Sugababe sidesteps rugby rat
No text please ... Amelle Berrabah with Danny Cipriani
Danny pursued the pop star until.......
1st Stop for JADE EWEN and THE SUGABABES News,Photos,Videos, Information and Events Diary.Also Jade Ewen's Favourite blog and is the difinitive record of her music and career.
Tuesday, 3 September 2013
How Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan – aka the Sugababes – became MKS
How Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan – aka the Sugababes – became MKS
The Sugababes had instant success as one of Britain's most turbulent girl groups. Now Mutya, Keisha and Siobhán are back as MKS. Is it really all peace and love?
MKS, aka (from left) Mutya Buena, Keisha Buchanan and Siobhán Donaghy. Photograph: Phil Fisk for the Observer
They don't like it when I call them the original Sugababes "I hate that word, 'original'," says Mutya Buena.
"Hate it!" says Siobhán Donaghy, pulling in her shoulders.
"It makes us feel," says Keisha Buchanan, "150 years old."
What else to call them? Back in 2000 this trio debuted as the Sugababes with a bristling single, "Overload", that established them as one of the most interesting acts in millennial pop – teenagers, scowlers, minimalist dancers. The band began a piecemeal breakup almost immediately, Siobhán quitting within a year and Mutya departing in 2005. Substitutes were brought in around Keisha, who was herself replaced in 2009. A group called the Sugababes still exists, made up of new-Siobhán (Heidi Range), new-Mutya (Amelle Berrabah) and new-Keisha (Jade Ewen); an album from them is due next year. Meanwhile, the founding three have reunited to make an album of their own. A first single, "Flatline", comes out this month. They call themselves Mutya Keisha Siobhan – or MKS – now.
Well it's clearer than the alternatives I was going to suggest – the Sugadults, Splendababes, Sugababes 5.0. Or would that be a legal infringement?
"It doesn't matter who owns the name now," says Siobhán. "That's paperwork." (I take this to mean their rivals have formal rights.)
"Our music speaks for us," says Mutya.
Siobhán: "Only the three of us can write and sing the way we do."
Mutya: "Unfortunately they [the other Sugababes] don't have our vocals. Well, fortunately, actually."
Keisha: "Why are we even talking about them?"
"Everyone calls us the Sugababes anyway," says Mutya.
"Like last night on Old Compton Street," says Siobhán.
"Well, there you go."
They draw attention when they go out, Mutya Keisha Siobhan. Pop allows no definitive endings (Ginger Spice rejoined and Gary and Robbie made up; Backstreet, just this year, came back), but even so – this lot? Pals again? We meet for lunch in a London restaurant and strangers keep looming up from nearby tables to take pictures on cameraphones. I can almost hear the O, the M, the G being tapped in for Twitter dispersal. It's the original Sugababes! And I thought they couldn't stand each other…
Consider the she-said-she-said, at least as it played out in the press. Keisha once told Touch magazine that Siobhán had ditched the band, back in 2001, by going to the loo and never coming back. "After three hours we thought she's been in there a bit long," Keisha was quoted as saying, and this repeatable bit of fiction tailed Siobhán for a decade. Siobhán, for her part, once admitted: "We just didn't get on." When Mutya left the band Keisha said: "There was love there but no friendship". Siobhán, in 2004: "It was all hate, hate, hate."
"Well, our mums always got on," Siobhán tells me, over lunch.
"Even when we didn't," says Keisha.
Of mean statements in the past, they agree, "It's important we remember we were kids."
And that toilet thing, says Mutya, "was quite funny."
Siobhán: "But it kind of gets old after a while."
Mutya: "Yeah."
Keisha has always been wonderfully blunt about the pop industry – beneath the sparkle that relentless push for profit. Whenever a Sugababe left and was replaced Keisha would say something like, "That's business." Was it a business decision to reform? "No," she says. "For us it was deeply personal. Let me use the right words: people didn't allow us to enjoy the experience the first time round."
