Baby Queen just dropped off her Yearbook, have you sign it yet?
Photo by Clark Franklyn
Baby Queen rightfully ascends the anti-pop throne today with the release of her hotly awaited debut mixtape The Yearbook and new single “Narcissist,” one of five brand new tracks featured on it.
Displaying characteristic wit and candor, Baby Queen says “Narcissist” is “an admission of my own narcissistic tendencies but also me trying to make sense of where those tendencies came from in the first place. I think women are told from the moment they are born until they can form their own opinions that beauty and vanity are the keys to their success, and then they are berated when they are older for being self-obsessed or apathetic. Cosmetic companies want us to hate ourselves. There is money being made off our obsession with improving ourselves and our appearances. This song is just saying, 'Yeah fuck you, I am a narcissist, and I am self-obsessed, but why do you think that is?'”
The ten songs that make up The Yearbook are born from personal experiences Baby Queen -aka South African-born, London-adoptee Bella Latham - had chosen to keep under wraps for years. Taking us as far back as 2018, they’re the 24-year old’s most diaristic work to date, chronicling her coming-of-age. “It’s an American coming-of-age film,” she says of the final project’s concept. “It feels confusing, happy, free, lonely… all of these things you go through when you are growing up.”
The release of The Yearbook marks the culmination of the new musical era of Baby Queen, which was ushered in at the top end of 2021 with “Raw Thoughts” and follows the release of her debut Medicine EP in November. The experiences that informed the songs on The Yearbook unfolded when Bella moved to London at 18, joined rock bands, and fell in love and headfirst into the city’s party scene. They are bittersweet and brilliant. “It’s important to be able to capture a full range of emotion,” she says of the songs on The Yearbook, which include previous releases ‘These Drugs’, ‘Dover Beach’, ‘American Dream’ and ‘You Shaped Hole’. “I want the listener to feel like they’re on the top of a London bus, traveling through a city they’ve moved to for the very first time, seeing the world through new eyes.”
Baby Queen has performed at a number of festivals throughout the summer, including Reading & Leeds, and recently added a third date to her debut headline shows at Omeara on November 9th & 10th, which sold out in a matter of days. The third and final show will take place on the 11th.
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