The Stool Pigeon

“You shouldn’t question how it makes you feel,” sings thecockandbullkid, Anita Blay, on the first of eight demos. It’s a sentiment that clings to her tuff, girly tracks. Their plasticky instrumentation and boisterous playfights have you hopping around the kitchen on a feverish day, but leave you unable to put your finger on why nothing else has made you behave like this in weeks. Makes you want to pick her young, fresh brains, right?

“When I was younger and pop was getting bad press,” she begins, “I had already latched on to the fact that the only way I was ever going to make the music I wanted to make without someone going, ‘But you’re black, shouldn’t you be doing soul?’ was to say, ‘I write pop music.’ I realised early on that pop music is actually freedom.”

Blay was born in London to Ghanaian parents, and she’s the feisty product of an equally African and Western upbringing with music to match - processed drum machines hiccough through debut single ‘On My Own’, while sequenced strings and kitsch R’n’B pastiches make their streamlined way through ‘Bellyache’.

“I’m a product of my environment,” she says. “Because my parents were born in Ghana but I was born here, I’ve always felt like I’ve been subject to varying influences and values. I love the effervescence and how mixed up London is. On the same high street, you can have your Turkish snooker hall sandwiched between the local pub and the internet café, where all the Somali dudes hang out.

“Music is such a substantial part of London and how London thrives. It’s inextricably linked with sub-cultures and underground movements. In theory, it’s like you’re always trying to recreate the punk era - eagerly awaiting the day when Middle Englanders are all sitting around the TV expecting a bit of Coldplay, but then The Real Heat come on in cut-off shorts singing ‘LICK ME OUT!’ That’s what London has always meant to me, when it comes to music.”

Listen to ‘Sinners’ and it’s like finding viral powders in the post from unknown senders. Steel drums cavort in the streets, rhythms are hurried and sun-kissed, and her voice is demerara-sweet. Vocals are closely layered, creating a kind of iridescence like petrol rainbows on hot pavements. Everywhere, there’s the scent and heat of summer in a concrete jungle; bare feet clap against sticky tarmac. But while her harmonies are chocolaty, even fizzy, her lyrics are preoccupied with the sour side of adolescence; the one where any innocence is lost behind smoke and mirrors.

“I feel like I grew up quickly, but that was mainly because, at times, my upbringing was turbulent. But, saying that, I think a lot of people don’t realise how easy we have it in London. My parents always told me, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are’, and it’s true. If you don’t work, you get benefits. Even in developed places like America, they have it much tougher. Their work ethic is just so much stronger than ours, because if you’re rich, you’re bloody rich, but if you’re poor, you’re fucked. There’s no middle ground. I was just saying the other day, that when you’re in love and everything is just great, and when you’re thin and beautiful, there’s nothing to write about. I guess it might be the infinite curse. My writing always suffers when life is good. I guess that’s okay for other, fluffy artists, but it’s fuelled a really bizarre fear: that if I’m happy, my music will get shit. Stay miserable.”

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