GRIFF is debating one of life’s big questions – what makes good Pop music? “All good music is moving; good Pop can move a large amount of people,” she measures. “Whether it’s sadness, dance or euphoria, as a listener I want to put it on and be like – ‘Oh my god I feel so moved.’ It needs to be something that you can sing off the top of your head and at the top of your lungs.” By her own definition then, whether it be the incandescent idiosyncrasy of “Hole In My Pocket” or the barren beauty of “Astronaut” – cuts from her 19th July-set debut album vertigo – the rising star makes damn good Pop music.

It’s the first truly sunny day of the year, and the pair of us are in Chiswick, enjoying the change in environment and a good ol’ fashioned conversation. A shoeless Griff, iced matcha in hand, sprawls out on the couch of her management offices in a cascading seasonal dress, comfortable, assured and warm. Her 2024, much like every year since the 23-year-old signed for Warner Records whilst still in sixth form, has been “non-stop.”

Since frequenting every publications ‘Ones To Watch’ list, winning the coveted Brits Rising Star Award in 2021, going viral with breakout banger “Black Hole”, and acquiring perhaps the most significant endorsement one can attain (a Taylor Swift co-sign, what else), Griff ’s stock has risen indelibly. She charted with her debut mixtape, supported Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa, and embarked on her own inaugural European headline tour, an experience she lightheartedly labels “exciting but disorientating.” More recently it’s been revealed that she will be joining the aforementioned Swift, whom Griff has idolised since childhood, for her Eras Tour outing on June 22nd as a support act. “8 yr old me who had Fearless on repeat wouldn’t believe this,” Griff shared on her Instagram when announcing the news. “[I’m] so unbelievably grateful to Taylor for all the love she’s shown me and my music.”

It’s all a glorious surprise for the Jamaican-Chinese small-town girl who didn’t have “creative jobs” in their “vocabulary when [she was] growing up.” She chuckles at the mention of her “strange upbringing,” one built around the peculiar bubble that is middle England. Kings Langley, her hometown in Hertfordshire, “was very quintessential British, white, middle class,” she says. “Growing up we were one of the only families that wasn’t white, and the population is like 5000 so everyone really does know each other.” Although her home life kept her busy and helped shape her morality (her parents have regularly fostered since she was eight, meaning “there was a level of selfishness that [she couldn’t] have anymore”), Griff always felt there was more to existence than the mild decadence of arcadian bucolicism.

“Being in the countryside meant that there was nothing to do,” she laughs, remembering a time when she would travel to London on weeknights after school to try and kick start a career in music. “But [Kings Langley] is close enough [to London] to have that desire of being in the city, of wanting to escape the small town. It’s stereotypical but it’s true.” Griff couldn’t help but dream big; her natural inclination of innovation superseding any meanderings towards convention. She taught herself to produce, learnt the guitar and piano, and “really fell in love with songwriting around 15, 16,” she recollects. “I nerded out on other songwriters I loved, I used to check the credits [for] who wrote the songs and have a deep dive on them; I was never really that into artists. I went into music wanting to be a songwriter and then fell into being an artist instead.”

After voyages to London working with “literally anyone who’d work with [her],” whilst nurturing a deep-seated love for the craft and self-taught but comprehensive education, Griff ’s talent invariably shone through; her vocal work on other producer’s tracks found their way into A&R meetings, with her own recordings eventually trickling through into conversations too. In 2019 she signed for Warner Records; but rather than get lost in the novelty, she stayed grounded in her hopes, her fears and her ambition. “When it happened it wasn’t like, ‘Shit now I’m going to be a Popstar’, it was more like, ‘Now there’s work to do.’ No one teaches you what it is to be an artist and to sign a record deal. I was more confronted with: ‘Oh, I’m going to have to really put myself out there now.’”

Being the ‘star’ is not necessarily in Griff ’s nature. She reveals that, at the inception of her artistic journey, she contemplated a more fully-fledged alias, complete anonymity from her own image. The industry had other ideas though. “I think there’s something in Pop culture and labels and, I dare say, misogyny, that [means] everything that is female talent needs to be front facing in order to sell it,” she says, a stinging and all-too-familiar contemplation on an industry still driven by the wider societal climate. “For most actual musicians, your natural habitat is to be in the studio and to create, and all the other stuff that comes with it – being online, being public facing – doesn’t come naturally. I still find it really challenging and it’s a whole part of the job that I didn’t [immediately] get to grips with.”

Nevertheless, Griff shrugged off any doubts and became the Popstar she needed to be, and although her image and identity isn’t necessarily her art’s selling point, it is a contributing factor. Considering the multiculturalism of her heritage, she’s a positive figure for representation in the mainstream landscape. Also, as a respected beatsmith and engineer herself, Griff has championed female producers and been vocal in the need for greater focus on bettering the quite damning figures. On the USC Annenberg’s annual music report, women still only made up 6.5% of producers on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023. “I didn’t realise that being a female producer was such a crazy thing until I started taking meetings and they were like. ‘Ah and she produces as well!’ It’s almost like [there is] a new level of credibility attached to doing more stuff, working harder to earn more.”

To read the full interview, pre-order the Summer 2024 issue here.