Feb. 15, 2026

2026 Grammy Winner - Lola Young - "Messy"

2026 Grammy Winner - Lola Young - "Messy"
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Welcome to Hitmaker Chronicles! I'm your host, Garrett Fisher. Today we celebrate Lola Young's Grammy win for "Messy" - the song that became an anthem for every messy human being. We'll trace how an ADHD anthem written the night before a video went viral, how a barely-there TikTok dance launched a global hit, and why winning four months after collapsing onstage made this victory so much more than a trophy. It's about mental health, authenticity, and what happens when you stop trying to be enough for the world and start being honest about the chaos.

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Caalaroga, Shark Media, I'm Garrett Fisher. And on February first,

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twenty twenty six, at the Grammy Award, Lola Young stepped

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onto the stage to accept the award for Best Pop

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Solo Performance. She hadn't prepared a speech. She never expected

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to win. Oh my, an f bomb slipped past the

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CBS censors. Sorry, sorry, sorry, it's MESSI. You know what

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I mean. The audience laughed. Lola froze for a second,

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profusely apologizing, before managing to thank her team and get

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off stage. It was the most lowly young moment possible, unpolished, real,

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a little chaotic, exactly what MESSI is all about. The

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win itself was significant. Messi beat Justin Bieber's Daisies, Sabrina

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Carpenter's Man Child, Lady Gaga's Disease, and chappelle Ron's The Subway,

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huge names, massive songs. But what makes Lola's Grammy win

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truly remarkable isn't just that she won. It's that she

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won four months after collapsing on stage mid performance and

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canceling everything for the foreseeable future to work on herself.

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This is a story about mental health, resilience and a

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song that became a cultural phenomenon precisely because it refused

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to pretend everything was fine. Let's start at the beginning.

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Lola Emily Mary Young was born January fourth, two thousand

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and one, in South London. Her mother is English, her

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stepfather Jamaican Chinese and a professional bass player. Music was

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in the household. Her mother encouraged piano lessons early. Lola

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taught herself guitar. Later, at age eleven, she started writing songs.

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By thirteen, she was playing pub gigs. At fifteen, she

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was accepted to the brit School in Croydon, the legendary

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performing arts academy that produced Adele, Amy Winehouse, Leona Lewis,

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and Kate Nash. At Bright School, Lola attracted attention from

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two people who would change her career, Nick Shamansky and

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Nick Huget. Shamansky was Amy Weinehouse's former manager. He'd retired

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from the music industry, but when he saw Lola perform

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at a local gig, he came out of retirement. Huggett,

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who signed Adell, followed suit. That's the kind of talent

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Lola had, the kind that makes industry veterans think I

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can't let this one Pass. At sixteen, Lola won the

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under sixteen category of Open Mic UK, beating over nine

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thousand competitors with an original song called Never Enough. She

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also reached the finals of the BBC competition Got What

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It Takes, footage that would resurface on TikTok years later

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when she became famous. She signed with Island Records at eighteen,

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right after graduating brit School in twenty eighteen. But here's

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the thing, Lola's journey to MESSI wasn't a straight line.

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It was messy. Her debut single, Reason to Stay, came

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out in October twenty nineteen, then came epas intro renaissance

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after Midnight good Music, not breakthrough music. In November twenty

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twenty one, Lola got a major opportunity. She recorded a

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cover of Together in Electric Dreams for the John Lewis

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Christmas Advert, one of the most prestigious commercial placements in

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the UK. She performed it on The Late Late Show

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with James Corden. She was nominated for the brit Rising

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Star Award. This should have been her moment, but it wasn't.

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Not yet, her debut album, My Mind Wanders and Sometimes

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Leaves completely came out in May twenty twenty three. The

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title was a reference to her Schitzo effective disorder, a

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mental health condition she'd been diagnosed with at seventeen. Schitzo

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effective disorder includes symptoms of schizophrenia and a mood disorder

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like depression or bipolar. Lola has been incredibly open about it.

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In twenty twenty two, she wrote on Instagram, I have

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crazy fucking highs, mania and immense lows and even both

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at the same time. It's like breaking a leg. It's

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physical and it hurts. Society just isn't at a place

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to understand that yet. She also told The Telegraph it

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runs in my family. My paternal uncle had schizophrenia and

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my mother's brother had depression, and they both died. That

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kind of openness is rare, especially for someone trying to

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build a pop career, but for Lola, honesty isn't optional.

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It's survival. The album failed to chart, though one track,

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Don't Hate Me, went viral on TikTok. Lola kept working.

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Between September twenty twenty three and May twenty twenty four.

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She released singles Conceited, Wish You Were Dead, Fuck, and Messi.