They've earned enough money, Keisha says, not to have to do this. "I own five houses. Mutya has two properties. Siobhán bought a house a year ago. Making money is amazing, absolutely, but for us the idea of getting back together was more: 'Why don't we try again, and this time enjoy it?'" During a recent fortnight in Los Angles, a trip to write and record with the producer Dev Hynes (aka Lightspeed Champion), they made time to visit theme parks. They went clubbing in Koreatown. An experiment with an over-the-counter energy supplement left them aching and hungover and wondering if they'd inadvertently taken speed to hike Runyon Canyon.
"To be honest we were pissed half the time," admits Siobhán. She is dressed in hugging jeans, boots, a patterned scarf over a vest. Her basic daily uniform, says Siobhán – and a contrast to Keisha's all-over black bodysuit and aviator jacket. At a time when Keisha was still a Sugababe and Mutya was intermittently touring her solo stuff, Siobhán had re-entered civilian life. From 2006 to 2011 she worked as a model booker in London. Sometimes clients would ask: that Siobhán? But mostly "there wasn't enough time. The phone would be ringing. Paris every season. It was a nice job."
Siobhán has a pleasant, maternal manner – "I miss my girls," she says of the young models she worked with – and it seems obvious to me she's returning to music from a more conventional world. Keisha's different. She arrives at lunch a little flustered, admitting she's not properly familiar, at 28, with public transport. A decade as a Sugababe always meant a driver, but this time the band are "taking control", "no external forces", "organising shoots, preparing our own diary", "girl-powering this shit up". And that sometimes means getting the tube.
"I'm hands-on with the business side of things," says Keisha. "Siobhán does the creative side. And Mutya…"
Mutya's the balance, explains Siobhán.
"What it is," says Mutya, "is there's no point me trying to butt in. I know Siobhán knows her business. I know Keisha knows her business. And I know that eventually they'll tell me about it."
Mutya is like nobody I've met. She wears a leather jacket studded with metal spikes and is smothered in tattoos including one, in Latin, that she can no longer remember how to translate. She's a tireless boob adjuster, "double-Ds, dropping now." She has a habit of inserting strange punctuation into her speech, so that one sentence might unexpectedly become three.
"Jesus! I'm about to fall in. The water."
It is a week after our lunch and the girls have gathered by the River Colne in Hertfordshire for the Observer Magazine's shoot. Wearing white dresses they step off the grassy bank and into the water, wading up to their waists to have dramatic pictures taken. Siobhán is professional about the discomfort and helps to pat beasties from her bandmates' clothes. Keisha, surrounded by the floating tails of her dress, makes an unprintable joke about menstrual cycles. Mutya is struggling – her bra is waterlogged and there's pond-life everywhere. "What is it? I don't even. Fish! Dragonfly! For the love! If I get eaten by the Loch Ness monster I swear. To god."
Mutya Keisha Siobhan Photograph: Phil Fisk After a 40-minute dip the girls change their sodden outfits and take a break in the sun. Siobhán mentions her wedding, earlier in the year, to a sailor, Chris. Keisha's boyfriend, a football agent, ferries in a McDonald's. Mutya talks about her daughter, eight-year-old Tahlia. "Look at them," says Siobhán's sister, Róisin, on hand to do make-up, "married and mums".
Soon Mutya and Keisha are reminiscing about how this all started. "My parents called me from downstairs," says Keisha. "I was probably about six. They said, 'Look, look!'"
A talent show hosted by Michael Barrymore was on TV. "And there was this little Filipino girl, with long hair down her back, singing 'The Greatest Love of All'. I'd never seen anyone as small as me sing like that." Not long afterwards Keisha's family, Jamaican northwest Londoners, moved home and Keisha started at a new primary school. "She was the first person I saw, hair on the carpet – the Filipino girl from Barrymore." Mutya became a friend and they belted out "Feed the World" together in the playground.
