BECKY HILL & MNEK
Mixing work with pleasure, friends and frequent collaborators Becky Hill and MNEK turn up the volume about making sweet music together, overcoming obstacles in the industry and embracing their queerness
It is double trouble as the friends and frequent collaborators discuss their journeys as queer artists in the music industry
Becky Hill and Uzo ‘MNEK’ Emenike have no trouble serving up a memory that captures the beginning of their friendship. In fact, it proves to be a piece of cake. Specifically, a bland, shop-bought one, as Becky reminisces about attending Uzo’s messy 18th-birthday bash, having only recently moved to the “arseend of London” from her small hometown of Bewdley following her appearance on The Voice UK in 2012. “He was my only friend down here,” recalls the chart-topping singer. “Anyway, I turn up on my own at this party with a fucking whole Angel cake in my hand – and this place was carnage. I saw Uzo’s cousin, and he was, like, ‘Oh, you’re looking for him?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got cake.’ He was, like, ‘Right…’ and he leads me through to this bedroom where Uzo is out [like a light], he is gone.”
Uzo adds: “I haven’t been that twatted since. I can’t go back to that place again!”
But wait, what happened to the cake? “I had to leave it at the side of his bed, never to be looked at, eaten or even acknowledged,” Becky laughs.
The pair have been best pals and also songwriting partners ever since. So, to mark the release of Becky’s debut album, Only Honest on the Weekend, out now, Attitude reunites 27-yearold Becky, who identifies as queer, and music maestro Uzo, 26 – nominated for Songwriter of the Year at the 2021 Ivor Novellos for his work with the likes of Little Mix and Dua Lipa – to reflect on their special bond, how they’ve navigated a very white, male-dominated industry, and the ways in which their queerness has shaped them as artists.
How did you meet?
Becky: I was on The Voice UK, Uzo was a working professional, and then I came off the show and he arranged – this is the most mundane fucking story – but he asked his management to get a session. Uzo: It was when I saw you do Seven Nation Army and I was, like, you’re crazy, I have to meet you. We met in my old studio, I was 17, she was 18. She came in a red dress and played some songs on guitar, and the rest is history. We have been friends ever since.
What were your first impressions of each other?
B: When I found out Uzo was 17, I was like, fuck, no way. Uzo’s always, you know, big personality, big set of shoulders–
U: [Laughs]
B: I just remember thinking that his energy was lovely. That first meeting, I played him songs that I’d written when I was 15, then we got into the studio together to make actual music and that’s where we wrote Losing, which happened to be my debut single
that got me signed to my first record deal. U: I was just, like, damn, I don’t have any white friends [laughs].
I had no idea that you guys were such good pals.
U: Me and Becky could have just maintained a professional relationship and kept it that way, but I sensed something different about her. I think we met each other at transitional points in our lives. It was us coming to age, making music, being successful, [but also] having ups and downs in our career.
B: It’s weird, because Uzo, kind of, kept his cards close to his chest. I couldn’t work him out – he has this problem in life.
U: I’m a Scorpio, I can’t help it! [laughs]
B: I didn’t know whether he liked me or not.
U: Why do I have to let everyone know everything about myself? Why can’t I have something for myself?!
B: But I fell in love with Uzo very quickly. He was DJing at XOYO one night and that cemented it for us, that we were friends. Uzo had just joined the music industry, professionally, full-time, he was fresh out of school, and I’m there, straight off The Voice, [having] moved from a small town to the capital city, left my family and friends, and I think both of us were a little bit lost at the time.
U: We were out [there] together.
B: The thing was, we were polar opposites, which we’ve never really acknowledged throughout our entire friendship.
U: I mean, I have [laughs].
Why do you think you also work so well together?
U: Becky could write hit songs by herself
– she has written hit songs all by herself – and I rate her. What we do when we’re together is we just bring the best of ourselves and hear each other out. I don’t think we’ve ever taken longer than a couple of hours to write a song before. B: I know if I’m in a session with you at one, I can book dinner at four [laughs]. I’ve [also] got 100 per cent comfortability with Uzo… Uzo has known a lot of the shit I’ve gone through, and I’d go, “This is my [song] title,” and he’ll know exactly the situation playing out. It was quite sad because the studio Uzo initially had, the room we met in, that came to an end, and it felt like the end of an era. I went through really big milestones in my life there. But me and Uzo proved that we don’t need a studio or technology – apart from our phones – and one of the songs that we wrote together on the album was done in lockdown… Also, I have to mention this, this is credit where credit’s due, because Uzo has been nominated for an Ivor Novello, which for any songwriter is an absolute dream come true.
Congratulations! How does it feel to be nominated for such a prestigious award?
U: I am so much about the craft and the song-writing, especially at a time like this. It has absolutely saved my life, making music and having that access has helped my mental health, and I’m just happy it helped other people. It’s nice to be acknowledged and a part of that acknowledgement is me having hits and songs that have done well, and I’m very blessed that my first two number-one records are with my best friends, KABBA and Becky.
Let’s talk about the beginning of your careers. The dance-pop industry is very white and male-dominated – how did you enter and navigate that world?
B: The beginning of my career was with four older white dudes. I was 16, in a band, everybody was a lot older than me. You know, my manager is a white, straight male, but a completely different one to most of the people that I’ve known and the stories I’ve heard. One thing that struck me is that because I’m from a small, white town, I haven’t grown up with an alternative opinion or culture or background, and with that has come a lack of understanding. This is why I’m always grateful for the friends I’ve made in London, regardless of colour, but I’m also fucking thankful I have friends of colour. I remember being sat at Uzo’s house with a few of our other friends and trying to argue the point that, “Oh, well, it’s hard for me in the music industry as well, I’m off the telly and I’m just a feature artist, rah, rah, rah.” They went, “Becky, it is not the same struggle for you as it is for us.”
