Griff —WARNER MUSIC
For Griff, one of the biggest challenges of being a solo artist is dealing with nagging self-doubt.
But after spending the past two years as a supporting act for such global superstars as Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and Taylor Swift, the rising British singer-songwriter found some much-needed
affirmation.
“When you work and create music by yourself, it’s so easy to have moments where you’re like, ‘Should I be doing this?’ ‘Is this any good?’ There’s so much doubt that comes in every single day,” Griff said at a press conference for the recent stop of Warner Music Philippines’ “We Play Here” school tour at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
“But having artists like Taylor Swift or Dua Lipa take me on tour was a nice, quiet affirmation. It made me think that perhaps I’m doing something right,” she said, adding that she had never imagined that opportunities like these would come her way.
“I’m very lucky … I never set out or planned to go on all these amazing tours. I figured out that I will not have any expectations and that I will just see what comes.”
Her list of high-profile gigs continues to grow. The 23-year-old talent is set to open for the United States leg of “Espresso” hitmaker Sabrina Carpenter’s upcoming “Short ‘n’ Sweet” tour. How is she preparing for it?
“It’s going to be very fun … My mindset or approach is that the audience is there to see the main act. And I’m there to have fun and get the people dancing and excited. So, I will just try my best to keep my energy high,” she said.
In between tours, Griff goes back home, packs up all her music equipment and holes up in a cottage to write. That’s how the songs on her debut album, “Vertigo” came to be.
And during the European run, she was lucky enough to have Coldplay frontman Chris Martin listen to what she was working on. He offered Griff valuable feedback on the track “Astronaut,” and even offered to play piano on it.
“The initial production I did for the song was busier, more electronic. And then, I went on tour with Coldplay and played a lot of the songs from the album. He was like, ‘You should slow it down … strip it back.’ It was very surreal. Chris Martin agreed to finish it with me and play the piano on it. That’s a really special song,” she related.
Coming-of-age
“Vertigo” is described as a coming-of-age album that delves into young adulthood and the things that come with it, from “melancholy and “heartache to healing and joy.”
“Vertigo is this physical condition where you feel dizzy, like the world is spinning. That’s the emotion of the album. The songs are all very personal to me. The amazing thing about being able to produce and write music yourself is that every bit of it feels like a part of my body, almost,” she said.
While she didn’t have any formal training in music, Griff discovered her own sound through experimentation and trial and error. Well, that and the “School of YouTube,” she joked.
“The amazing thing about humans is that we just figure out what we like and what moves us. Growing up, I would spend a lot of my free time just creating stuff. I spent my teenage years figuring out what I love,” she said.
For now, her sound leans toward pop, R&B and electronic beats. But music is an ever-evolving living thing. “This is just my first album. I’m still trying to explore,” said Griff, whose most popular songs include “Black Hole,” “Good Stuff” and “One Night.”
On the album’s cover art, Griff’s braided hair is fashioned in a coil. It’s not just a nod to the album’s concept, but also a celebration of her heritage. Her father is Jamaican and her mother is Chinese.
“So many girls with Afro [-textured] hair have a strange relationship with our hair because it’s not a beauty standard. As I grew up, I learned that our hair is fun because you can do so much stuff with it. You can be creative with its texture,” she said. “It feels like an extension of my heritage.”
In hindsight, she surmised that her love for music grew partly because of the sense of isolation she felt growing up as a biracial kid. “A lot of mixed kids feel like they don’t fully belong to either side … like I’m not Asian enough or Black enough. I think that’s the reason I love music,” she said.
“When you feel like you don’t belong, you try to create your own safe space. I found it in music,” Griff added.
The more she travels the world and plays her music for different audiences, the more she’s reminded of the power of music as a universal language.
“A girl in the United Kingdom can travel many hours across the world to Manila. We might not have the same culture, but we enjoy and experience music just the same. And I think it’s beautiful,” she said. INQ