Siobhán was another talented child, a champion Irish dancer at five. A manager introduced the young redhead to Mutya and as young teens the pair were taken to sing for label bosses, Siobhán doing the high notes, Mutya the low. When Keisha joined them they almost became "The Q-tees" but one of their managers (this was a growing crowd) suggested a different name. "We ate a lot of junk food and sweets," Keisha recalls, and by the time they were recording together, "we were the Sugar Babes. With an 'r'. I think we had to change that, legally, because Sugar Babes was a porn site or something."
'When people saw pound signs, everything changed. They took away our teenage years': (from left) Keisha, age 16; Siobhán, 17, and Mutya, 16. Photograph: Getty Keisha still has their old demo CDs. "Adorable, very 90s… I stopped listening to them after a while. I would think: 'Oh, if we were just left to it, we could have done so much.'" A deal with London Records came in 1998 and One Touch, their first album, was released in November 2000. They think back on those years with some fondness and a lot of scepticism. All-night sessions in the studio. Piercings. Snuck cigarettes. "Harmless stuff, really. And there was a lot of shit going on around us," says Siobhán. "We never did any of it." They left school at 14, to be home-tutored. Their retinue grew.
Keisha: "At one point we had eight managers."
Siobhán: "We were like: who are these people?"
Mutya: "One did this, one did that, one picked his nose."
Keisha: "Our parents were there, but…"
Mutya: "They got pushed to the side."
Keisha: "My mum doesn't know what she was thinking, now. I think we will each always have a…"
Siobhán: "A grudge."
The girls have discussed it and believe they were manipulated.
Keisha: "They'd whisper to one of us: 'You should go solo.' And to another of us: 'So-and-so doesn't like you.'"
Siobhán: "Who would do that to young girls? We thought it was a creative environment and everyone was having fun. When people saw pound signs, everything changed. That was the taking away of our teenage years, for me."
By the spring of 2001 Siobhán wanted out. She felt isolated by the tutoring ("I was in the year above the other two so I had to take lessons on my own") and depressed – possibly a side effect of taking medication for acne. On tour in Australia she told her managers she was leaving and flew home. A press release went out announcing that Siobhán had a kidney infection ("Disgusting, they didn't even call me") and within a week her replacement, Heidi, had been signed.
Mutya left in 2005 to spend more time with her daughter. Neither she nor Siobhán have particularly fond memories of trying for solo careers. Siobhán: "I think we both did it out of necessity rather than want. All you've ever known is music. And there's the question of education. What are you going to go and do?"
Siobhán released two records, the first a No 117 flop but the second, Ghosts, a critical hit ("I won't better it"). Mutya put out an album of her own, Real Girl, in 2007 and Keisha plowed on with the Sugababes. In 2007 there was another UK No 1 single, "About You Now", the Sugababes' sixth, and then in 2009 Keisha tweeted: "It was not my choice to leave."
She says she's legally constrained from discussing her departure from the Sugababes, although "it was a pack of shite, basically, their reasons for me not being in the group any more. I believe that truth always comes out in the end. And karma…"
Mutya: "Karma's a bitch."
Keisha: "That's just a universal rule."
They might have drifted back together earlier. "I saw you both at a birthday party," remembers Siobhán. "We had a chat, to clear the air, but it was in a nightclub, the timing wasn't right." One day Keisha saw Mutya on TV again; not with Barrymore this time, but Lorraine Kelly. The TV host joked that the original Sugababes should reform. Keisha (at home) and Mutya (on set) thought: Hmm. There were talks that stalled in 2009 and then in 2011 the three of them spent a day in a studio together. "The [vocal] blend was ridiculous. So we continued."
Before a comeback gig in London in January they had to watch old YouTube videos of themselves to relearn their routines. Mutya brought along eight-year-old Tahlia for support. Siobhán's family were there, and Keisha's mum. "They hadn't seen each other for years. It was emotional." At one point Keisha tried to explain the tortured history of the Sugababes to Tahlia. "She was like, 'I don't understand!' I was like, 'Look. There were many, many, many members, yeah?'"
