Lola Young conquered TikTok with ‘Messy.' Now she's looking for more
When Lola Young visits Los Angeles for work — something the singer-songwriter from South London has been doing with increasing frequency over the six years since she signed a major-label record deal at age 18 — she usually stays among the young and creatively inclined in Silver Lake.
'But right now we're in Bel-Air,' she says with a slightly sheepish expression on a recent morning.
Moving on up?
'Apparently.'
More like definitely: Late last year, Young's song 'Messy' went mega-viral on TikTok thanks to a goofy dance video posted by the influencers Jake Shane and Sofia Richie Grainge; nearly five months later, 'Messy' has more than half a billion streams on Spotify and YouTube and remains in the upper reaches of Billboard's Hot 100. The chart features a second Young entry in 'Like Him,' her dreamy-wistful collaboration with Tyler, the Creator from his 'Chromakopia' LP.
Yet the ample charm of 'Messy' — the latest in a long line of talky, self-effacing British pop hits that includes Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab' and Lily Allen's 'Smile' — is that it's all about not feeling like you've put everything together.
'OK, so yeah, I smoke like a chimney / I'm not skinny and I pull a Britney every other week,' Young sings over a gently chugging soul-rock groove, 'But cut me some slack / Who do you want me to be?' The singer, now 24, calls 'Messy' an 'ADHD anthem' — one that's finally focused listeners' attention on her to the point that she had to find roomier digs on this trip to accommodate her growing team.
'That's how English we are — we're like, 'No, no, no…,' trying to justify the bigger house,' Jack Siggs, one of Young's managers, says with a laugh as he sits next to his client at an Italian restaurant in Brentwood. Dressed in a pink striped top, her hair pulled back into a bun, Young is in L.A. to play this month's Coachella festival and to perform on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show. Every few minutes she puffs discreetly from a vape pen when the server is out of sight; her phone lies screen down on the table, though she's hardly vanquished the temptation to check her notifications.
Would she say she's brain-damaged because of phones?
'Yes,' she replies without hesitation. 'I mean, I have brain damage from other things as well.' Young admires when a musician like Matty Healy of The 1975 pauses a concert to urge his audience to put away their phones and live in the moment. 'But that wouldn't work for me because so much of my brand and everything has come from social media,' she says. 'So to say, 'Everyone turn the f— phone off' — it's a bit much.'
Even so, her goal now is to prove she's not just another of TikTok's countless one-hit wonders. Coachella can be a promising launch pad, as Chappell Roan — a labelmate of Young's at Island Records — demonstrated 12 months ago in a much-discussed performance that set her on a path toward a best new artist win at February's Grammy Awards.
Louis Bloom, president of the Island EMI Label Group, is naturally behind her: He describes Young as a 'once-in-a-generation talent' and tells The Times she's 'at the beginning of an extraordinary career.' So too is SZA, who's called herself a fan and whom Young singles out as a crucial influence on the frankly conversational songwriting that defines Young's tangy sophomore album, 'This Wasn't Made for You Anyway,' which dropped last summer.
'The way she flows and wanders and her melodies meander — I was massively inspired by that when 'CTRL' came out,' Young says of SZA's 2017 LP. 'The fact that she validated me is really important.'
Before SZA, Young grew up idolizing Avril Lavigne and Eminem, then got into Prince and Joni Mitchell. Her great-aunt, Julia Donaldson, wrote the popular children's book 'The Gruffalo,' and Young's parents encouraged her to sing as a kid; later, Young studied at London's Brit School, the prestigious performing arts academy that counts Winehouse, Adele and Rex Orange County among its famous alumni. Looking back, Young says she learned loads about music at the Brit School, though she also got into plenty of trouble 'smoking weed behind the sheds,' as she puts it over a late breakfast of spaghetti carbonara.
After graduating, she met manager Nick Shymansky, who earlier had overseen Winehouse's career. Young honed her craft with a series of singles and EPs, then released her debut album in 2023. (Probably worth noting: Shymansky's cousin Elliot Grainge, CEO of Atlantic Records, is married to Sofia Richie Grainge, whose TikTok video set off 'Messy's' ascent.)
Today, Young's debut sounds a little too polished; 'This Wasn't Made for You Anyway,' much of which she cut in L.A., has a punky, appealingly ragged quality — think Arctic Monkeys meets Mary J. Blige — that better suits her raspy voice. Her writing is sharper too — not just 'Messy' but the mordant 'Wish You Were Dead' and 'Conceited,' in which she expertly roasts a hot-and-cold lover: 'I heard that you tell the guys I'm the worst / You come 'round on Monday and goddamn, you stink like you've missed me.'
For all the mileage she's gotten out of the album, Young says 'This Wasn't Made for You Anyway' has already started to feel old; she's more excited about the next record she's working on, which she's reluctant to describe in detail other than to say that there's 'sort of a country-ish song on it.' One problem she's encountering for the first time as a songwriter is that so many of her social interactions these days come down to people wanting to know things about her.
'I'm a cocky little s—, so obviously I want to talk about myself,' says Young, who's scheduled to perform between Coachella weekends at the Fonda Theatre on April 15. 'But I want to listen to people too and figure out things about their lives. It's a weird balance.'
At the risk of piling on: What's up with the prominent tattoo on her left ear? 'F— if I know,' she says of the little network of squiggly lines. 'I kind of regret it every time I see it. Not in a deep way.' She laughs. 'I think I was just afraid of dying without a tattoo and looking like a p—.'
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