Mabel is past caring what people think. Take the genre-flitting pop star’s new self-titled mixtape: she calls it “a toxic love letter to my 10 years in the music industry”. And there’s no doubt it’s been toxic. “Definitely,” she says with emphasis, sat at a table in the spacious kitchen of her plush north west London home. “But I wouldn’t have even said that before. If somebody had asked me, I would have been like, ‘No, I’m just super grateful, everyone’s been great, it’s been super fabulous!’”
But it hasn’t always been that way. Yes, there has been a huge amount of success: since her 2017 breakthrough tune “Finders Keepers” hit the top 10, the 29-year-old, born Mabel Alabama-Pearl McVey (to parents Neneh Cherry and Massive Attack producer Cameron McVey), has amassed 4.5 billion streams and sold eight million singles worldwide.
Uplifted by her signature top three hit “Don’t Call Me Up’ – which accounts for over one billion of those streams by itself – her 2019 debut album High Expectations went platinum, landing her the 2020 Brit Award for Best Female Solo. Follow-up About Last Night (2022) was her highest charter, reaching number two; she’s collaborated with Raye, AJ Tracey, Clean Bandit and Shygirl, and racks up over six million monthly listeners on Spotify.
But behind the scenes it’s been tough going as she’s battled industry pressures, anxiety and a crisis of identity. “I mean, there’s a reason why my first album was called High Expectations,” she says, “I was so scared to let anybody down. I think the problem is the expectation on young women to be this glossy, perfect thing, especially if you’re making pop music. And nobody even needs to say that. It’s just this unspoken rule.”
Mabel’s new self-titled mixtape is a toxic love letter to her 10 years in the music industry (Photo: Simone Beyene)
Mabel has struggled with generalised anxiety disorder since she was a kid growing up in London, then Sweden from the age of eight. “I was maybe six when I first started being scared about this and scared about that, and like what do people think about me, and am I doing good enough?”
Fame made things worse. She signed to Polydor at 18, but is keen to clarify that her team are nice people – “I’ve never worked with somebody that’s been like a monster”. Instead, her comments are directed at the industry as a whole. She says “the structure in general which has been created over a long period of time” in the industry is harmful to women. “It’s scarring, that projection of trying to define a young woman as a product.” She had to conform somewhat. “I don’t think that there was investment in helping me become me.”
She’d had media training to stop her from “alienating people,” and was taught “not to get involved in political things – to just be cute and sing the song and go home. That was really tough for me in the beginning, but I got really good at it.” She began to notice the double standards with male stars. “A man can be a bit of a rebel, because it’s like, ‘Oh he’s cool.’ Whereas if I did that, I’m a mess. You can sleep around and the guy is being a rock star. Whereas if a woman does it, she’s a slut,” Mabel adds.
The more success she enjoyed, the more she became someone who read and internalised all the negative comments online (“It’s really hard not to”). She would often suffer in silence. “There definitely have been days when I’m just like, ‘I’m shit and nobody cares’,” she says. “[There was] no duty of care whatsoever. And I think mentally, when I was really having a successful moment, numbers wise, I was really unhappy.”
“I was trying to figure out who I am as a person and as an artist. What’s authentic to me? Because I’ve been playing a role for a long time,” says Mabel (Photo: Joseph Okpako/WireImage)
It left her feeling unworthy even at the point of her biggest achievements. Take the Brits in 2020, where she opened the show and won one of the three awards she was up for. “I had such a sick year on paper.” But she was so unhappy that after she won the award, she offered to give it back. She’d read an article in the morning that said while she would win, somebody else should (FKA Twigs). “And I felt so bad about accepting it. I had the worst imposter syndrome. And there were all these horrible comments and stuff online, and I just felt I didn’t deserve it.” It’s quite sad that she couldn’t enjoy that moment. “Totally. But one of the most important things now, and I have to remind myself all the time, is to enjoy it whilst it’s happening.”