It's time for more photographs in the river. While the girls clamber back into the chilly water, I listen to their new album. It's polished, very good in parts, a surprising seam of electropop along with the expected, hook-y R&B. One track has this plea: "Let me stay pals again." The line is Mutya's and that funny syntax makes me think she might have written it, too. As a sentiment, anyway, it makes sense.
The girls told me over lunch they expect this second run together to be a long one. "We definitely want to establish a body of work… It might never end!" Wasn't there a risk of them going through it all again, I asked, only to repeat the same mistakes? Siobhán answered. "Yeah," she said. "But that's sort of life, isn't it?"
In the murky water Siobhán leads a teetering line of original Sugababes away from the bank. Keisha chats about birthday plans. Siobhán picks pond weed from their dresses. And Mutya maintains a running commentary, talking to the water, to the sky, to anyone who'll listen.
"Go! Away! Fish!... Oh, shit me... Fish!… Tadpoles!... I'm standing on, like, a cliff?... There are little worms up and down my legs and I've got no knickers on."
The single "Flatline" is out on 15 September
"Hate it!" says Siobhán Donaghy, pulling in her shoulders.
"It makes us feel," says Keisha Buchanan, "150 years old."
What else to call them? Back in 2000 this trio debuted as the Sugababes with a bristling single, "Overload", that established them as one of the most interesting acts in millennial pop – teenagers, scowlers, minimalist dancers. The band began a piecemeal breakup almost immediately, Siobhán quitting within a year and Mutya departing in 2005. Substitutes were brought in around Keisha, who was herself replaced in 2009. A group called the Sugababes still exists, made up of new-Siobhán (Heidi Range), new-Mutya (Amelle Berrabah) and new-Keisha (Jade Ewen); an album from them is due next year. Meanwhile, the founding three have reunited to make an album of their own. A first single, "Flatline", comes out this month. They call themselves Mutya Keisha Siobhan – or MKS – now.
Well it's clearer than the alternatives I was going to suggest – the Sugadults, Splendababes, Sugababes 5.0. Or would that be a legal infringement?
"It doesn't matter who owns the name now," says Siobhán. "That's paperwork." (I take this to mean their rivals have formal rights.)
"Our music speaks for us," says Mutya.
Siobhán: "Only the three of us can write and sing the way we do."
Mutya: "Unfortunately they [the other Sugababes] don't have our vocals. Well, fortunately, actually."
Keisha: "Why are we even talking about them?"
"Everyone calls us the Sugababes anyway," says Mutya.
"Like last night on Old Compton Street," says Siobhán.
"Well, there you go."
They draw attention when they go out, Mutya Keisha Siobhan. Pop allows no definitive endings (Ginger Spice rejoined and Gary and Robbie made up; Backstreet, just this year, came back), but even so – this lot? Pals again? We meet for lunch in a London restaurant and strangers keep looming up from nearby tables to take pictures on cameraphones. I can almost hear the O, the M, the G being tapped in for Twitter dispersal. It's the original Sugababes! And I thought they couldn't stand each other…
Consider the she-said-she-said, at least as it played out in the press. Keisha once told Touch magazine that Siobhán had ditched the band, back in 2001, by going to the loo and never coming back. "After three hours we thought she's been in there a bit long," Keisha was quoted as saying, and this repeatable bit of fiction tailed Siobhán for a decade. Siobhán, for her part, once admitted: "We just didn't get on." When Mutya left the band Keisha said: "There was love there but no friendship". Siobhán, in 2004: "It was all hate, hate, hate."
"Well, our mums always got on," Siobhán tells me, over lunch.
"Even when we didn't," says Keisha.
Of mean statements in the past, they agree, "It's important we remember we were kids."
And that toilet thing, says Mutya, "was quite funny."
Siobhán: "But it kind of gets old after a while."
Mutya: "Yeah."
Keisha has always been wonderfully blunt about the pop industry – beneath the sparkle that relentless push for profit. Whenever a Sugababe left and was replaced Keisha would say something like, "That's business." Was it a business decision to reform? "No," she says. "For us it was deeply personal. Let me use the right words: people didn't allow us to enjoy the experience the first time round."
