Katy B cut her teeth on London's dubstep scene ? but now the charts and breakfast TV are calling. The 21-year-old tells Rebecca Nicholson why she'll always be a raver at heart
In skinny jeans, red jumper and Vans trainers, her freshly dyed red hair pulled back, South London's Katy B is a different kind of pop star. Somehow she's got all bases covered, juggling white label, pirate-station authenticity and one-of-us, we-could-be-mates appeal. While the media still hypes indie bands, it's an increasingly desperate endeavour: this week, the entire top 40 features just one ? Noah and the Whale at No 19. Just as they have for the past two years, pop, dance and R&B continue to reign supreme, and Katy B, whose irresistible pop-dubstep single Katy on a Mission hit the top five last summer, is the current sound of both the clubs and the charts.
At the east London headquarters of Rinse FM, the pirate station turned legit broadcaster which has been pushing the dubstep, grime and UK funky of London's underground since its inception, Katy is busy attending to the business of being a pop star, choosing clothes for TV appearances and planning rehearsals for the live show she's about to take on the road. Rinse is also home to her record label and management, and she spends her mornings here, working and hanging out. Today, she drops into the Grimey Breakfast Show, broadcasting from the studio next door, to mess around on air with host Scratcha. She gets her hair and makeup done for a series of photoshoots, gossips with her stylist about celeb-mag favourites Peter Andre and "new love" Elen Rivas, and fills me in on the EastEnders baby-swap storyline. It's like going to the hairdresser, if the hairdresser had a healthy interest in the state of dubstep as well as holidays in Turkey with her mates.
Born Kathleen Brien ("the most Irish name ever") to a plumber father and postwoman mother, Katy grew up in Peckham, south-east London and learned her trade as a vocalist on the underground dance scene. She appeared as Baby Katy on DJ NG's Tell Me when she was just 16, working mostly with bedroom producers whose records got picked up by pirate radio stations across the capital. In the four years since then, she has criss-crossed genres, singing over drum'n'bass, house, dubstep and its latest mutation UK funky, finally coming up with a debut album, On a Mission, that mixes up those styles into something both credible and accessible.
There are mixed-up elements in Katy herself, too. She finished a degree in popular music at Goldsmiths university last year, at around the same time as she filmed her first music video. Her course involved writing an essay about UK funky, "the social elements around it and how it developed and stuff", which she probably knew more about than the person marking her. Although her relationship with Rinse was well underway, she did the degree regardless: "I just wanted to learn more about music and I didn't want to fall into getting a job and not pursuing it, so I thought it would keep me on that path." And though she found her way into music through club nights and on pirate stations, she's been a performer looking to turn pro since she was a child, auditioning for Annie in the West End when she was eight. "That was the first time I had to sing. I auditioned to be Hermione in Harry Potter as well. They were like, 'Have you read the book?' I was like, 'No.' 'Next!'"
When she was 14, she went to the Brit school for performing arts in Croydon, where she was in the year below Adele and Jessie J. "If people think it's all singing, dancing and acting, well that's what I wanted, do you know what I mean?" she says, insisting that going to stage school didn't earn her any stick from the hipper-than-thou dance community. "I met all my best friends and I loved it," she says, before summing up her overground/underground appeal completely. "But I didn't make my music there, I did it outside. The first tune that I released, I did with my friend's brother."
Katy's first taste of dance music came from performing at clubs before she was old enough to go to them. "I was 16 when I had my first vinyl out and I did PAs. I wasn't really supposed to be in clubs." By the time she was old enough to go out legally, she had already attracted the attentions of Rinse FM's boss Geeneus, who had heard her tracks across the capital's pirate stations and became her manager. As well as kickstarting her career properly, he got her on to the guestlists of clubs she wanted to go to. "I was 18, so that was the time when you do first start raving. It was wicked. They put on loads of raves, and I could get all my mates in for free. Literally, we just went off on one. I went to FWD [Rinse's legendary dubstep/grime night in east London] every single week. But I had work the next day, so I'd be the first one there at 10, on my own, then I'd leave at 12 to get the night bus home." Where were you working? "In Lewisham, in JD Sports. But it was alright. I didn't even have a hangover, 'cos I couldn't afford to drink."
It's odd, then, given how much of a fantastic jumble she is, that Katy has been described as "queen of dubstep". When I mention it, she flinches. "I wouldn't say that's a good thing to say," she explains, cautiously, of the tag that's followed her around since last summer's big hit. "I don't think I represent all things dubstep. I just like clubbing, so those are the sounds I've chosen to work with." She says she has more of a relationship with "clubbing in general" than any sort of dubstep scene. "All my friends were into funky," she explains, of the UK house-garage hybrid, "like all the girls and stuff, 'cos that's more a glamorous scene. When I first started raving I was doing that kind of thing."
Dubstep is history
Geeneus, who's around all morning, cracking jokes and making plans, cuts in. "I mean dubstep to us is fucking ancient. We're like: 'Dubstep, again. Another dubstep conversation.' But the rest of the world is jumping on dubstep right now. Normally when it gets to that stage, it means we're nearly done with it. Like Katy says, funky is newer than dubstep. And that's where she actually comes from. Her first big hit that crossed over was a dubstep tune, but her first four tracks were garage and funky influenced. So the album's a hybrid of sound that's all of the underground, rather than a genre."
Geeneus produced most of Katy's album, along with drum'n'bass producer Zinc (dubstep stars Benga and Magnetic Man contributed too, though on fewer tracks), and has been so involved since he signed her that he claims, with a grin, he could do her makeup and styling if he had to. His Rinse business model, with Katy as its big-name star, is brilliantly optimistic. "We don't take it that serious," he says. "We just make a song, crack on, and hope for the best. If Katy on a Mission had sold 100 copies, we'd have been happy. Even now if Katy dropped out the charts tomorrow and was not selling to this pop audience, we like the music, so we'd carry on doing it. That's the way we are."
But Katy B is selling to a pop audience. Katy on a Mission and the follow-up, Lights On, were top five hits without much promotion, press or hype behind them, selling because people had heard them on a night out and liked them. The day we meet, Katy is preparing to perform her new single, Broken Record, on the ITV breakfast show Daybreak. Geeneus admits they were surprised she hit the mainstream, but says it didn't quite come out of nowhere. "We've done a year of her singing over my set when I was DJing, she's done a year of [club nights] FWD and Rinse. She's done drum'n'bass tunes with Zinc. So Katy on a Mission was the final thing. The timing for everything was great. As everyone looked and said, 'What's dubstep?' Katy's there with this track. It was mainly good timing."
Katy laughs, mock-offended. "Yeah," she grins. "It's all hype."
And with that, it's time for lunch, debated at length, before a majority vote is taken and everyone decides on Nando's. A station assistant brings back an order for what seems like everyone who works at Rinse, and then some. Katy's still trying on clothes, with a pair of enormous, glamorous spike heels ("From Topshop! Topshop's good" chips in Geeneus). They'll look good on TV ? she wears them on Daybreak the next day ? but I can't imagine you wearing them to a club, I say. "I can't dance in them," she shrugs, tucking into her chicken and slipping back into her Vans.
? The album On a Mission is out on Monday.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/mar/29/katy-b
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