Launching a solo career after a decade in a chart-topping group is a tall order. How do you build your own musical identity while retaining your existing fanbase and winning over sceptics? But so far, JADE has made it look like fun. At this year’s BRIT Awards, she delivered one of the performances of the night and collected the Best Pop Act prize from fellow girl -group legends, the Sugababes.
The journey began last July when she dropped her brilliant and discombobulating debut single ‘Angel Of My Dreams’, which NME named as one of the best songs of 2024. Over an exhilarating blend of celestial pop and grinding electroclash, she shared her love-hate relationship with the music industry: “If I don’t win, I’m in the bin / You say you never knew me.”It didn’t sound anything like JADE’s band Little Mix – but then again, it didn’t sound like anything on the charts either.
Since then, the South Shields singer-songwriter has delivered bop after bop: the kinky disco gem ‘Fantasy’, electro revenge anthem ‘FUFN (Fuck You for Now)’, and the shimmering synth-pop of ‘Plastic Box’. Now comes her dazzling debut album ‘That’s Showbiz Baby!’, on which this ambitious and supremely pop-literate artist really learned to embrace the chaos.
“I want people to feel like they’re literally hearing me find my sound,” she tells NME when we meet at a central London recording studio. “Obviously, my voice is a running thread and maybe some of the concepts [are too], but it is a bit all over the place. And I wanted it to sound like that. I want you to listen and be like, ‘Oh god, what’s she coming out with next?'”
During a relaxed and candid In Conversation interview, JADE talks about her showbiz heroes, her recent collaboration with Confidence Man, and her willingness to speak out about LGBTQ+ issues and other causes she believes in. But she’s also perfectly happy to share the stories behind her songs.
“I like doing it at this phase of my career, because I like to show people that I do actually write my own music,” she says. “I feel like being in a girl band, you spend years convincing people that you actually are a credible artist. Like, to a degree, I’ve definitely got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about feeling like an underdog and having to prove that I’m worthy of a seat at the table.”
How did the album track ‘Before You Break My Heart’ come about? It features a pretty audacious sample from ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’.
“What’s really special about that is the chorus vocal is actually me as a child singing [that song]. It’s about me not forgetting my younger self and losing sight of that in this showbiz world. I was showing Mike [Sabath, producer] loads of different childhood videos – me singing in competitions and talent shows – and I played him [one of] me dressed as Diana Ross singing ‘Stop! In the Name of Love!’ And that just inspired the song.”
Who taped the video – your mum?
“Yeah, I think so. Very low quality, but that’s the magic of it. I think it was important for the album to have just one song that really fed that part of myself. It is such an iconic song, and I think because of that, I almost I didn’t want to make [my version] too experimental. Like, it is what it is. It’s very obvious that that’s the sample, and we run with it throughout the whole song as an homage to Diana Ross, because she’s my favourite artist of all time.”
The new single ‘Unconditional’ is quite disco-sounding, but also has this big blast of guitars that people might not expect from you. How did it take shape?
“That element of surprise is what I love to do. I like people to hear my music and go ‘oh god, I wasn’t expecting that’. ‘Unconditional’ was the last song that made it on the album. It’s about my mum, who’s got lupus – the week that we wrote it, my mum was in hospital, and I was obviously very upset about that. So I went in the studio with Pablo [Bowman] and Mike [Sabath] and told them what was going on. Literally, I was in and out of the room, on the phone to the hospital and my brother, and it was all very touch-and-go.
“So the song is about my undying love for my mum and [how] I wish I could fix it, but I just can’t. The musical references were Diana Ross and disco, because that’s what my mum loves, but I wanted to merge that with MGMT vibes, which you can hear in the synth sounds, and a bit of Gossip.”
I thought it kind of sounded Blondie-meets-Gossip.
“I mean, I’ll take that all day. I have no problem admitting references – I think it’s important, especially for this first album, because it was all about me experimenting. I love Frankenstein-ing a song together and making people feel emotional, but almost in a confused way. ‘Unconditional’ is really sad, but then you’ve got this elevated chorus where it’s like this whimsical disco reference. I love the idea of people blasting it in the house and dancing around, but maybe crying at the same time.”
You’ve just done a collaboration with Confidence Man, ‘Gossip’, which features the iconic line “Tina said you’re a cunt”. Did you second-guess yourself about releasing it with that lyric?
“Well, the good thing about that is it was released on their label, not mine. So when I said, ‘Tina said you’re a cunt’, I thought, ‘not my problem’.”
That line is on fans now – people were waving them at Brighton Pride.
“The fans, yes! I think Confidence Man are amazing and they remind me of, like, a cooler, high-fashion Aqua or Vengaboys. I mean that in the most complimentary way possible, because I grew up loving that kind of music. They’re just unapologetically themselves, they’re fun to watch and the music’s really cool.
“So when they sent me the track and asked if I wanted to be on it, I was like, ‘Absolutely!’ We got in the studio together and that Tina line was just sort of improvised. It was me and Grace [Stephenson, aka Janet Planet] on the mic together, just literally gossiping, and it sort of organically came out.
“I think they obviously brought me onto the track as the pop girlie, but I don’t think they knew me that well. I’m quite introverted, but I can be a bit of a cunt, so I think when I said that line, it surprised them and got a big reaction in the room. Like, ‘that <i>has</i> to be in the song.'”
You’re also known for really speaking your mind at live shows. At Mighty Hoopla in June, you got the crowd to chant: “Transphobes? Fuck you! J. K. Rowling? Fuck you!” Is this something you think about in advance, or can it be quite impulsive?
“A bit of both, really. I think I’ve always been quite outspoken, but maybe as a solo artist, I feel a bit more liberated to say exactly how I feel… I think it’s important to show, especially my younger fans, that you shouldn’t be afraid to speak out about something you believe in. And with my Hoopla chant, I do obviously see Pride as a protest, so that was my version of doing that.
“But sometimes I do have a moment before I go on stage [where I’m] like: ‘Am I gonna do it?’ And then, you know, I just think ‘fuck it’. I’m not always going to get it right, but I think it’s important for me to stand up for what I believe in. And if that means there being consequences to that, then so be it.
“With the transphobia stuff, it was interesting for me to get a teeny taste of what that community has to face every single day. You know, just because I spoke out about it on a public stage, I obviously got an influx of hatred and abuse – and I can handle that, because I am kind of used to that to a degree. But it was so personal and awful, and like I say, that was just a taste of what the trans community have to deal with online and in real life.”
Finally, if any Little Mix deep cut could pop off on TikTok, which would you like it to be?
“Anything off the ‘LM5’ album, to be honest. ‘Wasabi’, that’s my favourite, and it kind of did have a moment where it popped off. And there’s a song I wrote years ago called ‘Woman’s World’, which was also on the ‘LM5′ album, which is about the struggle for women. You know when people do politically charged or serious videos with a song that goes viral because of that? I love the idea of that [for ‘Woman’s World’]. And then I think for old times’ sake, I’d love ‘Wings’ to pop off again. Because it was our first single, it’ll always have a place in my heart.”
JADE’s ‘That’s Showbiz Baby!’ is out now via RCA