Sitting down with Ella Mai is extra like hanging out with one in all your greatest mates. A lot so, you would be forgiven for forgetting she’s truly a Grammy-winning artist with an enormous fanbase and two unimaginable albums beneath her belt. The 28-year-old oozes a confidence past her years and a heat that instantly makes you’re feeling relaxed; uncommon qualities on the subject of the world of movie star. And it quickly turns into clear that her household’s sensible phrases maintain her grounded.
“My brother informed me one thing actually cool, a few years in the past, and he stated that if you communicate to your self in your head, it is your individual voice,” she tells POPSUGAR as she explains how she avoids negativity on social media. “So if you’re studying a remark that is from any person that you don’t have any thought who they’re, you are studying it to your self in your individual voice which validates it much more. I might by no means considered it that means, nevertheless it was like a brand new factor unlocked in my head.”
“It simply felt actually good to be again in what looks like my pure habitat.”
Since bursting onto the scene in 2018 along with her self-titled debut album, and hit single “Boo’d Up”, she has been extraordinarily busy. Having landed in London two days previous to our chat, after ending the North America and Canada leg of her tour which included 41 exhibits in 2 months, she is revelling in with the ability to carry out for her followers once more following a hiatus because of the pandemic. “It simply felt actually good to be again in what looks like my pure habitat,” she says.
On prime of recording and touring, she additionally continues her function as ambassador for jewelry model, Pandora. She sums up her look as “easy, comfy, and classy”, which performs into the Pandora aesthetic of dainty items that may be worn in so many various methods. “I do not put on tremendous assertion items and I believe Pandora matches that completely,” she says. “You’ll be able to layer, you possibly can add stuff, you can also make it far more than in the event you simply had one piece. Or you may simply add one piece and that makes it easy however nonetheless efficient, and that is undoubtedly my sort of fashion.”
Picture Supply: Getty Photos / Prince Williams
As we’re firmly in pageant season, Ella Mai’s must-have pageant necessities are functionally modern. “Something with frills, a number of glitter, some shorts, and a few trainers. You have to be cozy, for certain, in any other case it should be a nightmare,” she advises. And this look additionally works for the massive standout excursions of the summer season, too. Whereas she hasn’t but bagged a ticket to Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour, she did see her in Coachella in 2018 and declared the set as “one of the best factor I’ve ever seen in my life”, and is decided to catch one in all her exhibits. “The very first time I met her I used to be simply misplaced for phrases as a result of I am additionally simply so impressed by her,” she says. “I wished to be like ‘omg I really like you, thanks a lot…’ however i additionally did not need to do an excessive amount of, so I simply saved it fast.”
“I believe no matter whether or not it is a optimistic final result or a adverse final result, it teaches me one thing.”
Ella Mai’s second album, “Coronary heart On My Sleeve” was launched final Could and the yr has actually been a whirlwind. Whereas she actually has a tattoo of the phrase on her arm, does she nonetheless reside by that vulnerability? “It is what brings one of the best out of me personally. I believe no matter whether or not it is a optimistic final result or a adverse final result, it teaches me one thing,” she says. “Being on tour particularly, assembly different individuals who inform me the tales of what the music has completed for them, it additionally tells me, it helps different folks for me to be that means additionally. I am not going to vary that.”
Together with her profession on an upward trajectory and appreciating life extra as she will get older, she’s nonetheless desperate to study as a lot as she will be able to and refuses to shut off any alternatives that come her means. “I might like to enterprise out and never simply be within the music lane,” she says. “I did performing arts, so I might like to do extra appearing, however nonetheless have music be my principal focus. Simply increasing my horizons. I really feel like we field ourselves in a lot and it would not at all times essentially must be one factor, so no matter I put my fingers on, if I can do it, I’ll.” Now we have little doubt that is true.
