Katy B Interview

Katy B has just finished supporting Tinie Tempah on his tour when I get to catch up with her. As she sits on her sofa relaxing she talks about her experiences at Brit school, her up and coming tour starting on 29^th April and her long awaited debut album ‘On a Mission’ which was released on 4^th April.

How was it supporting Tinie Tepah?

It was so much fun, he is such a nice guy and I sung a song with him ‘let go’ off his album. I just learnt a lot, it gave me a lot of experience of what it means to go on tour.

You have collaborated with Magnetic Man and Ms. Dynamite, who else would you like to work with?

I have been saying in a lot of interviews that I would love to work with Cee Lo Green, he’s cool.

How did the album come about?

I just started singing on anything I could get my hands on. If someone needed backing vocals, I would do it. If someone needed someone to sing on one of their tunes, I would do it. I sung on one of my friend’s brother’s tunes and it started getting played on pirate (radio). Once I did that tune and people heard me I started doing PA’s and stuff and I did other tunes with other producers and those tunes got played on Rinse FM. They approached me to do an album where they were going to get all the producers from Rinse FM on it. Their DJ’s are all producers so they wanted to make this compilation album and I was going to sing across all the tunes to link them together as they were all different genres but in the end it turned into the Katy B album.

Has music always been what you wanted to do?

Yeah definitely, I think performing has always been what I wanted to do. When I was little, on a Saturday I would go to dance and drama and singing class and I just loved every minute of it. I really enjoyed dancing an acting, when I went to Brit I had to choose what one I wanted to do and I choose music and I am so happy that I did, I really am. If I weren’t singing I would probably be trying to be on stage somewhere. I think singing and song writing is my main thing now, I’m not sure I really want to be dusting off the tap shoes.

At Goldsmiths you got a degree in Popular Music, did that help you form your sound?

That was the whole point of the course that I did, they were really great with that. They really wanted to get into who you are as a person, your cultural history, your everything really. They tried to shape who you are as an artist and at the end we had to do a half hour performance of our own material and it definitely did help. I had been working with Rinse and stuff the whole time I was there so kind of had a vision of what I wanted to do quite clearly. It was an amazing experience and I learned a lot of new skills like arranging big band scores and learning about world music to theory and jazz, not that I was any good at jazz but it’s still great to learn things. That’s why I wanted to go; I thought it would be better to broaden my knowledge of music because it would make me a better musician than just getting a part time job.

Your album is out on the 4^th April, what can people expect from it?

People should go out and get it if they like what they have heard so far, it’s kind of on that tip of electronic. It uses a lot of breaks and a lot of influences, from jungle to house to dubstep to everything but with my song writing over the top. I guess its’ kind of like those years when I was at Uni from 18 to 21, going out, parting, being in love just sort of rolled into one. I called it on a mission as I knew I wanted it to be a song title off the album rather than just ‘Katy B’. I like it because I think it feels like there is a journey. It’s not all a solemn album it’s quite up and down.

How are you feeling about your first tour?

I start my own tour at the end of April going into May and it will be my full band and I am going everywhere, I think. I can’t wait actually as it is going to be amazing, a wicked experience.  


Published in Metro & Yorkshire Evening Post