They've earned enough money, Keisha says, not to have to do this. "I own five houses. Mutya has two properties. Siobhán bought a house a year ago. Making money is amazing, absolutely, but for us the idea of getting back together was more: 'Why don't we try again, and this time enjoy it?'" During a recent fortnight in Los Angles, a trip to write and record with the producer Dev Hynes (aka Lightspeed Champion), they made time to visit theme parks. They went clubbing in Koreatown. An experiment with an over-the-counter energy supplement left them aching and hungover and wondering if they'd inadvertently taken speed to hike Runyon Canyon.
"To be honest we were pissed half the time," admits Siobhán. She is dressed in hugging jeans, boots, a patterned scarf over a vest. Her basic daily uniform, says Siobhán – and a contrast to Keisha's all-over black bodysuit and aviator jacket. At a time when Keisha was still a Sugababe and Mutya was intermittently touring her solo stuff, Siobhán had re-entered civilian life. From 2006 to 2011 she worked as a model booker in London. Sometimes clients would ask: that Siobhán? But mostly "there wasn't enough time. The phone would be ringing. Paris every season. It was a nice job."
Siobhán has a pleasant, maternal manner – "I miss my girls," she says of the young models she worked with – and it seems obvious to me she's returning to music from a more conventional world. Keisha's different. She arrives at lunch a little flustered, admitting she's not properly familiar, at 28, with public transport. A decade as a Sugababe always meant a driver, but this time the band are "taking control", "no external forces", "organising shoots, preparing our own diary", "girl-powering this shit up". And that sometimes means getting the tube.
"I'm hands-on with the business side of things," says Keisha. "Siobhán does the creative side. And Mutya…"
Mutya's the balance, explains Siobhán.
"What it is," says Mutya, "is there's no point me trying to butt in. I know Siobhán knows her business. I know Keisha knows her business. And I know that eventually they'll tell me about it."
Mutya is like nobody I've met. She wears a leather jacket studded with metal spikes and is smothered in tattoos including one, in Latin, that she can no longer remember how to translate. She's a tireless boob adjuster, "double-Ds, dropping now." She has a habit of inserting strange punctuation into her speech, so that one sentence might unexpectedly become three.
"Jesus! I'm about to fall in. The water."
It is a week after our lunch and the girls have gathered by the River Colne in Hertfordshire for the Observer Magazine's shoot. Wearing white dresses they step off the grassy bank and into the water, wading up to their waists to have dramatic pictures taken. Siobhán is professional about the discomfort and helps to pat beasties from her bandmates' clothes. Keisha, surrounded by the floating tails of her dress, makes an unprintable joke about menstrual cycles. Mutya is struggling – her bra is waterlogged and there's pond-life everywhere. "What is it? I don't even. Fish! Dragonfly! For the love! If I get eaten by the Loch Ness monster I swear. To god."
Mutya Keisha Siobhan Photograph: Phil Fisk After a 40-minute dip the girls change their sodden outfits and take a break in the sun. Siobhán mentions her wedding, earlier in the year, to a sailor, Chris. Keisha's boyfriend, a football agent, ferries in a McDonald's. Mutya talks about her daughter, eight-year-old Tahlia. "Look at them," says Siobhán's sister, Róisin, on hand to do make-up, "married and mums".Soon Mutya and Keisha are reminiscing about how this all started. "My parents called me from downstairs," says Keisha. "I was probably about six. They said, 'Look, look!'"
A talent show hosted by Michael Barrymore was on TV. "And there was this little Filipino girl, with long hair down her back, singing 'The Greatest Love of All'. I'd never seen anyone as small as me sing like that." Not long afterwards Keisha's family, Jamaican northwest Londoners, moved home and Keisha started at a new primary school. "She was the first person I saw, hair on the carpet – the Filipino girl from Barrymore." Mutya became a friend and they belted out "Feed the World" together in the playground.