Mabel is in relaxed and happy form – a garrulous host dressed in a white top and light blue jeans. Several things have brought her to this point: therapy; taking social media apps off her phone; animals. She took up horse riding during the pandemic, and I meet her two tiny Italian greyhounds, Tahini and Imani, who sit on my lap for a portion of the interview.
But it’s family that has really helped, she says: her mum and dad live two doors up the road, and her house has a “revolving door policy”. Mabel watched Cherry write last year’s acclaimed memoir A Thousand Threads every day for four years. “Oh my God, I was sobbing [when I read it],” she says. “It’s so beautifully written. Of course, it’s hard to know some of the things that she’s been through. It’s also sad to know that so much she experienced being a woman in the industry is similar to the things that I still experience. I felt like it brought us closer together.”
Mabel has a “revolving door policy” with her mum, Neneh Cherry, who lives two doors up the road (Photo : Gareth Cattermole/MTV EMA/Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Paramount)
She says she took a cue from Cherry. “My mum has always had and will always have boundaries with the things that she feels comfortable with and the people around her. And I think I never really had that until I let my family into my process.” That includes her new fiancé, label executive Preye Crooks, son of ex-footballer and BBC pundit Garth Crooks. “I would say he is a part of that inner circle around me to make sure that I’m happy and I’m enjoying what I do and I’m being authentic to myself.”
You can hear the freedom on the new mixtape. Mabel scrapped the album she began making in 2022 – though some tracks were released as stand-alone singles last year – as she felt like she’d lost her sense of self. “100 per cent,” she says. “I was trying to figure out who I am as a person and as an artist. What’s authentic to me? Because I’ve been playing a role for a long time.” She says the change when TikTok came along was confounding. “Suddenly it was about sharing hardships, the exact opposite of everything I’d been taught.”
She asked herself a question she hadn’t for some time: what sort of music does she want to make? “I never really asked myself since the beginning. Because I’m a people pleaser, I think I found it way too easy to just let everybody’s opinions come in. I committed to myself.”
But she also wanted it more casual, done on her terms. Mabel only started writing the tracks in January. “I wanted to do it quick and put it out quick. I wanted to see what the process felt like, just writing music, not perfecting it or working too much on it.”
Mabel scrapped the album she began making in 2022 as she felt like she’d lost her sense of self. She recorded ‘Mabel’ at home with friend and producer Oscar Scheller (Photo: Simone Beyene)
Rather than a fancy studio, she created it at home with friend and producer Oscar Scheller (PinkPantheress, Shygirl). Mabel shows me her set-up at one end of her living room: a Roland keyboard, a laptop and some recording gear on a table with a photograph of her niece. “Recording at home is quite vulnerable. There’s nowhere to hide.” More so than an expensive studio? “There you can wear a mask, and say: ‘Okay, I’m gonna be this person between 10 and six today. Oscar sees me having all these funny wedding meltdowns and interactions between me and my partner. He sees me and my parents. It’s the most intimate environment.”
The mixtape is an imperfect snapshot of where Mabel’s at, a succinct pop-facing set that showcases all of Mabel’s talents: you’ll hear R’n’B, Afroswing, pop, rap and dance. “This project was about each song being a different thing, letting me put all those things into this beautiful chaos that is me. Because I am so many different things. And there’s almost rebellion to that.”
While many tracks take aim at the industry – “January 19” questions the constant need for validation; “Love Me Gentle” pleads for empathy – the mixtape’s final track “Is It Love” is about Crooks. Mabel sings: “I’m used to toxic.”
“He’s the least toxic person I’ve ever met,” she says now. So that was different to what you were used to? “Oh my God, so different. And that terrified me, because there was no conflict. I think with all my relationships I connected drama with being passionate. When actually it’s like, ‘No, it was just drama.’ And with everything now, I just want peace.”
It’s not the only thing changed in Mabel’s outlook: she’s redefined what success means for her. “The success is me releasing music that I love, and that’s it,” she says. “Of course, it would be great to have all the numbers again, but I have basically reintroduced myself. In terms of the expectations, it’s almost like releasing my first project all over again. I really just want people to get more of an idea who I am every day.”
‘Mabel’ is out now. Mabel tours the UK from 3 November