{"id":307736,"date":"2026-02-20T09:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/307736\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T09:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:02:08","slug":"british-pop-soul-sensation-skye-newman-i-come-from-a-vulnerable-background-and-there-are-vultures-in-this-world-pop-and-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/307736\/","title":{"rendered":"British pop-soul sensation Skye Newman: \u2018I come from a vulnerable background and there are vultures in this world\u2019 | Pop and rock"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although she is on course for pop stardom, with two nominations at next week\u2019s Brit awards<\/a>, 22-year-old Skye Newman lives in a cabin at the bottom of her sister\u2019s garden in London. It\u2019s the backdrop for the music video to her song Hairdresser, which has 7.5m views on YouTube. In the clip, she is made up, her hair in rollers, lounging with a gaggle of friends. Licking her fingertips to roll a joint, she laments a one-sided friendship with another woman: \u201cWhen I\u2019m needed, know I\u2019ll be there first \/ You don\u2019t reciprocate and, girl, that hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s typical of Newman\u2019s songcraft: ballad-driven contemporary soul that goes beyond romantic heartbreak to cover all kinds of pain and recrimination.<\/p>\n

The cabin gives Newman independence, but also proximity to family in the main house \u2013 which is where she is sitting today, barefaced, barefoot and drowning in an oversized black tracksuit. Her sister, who is also Newman\u2019s manager, pops my tea on to the table and hovers nearby. The sisters each have their blond hair slicked back into topknots. Today is a busy day and tomorrow they fly to the US where Newman has two sold-out shows.<\/p>\n

Watch a video for Skye Newman: Hairdresser<\/p>\n

Newman\u2019s family is the subject of her biggest song to date, Family Matters, which is nominated for song of the year at the Brits (she is also up for breakthrough artist). It lays bare the pain that she experienced growing up: phone calls from the police, drug abuse in her home, a brush with death. \u201cAt school, weed was my perfume,\u201d she sings. \u201cThen my brother\u2019s drugs got harder \/ It became substance abuse, so he\u2019s a stupid bastard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Understandably, she guards the details of her family history closely, but the accumulation of stresses that she and her siblings were living with contributed to her having two life-threatening seizures, being admitted to hospital and having tests for a tumour or bleed on the brain. As for the situation she sings about in Family Matters, she says: \u201cWe all just tried to love him, because that\u2019s all you can do. It\u2019s weird to grieve for someone who is still alive.\u201d In the comments for the song on YouTube, fans earnestly offer support to Newman and compare her to Amy Winehouse and Adele.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI come from a vulnerable background and there are vultures in this world<\/p>\n

Newman shares some qualities with those two generational talents: a voice that could move a rock, energy that fizzes as she speaks and that magical ability to distil a sentiment in a way that feels completely personal to an audience of millions. One key difference is that she was twice rejected from the Brit school, the performing arts institution from which both Adele and Winehouse graduated.<\/p>\n

Instead, as a teenager she started posting performance videos on social media, which blew up during the Covid lockdown. She was initially hesitant to reply to the calls that soon followed from A&Rs and record labels. \u201cI come from a vulnerable background and there are vultures in this world,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople jump on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The council estates she grew up on taught her a lot more besides, and she attributes her storytelling to the range of people she saw as she moved around south-east London living with various family members: \u201cLife can be hard but I love the way I grew up because I got to experience and understand people,\u201d she says. \u201cIt made me very empathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is passionate about putting a spotlight on people who grew up in similar environments. \u201cThere could be so much more love and education put into people who have less because there is so much knowledge in those places; there\u2019s so much talent but they don\u2019t get the same opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman on stage with Ed Sheeran in Ipswich, his home town, last July. Photograph: Mark Surridge<\/p>\n

Another artist who shares these sentiments is Ed Sheeran, who recently made a plea to the government<\/a> to invest more in music in the school curriculum. He asked Newman to do a support set at his Ipswich homecoming in 2025, where they also performed together. \u201cHe\u2019s the sweetest man. He\u2019s just so normal, same as Lewis,\u201d as in Capaldi, who she supported on tour last year. \u201cI\u2019m drawn to them people, because that\u2019s how I am. I\u2019m not above nobody, nobody\u2019s above me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of our interview, her team shared some unreleased music including Woman I Am, a flawless piano ballad about the female relationships that have held her through difficult times. Here, Newman\u2019s voice sounds softer and more controlled than it is on her breakthrough songs.<\/p>\n