I remember that conversation because it was really difficult, and it’s hard for me to sit here and admit that that was the way I thought at one point, and how I had to be educated – which wasn’t their responsibility – by my friends to see that the industry is, as with all industries, as is the system, massively skewed in favour of white people.
It was a huge turning point for me, and I now try to fill my workspaces with talented people of colour and people of different sexualities, backgrounds, cultures and upbringings. It’s super-important for me, but it was something I had to learn, and I really saw that with the music industry.
Me and Uzo have had, like with record labels and stuff, and our best friend [singer-songwriter] Ryan Ashley, us three have been so consistent in our work, but there have been times when I’ve not understood why I’m having to fight so hard to get my boys paid, or why they aren’t paid the same respect as a fucking white DJ. I’ve seen that, and obviously, Uzo has had a lot more experience with this than I have.
Uzo, what has your experience been?
U: Well, truthfully, [it’s like] you know when someone says something racist, you don’t even realise it’s racist at the time, but a few seconds after, you’re, like, wow, that was racism. I think as I have gotten older in the industry, I’ve realised the impact of the whitewash.
I came straight from school and where
I got raised, I wasn’t around many white people, like the most amount of white people I was around was the teachers. The pupils, we were a smorgasbord of cultures and mostly Black kids. Me coming into the industry, that was my whitest experience – I didn’t understand why there were so many white people coming into my parents’ house and introducing themselves. So many ladders I had to climb under all these white people, and those were my first inklings, my first idea of that dynamic, that monarchy.
Naturally, I’ve learned to assimilate, but then I guess the other thing is, I do what I do. I know that when it comes to a lot of these Caucasian House DJs – House being a genre that was pioneered by Black, queer people – when it comes to those things, I know I’m being asked for a specific thing that they can’t do. When I’m coming into these writing rooms, I’m bringing something that some of these white people can’t do. I’m empowered by what I can add to the equation, [but] I’m aware that it’s part of a bigger problem.
Me, Becky and a bunch of our friends have discussed this at length, because
Becky is one of a handful of white friends I have; she’s my sister, I love her to bits. We all heard her out and her perspective and she’s heard our perspective, and that’s the main thing, that we’ve been able to listen to each other and hear where we can improve on both counts. More white creatives can afford themselves the agency to learn and better themselves.
B: There’s a responsibility that these A&Rs [artists and repertoire] have. Uzo, there have been a couple of stories that you have told me that have happened to you over the years, which we won’t get into.
U: There have been a few traumatic moments.
B: There’s been shocking shit happen – to the point where some of these fucking A&Rs have had to send Uzo a bunch of flowers because they’ve been so rude to him in his own studio, for no other reason really other than the fact he is queer and Black, otherwise, what else are you doing here?
U: Things like that can be intimidating to people who are used to a certain type of structure. At the end of the day, the music has always done the talking. As aforementioned, she [Uzo] is a Scorpio and she can drop a few bars for a tweet, but I don’t think it always needs to be that. I have a great job that does a lot of talking that I don’t have to do.
Did you both find that coming out and embracing your queerness helped with your song-writing? Like a block had been removed?
B: Probably did with you, Uzo, right?
U: Initially, I was identifying as bi, trying to figure that out, so when I finally was, like, she’s [Uzo’s] a faggot, I felt empowered to write about that stuff on my first album [2018’s Language], it was appropriate. Before I was, like, no pronouns, no nothing in the songs, but I was talking about real things, and I felt like it would be remiss of me not to refer to where it applied to and tell my stories… I still get messages from people, saying thank you for what you do and how you exist.
B: I remember Uzo coming out. He just dropped it into any old conversation. He was talking about picking up his clothes from the drycleaner’s or something, and he was, like, “So, me and my gay self,” and I was, like, what? The next day we were in a cab, and I said, “Did you say you were gay?” And he was, like, “Yeah, babe.” But for me, in our friendship group, we had a friend who was, like, “I think you might be a lesbian.” I was, like, “Well, erm, I don’t…” My identification with my queerness is still at its infancy.
There’s no rush. It’s a journey.
B: I felt a bit like an imposter because I’ve had a boyfriend for five and a half years… I feel much better now I am under the queer umbrella. I also think it’s important for women to own their queerness, instead of over-sexualising their desire for other women for the sake of straight men. That was probably the biggest reason as to why I came out as queer, because I was, like, I know I enjoy sleeping with women, to what degree of that I don’t know, but I’d rather call myself queer and name it for what it is, than have men fantasise over the idea that I might be bi-curious or like a cheeky threesome here and there.
U: You’ve never felt straight, that’s the thing. B: It’s always been a feeling for me that I haven’t really acknowledged… My queerness is now helping me become my true self: I want to wear head-to-toe sequins, I want to wear thigh-length boots, I want to own my fucking sexuality, I want to be camp as fuck.
Given everything going on with DaBaby and the homophobic hate he’s been spouting, it is more essential than ever that we see queer artists like yourselves on stage.
U: DaBaby and his comments and that kind of narrative being put out there, it’s dangerous and irresponsible, but also just ignorant and not even accurate. First of all, what business do you have talking about that anyway? Who asked you? For me anyway, it’s not fun to have to make this a political thing all the time, or to make it such a big deal. This is just your mere existence. There is no agenda, there is no gay agenda. If you want to be gay one day, go for it, whatever sets you free. I’m not going to force it down your throat the way straight culture has been forced down our throats.
“my queerness is helping me become my true self” Becky