Willow Kayne Tickets

Crying carpe diem on behalf of Gen Z, with rabble-rousing single 'Two Seater' Willow Kayne has thrown her hat in the ring as one of the UK's most promising pop provocateurs. "I just want people to have fun," the 20-year-old singer/producer says today of her motives, displaying all-too-rare honesty. And with the world now eventually reopening post-pandemic, Kayne could scarcely have timed her call to arms better.

Speaking from her apartment in West London today, the Bristol-born teen's energy is infectious, her sentences peppered with laughter and loud exclamations. It's a restlessness that bleeds into her twisted pop productions, which are as likely to mix trap, hyper-pop and punk as they are hazy soul and old school beats.

Willow can trace this eclecticism directly back to her childhood, being raised by a hip-hop and house-obsessed father and a mother who produced videos for the likes of Erasure and the Prodigy. James Brown, Nas and MF DOOM were all significant early influences, and soon she was making her own musical discoveries, falling hard for artists as diverse as Tyler, The Creator, the Sex Pistols, Gorillaz, and Portishead.

At home, it was her older sister who showed musical promise first - receiving classical training and gravitating towards opera - while the then 11-year-old Willow was content to make videos, draw and write poetry in her room. By her mid-teens, those poems had become bars that she'd perform over beats sourced from YouTube, before she began building her own productions from scratch using a torrented copy of Logic and a MIDI keyboard. Upon uploading these early sketches to SoundCloud there was an instant reaction.

"There was this whole underground scene of kids doing the same thing back then," she recalls of the period. "And then my music started getting played by that same crowd that I was listening to, and then they would invite me up to London to do shows."

A raft of A&Rs came calling and - after a few false starts - she found a home on the roster of Tap Management (Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey) and signed with her hero Pharrell's label Columbia. Understandably, Willow still seems somewhat awed at the situation today, but to focus too much on her good fortune would be to vastly undersell her drive and abilities.

As at home spitting a quick-witted come-back as she is cooing melismatically over silky R&B chords, Willow is a chameleonic talent with a vast creative vision. 'Two Seater' is dedicated to decrying fake friends, and features leftfield production from DANIO (Kari Faux, Husky Loops) which contrasts a balmy chorus with punk-inspired verses, driven by a serrated bass riff redolent of Radiohead's on 'The National Anthem'. Oscar Scheller produced follow up single 'I Don't Wanna Know' takes all of the attitude Willow has become synonymous with and ramps it up to 11 - taking cues from the old school rave culture that she is obsessed with by sticking a middle finger up to trolls over a drum & bass indebted backing. Inspired by the very real online abuse Willow received on TikTok, it's a high energy example of just how unpredictable a talent Willow is, and how easy she makes it look; the track is packed with hilarious one-liners that cut those who have bullied her online to size. 'I Don't Wanna Know' is an empowering anthem that deals with real life Gen Z issues with a sense of confidence that feels so refreshing in the landscape of pop today.

Next single 'Opinion' was inspired by the unfuckwithable rebel-pop of 00s icons such as Santigold and M.I.A, landing a suckerpunch from the outset and breaking out of playground soundscapes with gargantuan bass hits and a pulse-raising hook that takes cues from the aforementioned Santigold. Making way for Willow to spotlight her most dexterous rapping yet, 'Opinion' is a full-bodied rapid fire message for the uninitiated to keep their comments to themselves and to simply stand back and watch her blaze her own trail.

This confidence was recognized with her nomination for, and later on winning, the Ivor Novello Rising Star award; the premier songwriting award for rising talent and one that saw her paired with disco legend Nile Rodgers for mentorship in the lead up to the awards show.

If Willow comes across hugely confident now, it's worth emphasizing that it took work to get comfortable with this level of experimentation. "Lo-fi hip hop was all I knew how to produce. But definitely as time's gone on I just didn't know anyone who is making this type of music. I'm making the type of music that I've wanted to make for so long and confidence has been a mad factor in that. I can write a punk song if I want to. What's stopping me?"

"Usually the people I look up to do multiple things," she enthuses. "For example, Pharrell Williams is definitely someone I see as an influence for the fact that he has created his own brand in Billionaire Boys Club, and for his various collaborations with other creators, my favorite being Nigo."

A keen designer, Willow already has a clear vision for her forthcoming EP Playground Antics, fusing references from the rave and punk subcultures with elements of retro futurism. She talks enthusiastically about creating an A/V show for the set, and of potentially incorporating olfactory elements to make the live experience even more immersive. As wildly ambitious as such plans might sound, Willow has a practical reason for creating a multi-sensory experience. Following an accident which left her blinded in one eye, she is now more invested in her senses than ever. As she explains, "I was mainly a visual person, but having to be in darkness for a long period really made it obvious how it's everything - the sound, look, even the smell of things that captivates you."

And so too do Willow's forthcoming debut EP, Playground Antics, which boasts a spontaneity and a sense of anarchy sadly absent in a lot of contemporary pop. Thrillingly, listening to her output so far, you're left with no real sense of where she'll go next; just that she'll seize every opportunity within her grasp. And one thing's for sure: in Willow Kayne's hands, the future of pop will be anything but boring.