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Messi came out May thirtieth, twenty twenty four, as the

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sixth single from her second album, This Wasn't Meant for

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You Anyway, released June twenty first, twenty twenty four. And

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this is where things get interesting. Lola has said she

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wrote MESSI the night before a video was taken on

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November twentieth, twenty twenty three. She played it for her

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friends that night, didn't even know anyone was filming. The

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song was written after she was diagnosed with severe ADHD.

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She's called it an ADHD anthem, that feeling of being

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too much and not enough at the same time, too

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messy for some people, too clean for others, never quite

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right for anyone. The lyrics perfectly capture that experience. Okay,

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so yeah, I smoke like a chimney slash, I'm not

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skinny and I pull a Brittany every other week slash,

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but cut me some slack. Who do you want me

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to be than the hook a thousand people? I could

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be for you and you hate the fucking lot. It's

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a middle finger to the self help industrial complex, to

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the idea that you need to optimize yourself into someone acceptable,

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to the pressure to be enough for the world. Lola

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told nmy I feel like MESSI is a song that

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symbolizes how we all feel. I feel it speaks on

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just like being a messy human being and not being

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enough for you know, the world, and that's how a

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lot of us feel a lot the time, and how

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I felt a lot of the time. That's why I

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think it related. The song was produced by Jared Solomonophonic,

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Solomon Monsoon, Carter Lang, and will Manuka Brown. Interestingly, three

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of those four had worked on as is A's Saturn.

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There's a sonic connection to that era of confessional slightly

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left of center pop. Lola has said she specifically sought

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out Solomonophonic after hearing his work with Remy Wolf. They

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had jam sessions in Los Angeles, and she appreciated that

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he didn't interrogate her lyrics or ask probing questions. He

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just let the music happen. I've had people in the

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studio before asking what do you mean by that? How

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are you feeling? You don't know me well enough to

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ask that, she told enemy. With Solemnonophonic, they created something unconventional,

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synth heavy, a bit odd, emotionally raw. When Messi was

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released in May twenty twenty four. It didn't immediately explode.

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It was a slow build. The album came out in June,

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Lola toured. She supported Billie Eilish on two Paris dates

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in June after Billy personally invited her. Then in November

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twenty twenty four, TikTok happened. On November twenty eighth, influencer

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Jake Shane and model Sofia Ritchie posted a clip of

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themselves dancing to MESSI, except it wasn't really dancing. It

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was finger guns, a half shimmy vibing, nothing elaborate. It

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went viral immediately. Kylie Jenner posted herself lip syncing to

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the song. Over two hundred and fifty thousand videos used

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the sound. The song achieved three point nine million official

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on demand streams in the United States in one week.

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Suddenly Messy was everywhere. Lola told British Vogue, I would

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say the tiktoks are the least exciting part about it,

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if I'm honest. I think what's really exciting is that

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the song's in the top forty UK charts and global charts.

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That feels like a milestone. I've had Kylie Jenner use

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my sound before I've had a viral moment on TikTok before,

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although obviously this does feel slightly different. The song entered

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the UK Singles Chart on November twenty first, twenty twenty four.

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It climbed number fifty five, number forty one, number thirty five,

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number eleven, then it hit number one and stayed there

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for four weeks. Outside the UK, Messy top charts in Australia, Belgium, Croatia,

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Ireland and Israel. It peaked in the top ten in Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg,

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the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. In the US,

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it reached number fourteen on the Billboard Hot one hundred,

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Lola's first top forty hit as a solo artist. It

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also topped the Pop Airplay chart. By early twenty twenty five,

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Messi was the second most stream song in the UK.

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Lola appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in

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January twenty twenty five, making her USTv debut with a

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performance of Messi. She performed it at the brit Awards

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in March and went viral again when her reaction to

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losing the brit Award for British Popact to Jade was

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caught on camera. People loved her for being visibly disappointed

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but gracious. She was also featured on Tyler the Creator's

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track Like Him from his album Chromacopeia, released October twenty eighth,

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twenty twenty four. That collaboration brought her even more attention.

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Her third album, I'm Only Fucking Myself was released in

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twenty twenty five, with singles in including One Thing, which

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debuted at number twenty five UK. Not Like That Anymore,

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Daylor and Spiders. Everything was happening fast, maybe too fast,

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because what the public didn't fully see was what Lola

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was dealing with behind the scenes. Throughout twenty twenty five,

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her performances became increasingly difficult. At Coachella in April, she

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ran off stage wretching mid performance. At Capitol Summertime Ball

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in June, her innear monitors failed and she broke down

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crying on stage. In July, she canceled an appearance on

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the Tonight Show. In September, she was welfared out of

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a performance at a Prudential Center charity concert. Her team

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had hired a sober coach because Lola wasn't just dealing

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with mental health challenges, she was also battling cocaine addiction.

