I was giving 110% but I forgot to take care of myself
MABEL SPEAKS TO ALEX GREEN ABOUT THE PRESSURES OF FAME AND NAVIGATING HER RELATIONSHIP WITH HER FAMOUS PARENTS
MABEL learned an important lesson in lockdown: how to say no.
“I’m a people pleaser and I hate the idea of ever letting anybody down,” the singer explains.
“But actually what happens when you’re not listening to yourself is you end up letting yourself down – and then in turn letting people down anyway. So yeah... I’m learning how to say no.”
When the pandemic began in early 2020, Mabel had spent two years playing concert halls, festivals and stadiums around the world.
It was a special time but nearly caused her to burn out. The perfect tonic turned out to be moving back in with her parents – Swedish singer Neneh Cherry and British record producer Cameron McVey.
“I’d had two years of a lot of travelling and a lot of madness going on,” she recalls. “I didn’t really see my parents properly for years and I needed a little break really. And even though lockdown was crazy and a very sad time in the world, timing wise, just for my mental [state], it came at quite a good time.
“I got to move into my parents’ house and have them do my laundry and cook dinners together and get taken care of,” she says with a warm laugh. “And I think I really needed that.”
Mabel shot to fame in 2019 with the release of the summer anthem Don’t Call Me Up.
At 26 she already has six top-10 singles and a Brit Award for best female solo artist under her belt.
She’s faced the pressures of being a young, successful female artist head on, and her forthcoming second album, conceived during lockdown, is a response to that.
“I see it as if it was a necessary time,” she says of the years that preceded the pandemic.
“I am so grateful. I had so many incredible experiences. And I think you need those. If you want to do what I do, you have to commit to it and I really did.
“I was giving it 110% but somewhere along the way, I forgot how to take care of myself and I think there’s a way to give your all without losing the person.
“That’s something that I think – God willing I get to experience that kind of success again – that I’ll know more how to take care of myself [in the future]. We learn those lessons sometimes the hard way. I definitely have, always.”
Part of this pressure came from social media where, as a woman in the public eye, Mabel faced nasty comments from trolls.
“I had people commenting on everything from my performances to my weight. And I wasn’t prepared for that. Again, I don’t know if you ever can be.”
Now, she feels more in control and the voices online bother her less. Asked when she discovered this newfound confidence, she says: “It has been a gradual process but I would say quite recently.
“I would say I am at my best right now. But I wouldn’t say that the album fixed me. It helped in the process of finding my voice and experimenting. But I actually think that most of my progress has happened in the last six months. I’m 26. I think it’s growing up as well.”
Mabel started to conceptualise what would become her new album, About Last Night..., as lockdown began in early 2020.
She reflected on the roller coaster of her career so far and decided to try and encapsulate that into one night out on the town.
“I really missed that human interaction, that going out and smiling at strangers, dancing, meeting people in the club toilets,” she smiles.
“All those little things that we almost take for granted.
“But mainly just hearing music and dancing. I was definitely using it as this kind of escapism and a fantasy world in my head.”
The result is a high-energy record, exemplified by the singles Let Them Know and Good Luck, with layers to unpack.
On the album, Mabel also set out to capture the energy of queer music. She spent much of lockdown watching FX series Pose, RuPaul’s Drag Race and Paris Is Burning, the cult 1990 documentary about the New York City ballroom scene.
She was raised among influential figures from the British LGBT scene and her godfather was the fashion designer and punk iconoclast Judy Blame, who died in 2018 aged 58.
“He taught me a lot of very important things that I know about just life, to be honest with you,” she explains. “Honestly, I remember him telling me that none of my female pop idols would be who they are without the queens, and really understanding the gravity of that. Performance, expression, makeup. There are so many things that just wouldn’t exist and that’s always been around me.
“When I went back to make the second album and I had that time to think, I was looking at all sides of myself and being like, ‘This is really important to me and [I] love this type of music’ so let me nod to that.”
Some Mabel fans may still be unaware she comes from musical royalty. Understandably, she has been keen to establish herself as an artist independent of her parents.
Now, though, she is more relaxed. At the NME Awards in March, she presented her mother with the icon award on stage, describing her as “my biggest inspiration”. And in 2020 she won a Brit Award 30 years after her mother did the same.
“For a long time I shut them out of what I was doing because I guess I just wanted them to be my parents,” she says. “And I think they wanted that too.
“They would come to shows and TV [appearances] and whatever but just as my mum and dad... I think also for my confidence in music, it’s very important that we weren’t working together and I was finding my own contacts.
“But over the last year I’ve really just been like, ‘Oh my God, I’m so proud of the things that they have accomplished’. And it doesn’t take away from what I do at all.
“I think I’ve already proven that I’m an artist in my own right. So why not bring them to things and go to things with my mum? Because I’m so proud of her. And it’s an amazing legacy to be a part of.”
About Last Night... by Mabel is out on Friday on Polydor. She plays Somerset
House in London on July 17 and
Loosefest in
Newcastle on
July 31