Lola Young – "I had to train massively - I didn't pop out the womb like Beyoncé"

Refreshingly modest about her talent, Brit School alumnus Lola Young prefers to call new release My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely a project rather than a debut album. But there's no denying that her soul-searching songs are hitting all the right notes

- By Hannah Ewens

Lola Young didn't always have her tremendous belting voice.

Using it, the 22-year-old introduced herself as a distinctly London artist: a mini Adele with the caustic retorts and humour of Lily Allen. Vocally, it's like Young warbles around the note, promising to either hit or miss it, then swallows it whole. That had to be practised. "I had to train massively - I didn't pop out the womb like Beyoncé," she says bluntly, sat at a table in a Camden members' club, big gold hoops in ears and vape in hand.

"Voices naturally, I think, mature and kind of find their own home as you get a bit older," the 2022 Brit Rising Star nominee continues. Young's voice found a second home on TikTok recently when she suddenly became a viral sensation by teasing her songs on the app - like desperate ballad 'What Is It About Me?' and impudent clapback 'Don't Hate Me' - while performing them into a handheld mic in various public locations in London: on the Tube, with unsuspecting British passengers pretending to not hear her; riding a decorated horse around a carousel; strolling along the canal in Camden. The commenters frequently express being slapped around the face with that voice.