Siobhán was another talented child, a champion Irish dancer at five. A manager introduced the young redhead to Mutya and as young teens the pair were taken to sing for label bosses, Siobhán doing the high notes, Mutya the low. When Keisha joined them they almost became "The Q-tees" but one of their managers (this was a growing crowd) suggested a different name. "We ate a lot of junk food and sweets," Keisha recalls, and by the time they were recording together, "we were the Sugar Babes. With an 'r'. I think we had to change that, legally, because Sugar Babes was a porn site or something."
'When people saw pound signs, everything changed. They took away our teenage years': (from left) Keisha, age 16; Siobhán, 17, and Mutya, 16. Photograph: Getty Keisha still has their old demo CDs. "Adorable, very 90s… I stopped listening to them after a while. I would think: 'Oh, if we were just left to it, we could have done so much.'" A deal with London Records came in 1998 and One Touch, their first album, was released in November 2000. They think back on those years with some fondness and a lot of scepticism. All-night sessions in the studio. Piercings. Snuck cigarettes. "Harmless stuff, really. And there was a lot of shit going on around us," says Siobhán. "We never did any of it." They left school at 14, to be home-tutored. Their retinue grew.Keisha: "At one point we had eight managers."
Siobhán: "We were like: who are these people?"
Mutya: "One did this, one did that, one picked his nose."
Keisha: "Our parents were there, but…"
Mutya: "They got pushed to the side."
Keisha: "My mum doesn't know what she was thinking, now. I think we will each always have a…"
Siobhán: "A grudge."
The girls have discussed it and believe they were manipulated.
Keisha: "They'd whisper to one of us: 'You should go solo.' And to another of us: 'So-and-so doesn't like you.'"
Siobhán: "Who would do that to young girls? We thought it was a creative environment and everyone was having fun. When people saw pound signs, everything changed. That was the taking away of our teenage years, for me."
By the spring of 2001 Siobhán wanted out. She felt isolated by the tutoring ("I was in the year above the other two so I had to take lessons on my own") and depressed – possibly a side effect of taking medication for acne. On tour in Australia she told her managers she was leaving and flew home. A press release went out announcing that Siobhán had a kidney infection ("Disgusting, they didn't even call me") and within a week her replacement, Heidi, had been signed.
Mutya left in 2005 to spend more time with her daughter. Neither she nor Siobhán have particularly fond memories of trying for solo careers. Siobhán: "I think we both did it out of necessity rather than want. All you've ever known is music. And there's the question of education. What are you going to go and do?"
Siobhán released two records, the first a No 117 flop but the second, Ghosts, a critical hit ("I won't better it"). Mutya put out an album of her own, Real Girl, in 2007 and Keisha plowed on with the Sugababes. In 2007 there was another UK No 1 single, "About You Now", the Sugababes' sixth, and then in 2009 Keisha tweeted: "It was not my choice to leave."
She says she's legally constrained from discussing her departure from the Sugababes, although "it was a pack of shite, basically, their reasons for me not being in the group any more. I believe that truth always comes out in the end. And karma…"
Mutya: "Karma's a bitch."
Keisha: "That's just a universal rule."
They might have drifted back together earlier. "I saw you both at a birthday party," remembers Siobhán. "We had a chat, to clear the air, but it was in a nightclub, the timing wasn't right." One day Keisha saw Mutya on TV again; not with Barrymore this time, but Lorraine Kelly. The TV host joked that the original Sugababes should reform. Keisha (at home) and Mutya (on set) thought: Hmm. There were talks that stalled in 2009 and then in 2011 the three of them spent a day in a studio together. "The [vocal] blend was ridiculous. So we continued."
Before a comeback gig in London in January they had to watch old YouTube videos of themselves to relearn their routines. Mutya brought along eight-year-old Tahlia for support. Siobhán's family were there, and Keisha's mum. "They hadn't seen each other for years. It was emotional." At one point Keisha tried to explain the tortured history of the Sugababes to Tahlia. "She was like, 'I don't understand!' I was like, 'Look. There were many, many, many members, yeah?'"