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In November twenty twenty four, she'd spent five weeks in

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drug rehabilitation. She's been open about this too. In an

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interview with The Guardian published in September twenty twenty five,

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she said, I've had to be away for a bit

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while battling with things, but it teaches you a lot

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being addicted to substances. It makes you more empathetic about

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other people that have gone through that. It's just a

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constant journey. Then came September twenty seventh, twenty twenty five,

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the All Things Go Music Festival in New York. Lola

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was performing at Forest Hills Stadium. She told the crowd

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she'd had a tricky couple of days. She got through

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Wish You Were Dead, she got through spiders. During conceded,

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she gestured to someone backstage and pointed to her head.

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Then she took a few steps backward and collapsed. Crewmembers

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surrounded her immediately and carried her off stage. Remy Wolf,

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who performed after Lola, told the crowd, I really quickly

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just wanted to say that my friend Lola is backstage

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and she's okay. She's getting good back here, so we're

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all good okay. Hours later, Lola posted on Instagram, hie

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for anyone who saw my set at All Things Go today.

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I am doing okay now. Thank you for all of

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your support, Lola xxx. Two days later, she canceled her

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scheduled performance at the festival's Washington, d C. Stop. Then,

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on September thirtieth, the announcement I'm going away for a while.

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It pains me to say I have to cancel everything

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for the foreseeable future. Thank you for all the love

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and support. I'm so sorry to let anyone down who

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has bought a ticket to see me. It hurts me

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more than you know. Obviously, you will be entitled to

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a full refund. I really hope you'll give me a

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second chance once I've had some time to work on

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myself and come back stronger. Her manager, Nick Schaimansky added,

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Lola is very open about her mental health, and there

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are very occasionally days where myself and my team have

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to take protective measures to keep her safe. She is

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an incredible person and always takes her fans career and performances. Seriously,

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I can only send huge apologies for the inconvenience cause.

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Lola disappeared from the public eye. Some sources attributed her

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collapse to exhaustion. Others pointed to the cumulative effect of

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schizo effective disorder ADHD and addiction recovery. The truth was

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probably all of it. A twenty four year old woman

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whose star was rising faster than her ability to cope,

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whose mental and physical health were screaming for a pause.

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Three months passed, no performances, no appearances. Then in late

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December twenty twenty five, Lola broke her silence. She posted

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on Instagram, I just wanted to express gratitude to everyone

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who has given me time and space to gather myself

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and get my head in a better place. I felt

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so much love and support from you all, and it

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has helped more than you will ever know. I am

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hoping to gradually get back to performing and continuing pursuing

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my dreams. By then, the grad SEMy nominations had been announced.

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Messi was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance. Lola was

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also nominated for Best New Artist. In January twenty twenty six,

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she resumed performing and on February first, twenty twenty six,

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she was at the Grammys. She performed Messi as part

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of the Best New Artist nominee showcase, a stripped down

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version on piano, emotionally raw, her voice filling the arena.

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It was her return to the spotlight after the collapse,

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a statement that she was back. When her name was

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called for Best Pop Solo Performance, the room erupted. She

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hadn't won Best New Artists that went to fellow brit

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School alum Olivia Dean, but she won this. Beat Justin Bieber,

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beat Sabrina Carpenter, beat Lady Gaga, beat Chappelle Roan, and

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she led an F bomb slip because she was overwhelmed

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and honest and exactly who she'd always been. Backstage, she

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explained what MESSI meant. I feel like Messi is a

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song that symbolizes how we all feel. I feel. It

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speaks on just like being a messy human being and

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not being enough for you know, the world, and that's

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how a lot of us feel a lot at the time,

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and how I felt a lot of the time. That's

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why I think it related. That's it, That's the whole thing.

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The song connected because it told the truth in a

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world of curated Instagram feeds and perfectly filtered tiktoks and

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celebrities pretending their lives are aspirational perfection. Lola Young wrote

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a song that said I'm a mess I smoke too much,

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I'm not skinny, I have mental breakdowns. I can't be

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whoever you want me to be, and millions of people

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said yes, same, Thank you for saying it. The Grammy

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win for Messi is significant beyond just Lola's career. It's

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a signal about what pop music is rewarding right now.

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Raw over polished, specific over universal, honesty over aspiration. The

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fact that a song called Messi, written by someone who

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publicly discusses schizo effective disorder and ADHD and addiction could

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beat pop superstars says something about where culture is. We're

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tired of the self help narrative. We're tired of being

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told to optimize and improve and become our best selves.

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Sometimes we're just trying to survive. Sometimes we're messy and

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that's okay. Lola Young's win also highlights the brit School phenomenon.

