it's like silly.

00:37:54
Speaker 1: One last break and we'll be back with FKA Twigs. My favorite print song is one of I don't know what my favorite is, but one of my Favorites is ballad of Dorothy Parker and there's a line where he says or he's like, he's he's he's met this woman. She's like, do you want to like take a bubble bath? And he's like, yeah, but I'm gonna leave my pants on. I always think about that with friends. I'm like, it's like it's bold, but it's coy, and it's like it's and it's like who does that? There's so many layers to that.

00:38:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, it's so fun. It's so fun making fun of yourself on songs.

00:38:39
Speaker 1: Why why is that? Like what makes that.

00:38:41
Speaker 2: So it feels like an in joke with yourself? Like I don't know that I'm even just thinking of like on sushi because I'm like, like I can't drive yet. I still can't drive, So I'm like on this song like being like a boss thing, like I'm gonna take it out to all these different places, but like I can't drive yet, so I'm gonna have to get my friend to come and pick you up so we can go out. Like I didn't know if it's like it's only funny to me, but it's just funny sometimes to just like make fun of yourself for sometimes a really intimate secret that people might not pick up on.

00:39:12
Speaker 1: It's funny brought Sushi was a song that made me think about a Dorothy Parker because there are those moments of like it's like it's it's it's bold, but it's also a little like I said that and I'm going to pull it back even you're like, you know, like, oh, we could have I'm gonna yeah, I don't remember the line we're going to have sex. We could have sex, but we don't have to. I like that. It's just like what are we doing.

00:39:34
Speaker 2: It's like, it's like what adults. We can do what we like, we can do what we want to do.

00:39:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a really funny framing for that, and it's a it's just a framing you don't hear a lot in the contours of pop music.

00:39:49
Speaker 2: You know, Yes, to be honest, it's funny that you bring up Prince because when I was writing that first part of Sushi, I actually thought about him when I was writing it. It's just about like that that playfulness and acknowledging, like the power play of like being a star, whilst also leaning into so like that you can still be so shy and vulnerable. It's like this double thing of like I'm going to fucking fly you to Paris slash like I can't drive, so my friend's going to get you actually from the airport.

00:40:19
Speaker 1: You know.

00:40:19
Speaker 2: It's kind of like this this powerplay of of like knowing as a star you can do what you like, but also you're still like so prohibited and essentially like a kid. Moonlighting is an adult still but in like a fab outfit. You've had like full glam, but you still have no idea what you're doing. You know.

00:40:36
Speaker 1: It sounds like that's like that's a great life, that's it.

00:40:39
Speaker 2: It's weird.

00:40:42
Speaker 1: I read that raves were really important to this album. Yeah, and I imagine raves in Europe. It's particularly it was it was specifically it was Prague. I mean, I'm not even have gone a rave here, to be honest, I have no conception of what rave culture is like. But what is it like? What is it? What's a learn about it to you? And how did that work its way into this album or these couple of projects.

00:41:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I've always been very scared of like a four to four beat, you know, even I think in the past like mocked it. I mean I used to mark like trap pads, you know. I used to be like like I'd be like, no, I'm not doing that, like you know, especially like LP one era, like the hat's always like changing, like even like BPM, and I'd always just be like I don't want like a straight like track, like I don't want something that's really really straight. And I used to say like that, you know, like I don't want like a four to the floor beat, like I want this kind of like abstract landscape. So the idea that I based a whole album off like techno, which is like that's the premise of techno, is like actually so humbling to me, and it just shows kind of how your taste can change. And yeah, I didn't ever really think that techno music was for me, and then I started to discover techno, first of all in Prague, and then second of all, like in like queer spaces that were more inviting for me, and I found my way in I don't know, and maybe it's like being black, like sometimes I felt like some music's aren't certain types of music aren't for me. I mean I literally did an interview earlier and I was speaking about this, and maybe sometimes I felt that like I couldn't like listen to that because it's like not not like I'm not allowed to or like there's not an infamy in the scene because like I can't my skinny jeans or something because my thighs are too big. I don't know, but like, do you know what I'm saying, Like it's just like that the preconceived notions of being like a teenager and thinking, like I think I have to have like straight hair pushed to the side to be when I'm from like MySpace era, I have to like be able to do that to like listen to like emo music.

00:42:43
Speaker 1: I had a metal band in the MySpace era, so I get you exactly.

00:42:47
Speaker 2: So I think, like naively, I thought that techno wasn't for me, and then I started to like do my research and obviously learn that, you know, dance music like has had so many incredible like Black Pioneers and the whole like Chicago scene. And I remember like when I went to Prague and I had this sort of spiritual awakening in this club and then I went back home and then I started to yeah research like house music and Chicago and all these incredible DJs, and I just was like, oh, do I not know about this? I just I was like I didn't know, you know, I didn't know. And and then I started to dive deeper and deeper. And I still even with dance music, like on New Sexual, I don't and even on After Girl, I feel like I've still not quite like invented this music or done this music that I feel in my head. So it's really fun to keep on like trying this just.

00:43:37
Speaker 1: Like an iteration.

00:43:38
Speaker 2: This is like the first yeah, yeah exactly. It's like it's like now I can keep on playing with dance music. And then recently I've been listening to a lot of acid house, which which is.

