Brixton sisters turning up The Real Heat
Words Emily Mackay / Image(s) Angela Moore
Every now and then you get a Wizard Of Oz moment; a band so exciting, so fun, so Technicolor-fantastic that you realise everything else was just a monochrome bad dream. Young Brixton sisters, Zaza, Suki and Shaki, also known as The Real Heat, are like that. At the recent Tales Of The Jackalope festival, the bitter blow of of fellow no-bullshit sister trio ESG’s no-show was soon forgotten in the excitement of their mid-afternoon set. Rainbow-clad, snake-haired, hip-thrusting, sassy, smart-mouthed and sexy, their electro pop bitch-slap was the thrill of the weekend. Modern-girl anthem ‘Heart’s Not Innit’ (“You wanna fuck fuck fuck, but your heart’s not innit”) epitomises their straight-up style. But they’re not out for shock tactics.
“We do music for big people, not kids, so I don’t think we have to tone anything down,” says Shaki, matter-of-factly.
The girl’s music is, like all good sounds, hard to pin down, with elements of synth pop, R&B, grime, electroclash and purest pop. They write all the songs themselves with Suzi and Zaza on production: everything is as DIY as you like. They’ve currently got three songs (‘Heart’s Not Innit’, ‘Stand & Deliver’ and ‘Hotgirl’) available on their own Real Hot Records, and dates lined up for the autumn.
They did have a manager and a PR, but not for long. Their MySpace blog recently announced that their manager had been “dismissed” after a six week trial. The ladies noting archly that “her style of management was not beneficial to The Real Heat”.
So, are they setting out to cause a few ripples in the industry?
“Of course we want people to take us seriously, and to take notice of what we are doing,” says Suki. “If taking no shit means we are labelled as having an attitude then we will wear the hat gladly.”
In another post they claim: “We’ll never have a stylist, a smilist, a ghostwriter, a yes-man. We are keeping it real all the way to the top.”
Do they think they can do it all on their own?
“Being successful in any business is hard work, and our DIY ethos has got us where we are now,” says Suki.
Such hardcore indie credentials almost seems at odds with their mouth-wateringly glossy sound, but they’re not worried about trying to convince people they’re for real. “If people think we’re manufactured, we couldn’t give a flying fuck,” says Zaza. “We’re not politicians, we don’t need to convince people of anything.”
There is no spin here; they are The Real Heat.
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