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She and Olivia Dean both attended brit School. Both one

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Grammy's the same Night Ray, another brit School graduate, won

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the Harry Belafonte Best Song for Social Change Award that weekend.

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There's something about that school's approach to artist development. They

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teach craft, they teach music history. They don't just teach

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you how to be famous, They teach you how to

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be an artist. And the artists who come out of

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there tend to have substance. They write their own songs,

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They have something to say. For Lola, specifically, what happens

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next will be fascinating to watch. She has five BRIT

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Award nominations on February twenty eighth, including Artist of the Year.

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Messi is still the second most stream song in the

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UK for twenty twenty five. Her third album I'm Only

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Fucking Myself peaked at number three in the UK. But

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she's also someone who just spent three months recovering from

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a complete breakdown, who's managing multiple mental health conditions, who's

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in recovery from addiction. The music industry doesn't have a

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great track record with artists like this. Amy Weinhouse, whose

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manager now manages Lola, died at twenty seven. The industry

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tends to chew up and spit out people who can't

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keep up the pace. Will Lola's team protect her better?

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Will she protect herself better? The fact that she took

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three months off, that she prioritized her health over her

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career momentum, that she came back on her own terms,

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those are good signs, and the Grammy win matters because

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it validates that choice. It says you did the right thing.

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Taking care of yourself didn't end your career, it made

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your story more powerful. There's also the legal drama worth noting.

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In late twenty twenty five, Lola filed a lawsuit against

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producer Carter Lang over songwriting credits on Messi and three

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other songs. She later withdrew the lawsuit. The dispute was messy, appropriately,

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but it shows Lola is willing to fight for her work,

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for accurate attribution, for her integrity. The TikTok virality of

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Messi is interesting too. Unlike some viral moments that feel

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manufactured or rely on elaborate choreography, the Messy Dance wasn't

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really a dance. It was just vibing, being yourself, not

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trying too hard. That's thematically perfect for the song. You

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can't fake authenticity. You can't choreograph, genuine emotion. Jake Shane

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and Sophia Richie just felt the song and move to it,

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and millions of people related to that feeling. No gimmick needed.

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Looking at the Best Pop Solo Performance category specifically, it's

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notable that voters chose emotional rawness over technical perfection. Lady

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Gaga's Disease is a masterclass in pop production. Sabrina Carpenter's

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Manchild is witty and polished. Chappelle Roams the Subway is

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ambitious and well crafted, but messy one because it felt unavoidable.

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It felt like the cultural moment. There's a reading of

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this win that's about mental health awareness, about destigmatizing conditions

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like schizo effective disorder and ADHD, about creating space and

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pop culture for people who don't have it all together.

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And there's another reading that's simpler. It's just a really

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good song that connected with people. Both can be true.

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Lola Young is twenty four years old. She's won a Grammy.

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She's a survivor of mental illness, of addiction, of an

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industry that could have destroyed her. She's brutally honest in

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her music and her life. MESSI will be her signature

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song for years. The question is what comes next? Can

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she sustain success while protecting her health? Can she keep

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making honest music without it costing her everything? I hope so,

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because we need artists like Lola Young. We need people

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willing to say the uncomfortable truths. We need songs that

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reflect reality, not aspiration. The Grammy was presented on February first.

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On February twenty eighth, she'll find out if she wins

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any of her five brid awards. The momentum is there,

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the recognition is there, But more importantly, Lola is there,

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still standing, still making music, still being messy in the

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best possible way. Her manager, Nick Schimansky, who watched Amy

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Weinhouse struggle and ultimately die, said Lola is someone who

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always takes her fans, career and performances seriously. But he

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also said his team takes protective measures to keep her safe.

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That's the balance. That's what gives me hope. Because MESSI

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isn't just a song about being a mess. It's about

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accepting the mess, about saying this is who I am,

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Take it or leave it, About refusing to contort yourself

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into something palatable. When Lola stood on that Grammy stage,

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accidentally cursing on live television, apologizing profusely being herself. That

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was the message of MESSI in action, not perfect, not polished,

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just real, And in twenty twenty six, in an era

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of AI generated content and perfectly curated personas and influencers,

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selling you happiness real is revolutionary. Lola Young and Messy

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from a song written in one night to a four

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weeks UK number one to a Grammy win, from collapse

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to comeback, from mess to masterpiece, or maybe the mess

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was the masterpiece all along. That's our Grammy winner. Spotlight

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on Lola Young's Messy winning Best Pop Solo Performance. Sometimes

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the most powerful thing you can do is stop trying

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to be enough for the world and start being honest

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about the chaos. I'm Garrett Fischer. Stay Messy,