I ask about the times when she needed that support. \u201cMy whole life,\u201d she says with another laugh. \u201cMy whole life, I feel like there\u2019s been \u2026\u201d Then her voice wobbles and there are tears. Her sister shuffles over in her slippers and wraps her arms around Skye.<\/p>\n

double quotation markThere\u2019s no better feeling than knowing that something I\u2019ve gone through has done something for others<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate saying it because I feel like it sounds like \u2018poor me\u2019,\u201d Newman says, still crying. \u201cI\u2019m good; I\u2019m a very fucking strong person, I\u2019ve got lots of strong women around me. But it\u2019s never-ending. That\u2019s the circumstances that I\u2019m in, with family and things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, she holds back from outlining those exact circumstances. She gathers herself: \u201cI\u2019m grateful, because it means I can write so much music that helps so many other people.\u201d A lot of them have told her as much. \u201cIt breaks my heart every time I have to hear that, especially from kids,\u201d she continues. \u201cBut there\u2019s no better feeling than knowing that something I\u2019ve gone through has done something for them. I feel powerful. It makes me feel great to know that they\u2019re not alone. That I\u2019m not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also writes vividly about the toxicity that can tear relationships apart. On Out Out, she pleads with a closed-off partner: \u201cIs it really that hard to just love me loudly?\u201d It\u2019s the sort of relatable sentiment that speaks to women of her age, and older. \u201cNot having solid role models to look up to in the space of men, it\u2019s quite hard to then pick the right person,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel like I attract hurt and I attract brokenness. I also fight for things that I shouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newman at Koko, London, in September. Photograph: Jessie Morgan<\/p>\n

On her recent single Lonely Girl, Newman speaks to teenage girls like an older sister: \u201cPlease don\u2019t let him take control \/ He\u2019s far too old \/ To be the one that takes you home.\u201d The song was inspired by a friend of hers who, aged 15, was involved with a 21-year-old. Newman says many friends have experienced such predatory behaviour, and she herself was chased and intimidated by men when she was as young as 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got more attention from men, builders, from the age of 12 to 16, and then it just got less and less as I got older,\u201d she says. Then she asks: \u201cAs a grown woman, do you really get catcalled in the street as much as you did as a child?\u201d The question takes me by surprise, but the answer is no. \u201cA lot of it is about control,\u201d Newman concludes. \u201cThere\u2019s men that do it that are paedophiles, and then there\u2019s the men that do it because they\u2019re like: well, you can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markWe\u2019re in hell, mate, and we need to work our way to find inner peace. On the other side of that is heaven<\/p>\n

A fire gets going inside her. \u201cMost men think that a woman is frail, weak and dependent. No, we\u2019re not. A feminine woman is independent.\u201d She moves from having her feet tucked under her to stretching out and gesticulating. \u201cIt winds me up. We need to go back to women ruling the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Woman I Am, she sings \u201cour cycles are in sync, it\u2019s bigger than you think\u201d. \u201cWe\u2019ve been knocked off of our fucking cycles [by men]. We\u2019re meant to be in sync with the Earth and nature: it\u2019s Mother Nature for a reason,\u201d she says, carrying on riffing, pointing out that there are species that procreate without male input. \u201cI honestly do believe women used to be like that. We got fucking bored and we created the man. Because what are you? You are half of what we are. You\u2019re just our chromosomes with a leg knocked off.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says she believes in another power above her, though not a male God figure. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that this\u201d \u2013 our world \u2013 \u201cis everything. If anything, I think this is hell. We\u2019re in hell, mate, and we need to work our way to find inner peace. On the other side of that is heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skye Newman after performing for Radio 1\u2019s Sound of 2026 live sessions, with the station\u2019s presenter Jack Saunders. Illustration: James Watkins\/BBC<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enjoyable watching her go off like this, with a power she has evidently snatched back for herself and channelled into her songs. That process has probably saved her life, she thinks. After experiencing those near-death seizures, brought on by emotional distress, she then \u201cflipped my thinking\u201d and stopped bottling things up. She started writing. \u201cIt\u2019s how I let everything out healthily. I don\u2019t know what I would do without it.\u201d One of the songs she wrote then, not yet released, is a real tearjerker as she sings: \u201cI\u2019m going to be selfish with my life, because it\u2019s mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like that song was God, the universe, my auntie, whoever, showing me that if you think about yourself, and you put good back into yourself, then your body will naturally give back to you,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s just what happened.\u201d She was signed to a major label and in January she topped the BBC\u2019s Sound of \u2026 poll, the breakthrough artist contest won in recent years by Chappell Roan<\/a> and PinkPantheress<\/a>. \u201cHairdresser went off, Family Matters went off, everything just went. People say: how do you do it? And I\u2019m like: your thoughts are so fucking powerful!\u201d<\/p>\n

As her star power also increases, she says she is mindful of \u201cnot falling into the whirlwind of this\u201d. With so much turbulence in her life before this new chapter, she is happy to be close to her sister with her own space to breathe \u2013 \u201cI enjoy sitting in my cabin with my friends, smoking weed, watching films and that\u2019s it\u201d \u2013 and she\u2019s finding that in an industry that can be slippery and attract people with ulterior motives, she wants to protect herself. \u201cI feel like a lot of this world is just kind of an exchange, and not in a good way. Scratch my back and I\u2019ll scratch yours \u2013 and I\u2019ll do it when needs be. But I just don\u2019t feel the need to put myself in all of it. I\u2019m quite happy with the people I\u2019ve got in my life. I\u2019m quite happy with my life the way it is. Quite happy with my cabin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skye Newman\u2019s UK tour<\/a> begins 11 April at Mountford Hall, Liverpool. The Brit awards are on 28 February, screening on ITV. Part one of her SE1 project is out now, with a second part coming soon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although she is on course for pop stardom, with two nominations at next week\u2019s Brit awards, 22-year-old Skye…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-307736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}