Lola Young has been teetering on the brink for years. Since at least 2021, the South Londoner was bubbling under when she jockeyed for the Rising Star Award at the BRITS and landed on the BBC's prestigious "Sound Of" survey. While list alumni like Pink Pantheress and Central Cee have already made their mark, Young's commercial breakthrough proved more elusive. That is, until "Messy," a track from last year's sophomore album "This Wasn't Meant For You Anyway," went viral on TikTok.
"Do you know what? I just can't stand hearing it on the app," says Young, 24, over FaceTime from Australia, where she's wrapping up a promo visit. "I obviously love that it's on the app, I just don't want to hear my own song when I open it." Instead of being precious about her vulnerable track soundtracking a finger-gun dance trend, she's refreshingly pragmatic: "If it's resonating, it's resonating. It doesn't really matter in what capacity."
The song and its accompanying dance trend, in which Young has no intention of partaking ("It's not really for me"), has spawned more than 250,000 creates on the app. The song's celebration of imperfection has subsequently been adopted by everyone from Kylie Jenner to mothers groups struggling with the pressures of parenthood. Before long, "Messy" started ascending the charts, and is now sitting just outside the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100.
It's an unlikely trajectory for a song the 24-year-old first wrote as a demo in her bedroom amid a chaotic breakup. "My relationship was ending, and it was closure for me," she says. "Then I started to think about my relationship with myself." Young realized many of the lyrics were criticisms she leveled at herself. "I've got a big ass mouth and I'm a loud woman," she says. "I've got to own it."
Young took the demo to collaborators Solomonophonic and Connor Dickinson, and they started hashing out the production at L.A.'s 64Sound. "It's got old gear, old synths, old equipment," she says. "You can record shit to tape, it feels like a studio in the '70s." They played the song live and settled on a take that captured its rough edges instead of going for pristine studio polish. Her breakthrough hit was in the bag, but she remained blissfully unaware of the trajectory it would travel.
"I don't think anybody realized it," Young says. "It wasn't like, 'Oh, this is the hit.'" Instead, she focused on other tracks from the album. "My label claims that they knew, but I don't think anyone can ever know what's going to work -- and that's no shade," she says. "We had a clear vision of what the sound was and what the singles were and what was going to be prioritized."
With "Messy" now roaring up the charts, Young feels a sense of relief. "It takes a lot of pressure off," she says. "It means that there's a lot more belief, there's a lot more creative control." While she intends to re-promote the album's actual lead single "Conceited," there is new music on the horizon. "I've got my second album in the bag," she reveals. As far as collaborators go, she's sticking with her current team.
"I'm going to dig deeper and explore new terrain," she says, while staying true to the unique fusion that makes her music stand out. "It feels a bit rocky, there's a '90s hip-hop influence, folk music inspired the lyricism and there's some pop too." It's a recipe she started tinkering with early in her career and she has no intention of finding a lane: "Why fix something that's not broke?"
Before moving on to new music, Young has to contend with another surprise hit courtesy of a feature on Tyler, The Creator's "Chromakopia." Their collaboration, "Like Him," has taken off organically, breaking into the upper tiers of the charts. "It's my favorite on his album," she beams. "I'm biased, but it's such a deep song." When asked if Tyler might feature on her upcoming project, Young is hopeful. "I did ask, but I don't want to force anything," she says.
Young's focus for now, however, is promoting "Messy" and processing its success. "I've been waiting for this for a long time," she says between vape hits. "I'm ready." So much so that Young is nonplussed about her innermost thoughts blasting from the radio. "I've always been honest, so why would I change?" In fact, her only fear about looming fame is her "big ass mouth." "What scares me the most is cancel culture," she says. "I'm not the most PC person on the planet."