00:43:47
Speaker 1: Like how does that relate to, like, how's it different from the regular house.

00:43:52
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm not very good with like like the technicalities of like genres, but to me, like acid house, it feels more cunty. That's more of like a stank to it. It feels like like walking down a catwalk, or it feels like something that's like I don't know. I mean, we were last night I was like doing like a fitting for a red carpet, and then it was like acid house. But then it was like a mood glare like fashion show and seeing how like the models like walked to it and stuff, and I was like I understand that, like physically, I understand that language. And that was very inspiring. But anyway, yeah, back to Prague, like I just had this massive epiphany of togetherness on a dance floor in a different way. That was very singular because going to bashment clubs in the early noughties is about what was about like winding, It was about grinding. It was about like doing movements that were the same. There were like you know, like dance movements that you would do like together, and you would like learn the dance movements and then you would get together on the dance floor and communally do them, like the candy dance, but in a different genre. You would do this part of that dance to this music techno is different because you're b yourself and it's actually maybe like unorthodox to like try and invite people.

00:45:14
Speaker 1: You don't dance with other people, No, you.

00:45:16
Speaker 2: Do, but it's like a very it's psych surfing. There are rules in dance clubs like surfing said, Yeah, there's rules of waves in surfing, like you don't like the way that surfers navigate the waves is very respectful. You don't just go and like take that wave. I don't just go to a beach I've never been before, Like that's a big wave, I'm going to take it. It's like there's like an order of things. It's like that the more the better surfers might take that wave where you've had your turn, and then you give someone else a thing, and there's a respect to it. That is the way the best dance clubs work, where there's a respect to the way you would approach someone on the dance floor, or you wouldn't because you see that they're in their like flow state or they're like you know, like it's called like tunneling, Like you like tunnel to the music where you're just like in.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: Your like you just look tunnel that you look like.

00:46:11
Speaker 2: You're yeah, just like you know, because it's primal, you know, like to do the same movement over and over again. It's very primal, and so sometimes you just have to like respect that people are like working out their own fucking like thing. But it's also very together. But that's what Rumor Fools was about. Like this rumor falls. We make something together. It's like if you separate one of the dancers in the club, they look crazy because that's like moving and it's not about looking good. It's just about like moving and feeling something. And it's quite like sporadic and it's full of ecstasy and it's very like primal, and it's and it's like very practical. You don't wouldn't like wear heels to a rage, do you know what I mean? It's like you wouldn't wear something uncomfortable. It's about being comfortable. It's about like the utilitarian nature of what it is to move together, and that's priority. It's almost kind of like comfort within your body to the beat, whereas yeah, like you just wouldn't like eject someone's moment. But at the same time, the whole crowd is moving together as one, so it's very beautiful. It's like you're like an ameba and you're all cells and together you're like a very important community. When I go like raving, I think like this right now is quite possibly the most important moment in culture. This rave right now, with the drop, the way that the fucking DJ just brought in those high hats and the way that the crowd responded is quite possibly the most important thing that has ever happened in history in this room right now. But it's just like completely contained. It's like completely contained that something will happen, and everyone's just like, that is exactly what I wanted to happen in the music. And you just see the relief, the physical relief that that fucking high hat came in. You're just like, thank god, I've been waiting for seven minutes. I've been like listening to that four four drum. I have my body, it's been a slave to that drum for seven minutes, and now a high hat has come in and this surely is heaven, Like this is surely the best thing that's ever happened in the whole world. But it's just like contained to this one room and no one knows about it. And the next morning you can't even really explain it. You know that I'm.

00:48:27
Speaker 1: Probably ready to go to Friday Night.

00:48:31
Speaker 2: I'm talking about Yeah, anyone else, no, Ben, Yeah, Nick knows, everyone knows. Yeah, But this is there are spaces for everybody, you know, there's spaces for everybody. And that's what I realized, that there's space is for.

00:48:52
Speaker 1: Me, it's fucking wild. But in Prague, of all places, this is where.

00:48:56
Speaker 2: Well not really, it's like East Block, I don't know, like there's this kind of a pioneer like actually it's actually like a very important to dance music and like you're its like an incredible dance scene.

00:49:11
Speaker 1: I'm ready to I'm ready to go rave.

00:49:14
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's pretty good. It's very It makes you like not really care.

00:49:18
Speaker 1: Can you be sober? Yeah?

00:49:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, one hundred percent. I didn't think so, but then actually you can really Yeah, yeah you really can. Yeah. I can totally go and be completely sober.

00:49:27
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I got too many responsibility got there doing ecstasy? No no, no, you can push forty out there doing ecstasy at a rave. I don't know.

00:49:35
Speaker 2: No, you can totally go and be sober, like it's amazing sober.

00:49:40
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna dip my toes in, my toes in. Well, it was great speaking with you. It was like an incredible conversation. I went many places. I feel like I'm better for having had it. And I can't wait to hear what was the new song called I can't wait to hear Bluebird? Yeah, I can't wait to hear that.

00:50:00
Speaker 2: Thank you great to meet you nice great.

00:50:08
Speaker 1: In the episode description, you' find a link to a playlist featuring our favorite songs from FKA Twigs, including her latest album You Sexual Afterglow. Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast to see all of our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record pot. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.