Interview: Suzi Wu Debut Single 'Taken Care Of'

As one of the most anticipated new releases coming this year, Suzi Wu has had a whirlwind first half of 2018, signing to Def Jam Records on her 20th birthday, and performing her first run of US shows just prior.

Suzi gave us an exclusive personal insight in to her style and development over the last three years, between writing her hit ‘Taken Care Of,’ and signing to a label:

How did you develop your style over the last three years? Everything from your stage name, to your hairstyle, to your production, was constantly developing, do you feel you have finally ‘found yourself’?

• I’m an ever changing kind of person, it will never end with the changing. I’m in a good place right now, but it drives my press people insane, because I constantly want to change everything up! But when it came to production side of things, I already knew what I wanted to sound like in my head a couple of years before it actually happened. That’s the way it was with ‘Taken Care Of’ when I made it three years ago.
  

On stage, a huge part of making your music come alive is your facial expressions and body movements, which add so much. On a record, as people can’t see you, how do you get that same emotion and expression?

• A lot of it is about the way you use your voice, and the way you push it, so you have to remember when to be soft and when to ‘growl’.. that’s the only way to put it. Because if you really want to make someone feel each single word you say inside their body, you have to mean it.
  

‘Taken Care Of’ is rapidly racking up the online streams, being her first commercial release and music video. Receiving support from the likes of Jared Leto, Suzi is revolutionising the pop scene, both for performers and listeners. Suzi Wu is a talent that lets women be bold; her fearless, shameless style is not just an on stage persona, but in fact something Suzi described was “just a part of who I always was, and it always got me into trouble, so I’m glad it’s doing something good for me now.”

She bigs up her fellow network of rising pop-stars, particularly Girli, who is an artist leading the way in feminism for young women. Suzi describes the challenges she faced in the landscape of the current music industry as a teenage girl, disallowing her insecurities to take over: ‘I surround myself with other young creative who all remind each other that a lot of the times the advice that the old ones want to say to us, as good as the advice is, is sometimes outdated or just misguided. Once your surrounded by people with good energy, such as my mate Girli, it’s easier to say ‘fuck you.’

Born and raised London, Suzi has grown up with the Roundhouse at her door-step, and with that came an array of opportunities at a young age, inspiring the aforementioned ‘Taken Care Of’, a song which addresses the raw topic of wanting feeling wanted in a safe space, a feeling that majority of teenage girls around the globe can identify with. ‘That song was made in Roundhouse and about the Roundhouse and it was about finally understand that despite feeling like I had done so shitty at school and I wasn’t a valuable member of any type of society, that I was actually good at something, and people were impressed by something I could do.’

Suzi also opens up about the downside of her London life as a teenager, though thinks of it as a key factor in shaping her as a person now: ‘North London is a really strange atmosphere, it taught me how to speak to anyone and be comfortable in myself, but it also taught me all the toxic and horrible things about private school society which consists there in a little bubble. Experiencing that, it helped me have confidence in myself and helped me understand that you must rise above the idea of someone’s status or the way they talk about you.’

Nurturing a unique idea and persona throughout her journey, and meeting her management by chance in a Pret-A-Manger, Suzi fostered a natural cross-over from the unsigned to signed world, conquering the challenge that every emerging artist faces when bringing a team on for the first time. ‘Trying to trust my own judgement when it comes to creativity is something I never had a problem, with until I had a team of people around me who wanted to sell it, and suddenly it becomes a much bigger deal. You have to be very aware to not go around thinking you’re always right, but at the same time you know your own work better than anyone else, so it’s a difficult balance.’

New Artists Suzi Recommends: Pussy Liquor, Ness Nite

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