It's time for more photographs in the river. While the girls clamber back into the chilly water, I listen to their new album. It's polished, very good in parts, a surprising seam of electropop along with the expected, hook-y R&B. One track has this plea: "Let me stay pals again." The line is Mutya's and that funny syntax makes me think she might have written it, too. As a sentiment, anyway, it makes sense.
The girls told me over lunch they expect this second run together to be a long one. "We definitely want to establish a body of work… It might never end!" Wasn't there a risk of them going through it all again, I asked, only to repeat the same mistakes? Siobhán answered. "Yeah," she said. "But that's sort of life, isn't it?"
In the murky water Siobhán leads a teetering line of original Sugababes away from the bank. Keisha chats about birthday plans. Siobhán picks pond weed from their dresses. And Mutya maintains a running commentary, talking to the water, to the sky, to anyone who'll listen.
"Go! Away! Fish!... Oh, shit me... Fish!… Tadpoles!... I'm standing on, like, a cliff?... There are little worms up and down my legs and I've got no knickers on."
The single "Flatline" is out on 15 September
Monday, 2 September 2013
Sugababes Amelle Berrabah talks solo album: 'I'm being very picky' - Digital Spy
Sugababes Amelle Berrabah talks solo album: 'I'm being
very picky'
Published Monday, Sep 2 2013, 15:36 BST | By Robert Copsey
Since the Sugababes went on hiatus in late 2011, we've only heard small titbits about Amelle Berrabah's impending solo debut.
Currently featuring on the new Adam J and Nightcrashers single 'Love Is All We Need', we met up with her to ask how the album is coming along and whether working with a pair of DJs has persuaded her to make a dance record.
Hi Amelle. Are you pleased with the reaction to your new single 'Love Is All We Need'?
Amelle: "Definitely! Everything I've heard has been positive, which is great. Obviously I was nervous as it's the first thing I've come out with in a while after being the studio for a long time, but it's been refreshing and I'm looking forward to doing some shows."
How did the whole thing come about?
Nightcrashers: "We had the song for a while but we had been saving it for an amazing guest vocalist. We couldn't believe it when Amelle said she loved the track and would vocal it - she has an incredible voice. She nailed it straight away, and she was a positive influence in the studio."
Amelle, has it encouraged you to make more dance music for your solo album?
"It's been across the board to be honest. Some of it is quite quirky. A lot of what I write is something I've been through, done or based on someone else. I've written some really stripped back ballads as well. Obviously the label will get final say about what makes the album, but fortunately we're on the same page, which helps a lot! I'm just writing and writing all the time."
You've been recording songs for quite a while now…
"I know, it's because I'm being very picky about what will make the album! I'm glad the label have let me have time as it's my first solo album and I want to be proud of it. We're looking at releasing it early next year. It's been great to experiment and see what works for me. I've made some weird songs that will definitely never see the light of day!"
How weird are we talking here?
"The lyrics and melodies are just very quirky. There's one song where I'm putting on an accent and playing a character. It was just me losing my mind for a while, I definitely have a strange imagination!"
Are you still in touch with Heidi and Jade?
"Me and Heidi are really close and we always have been. She's really happy and I'm happy for her. Same with Jade - she's cool - she's just got back from holiday. Because you're with those people 24/7, you're always going to have that close bond."
Are Sugababes over for good then?
"We're thinking of getting back together at the end of next year. I'm currently promoting this single now, then my own album. Hopefully after that we can rebuild and see what we're going to do."
What do you think of the new original Sugababes track 'Flatline'?
"I like it! It took me a few listens, but I like the melodies. They can all sing beautifully! It's a great song."
Adam J, Nightcrashers and Amelle's 'Love Is All We Need' is out now. Watch the official music video below:
Read more: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/interviews/a511868/sugababes-amelle-berrabah-talks-solo-album-im-being-very-picky.html#ixzz2dlRdNcilCurrently featuring on the new Adam J and Nightcrashers single 'Love Is All We Need', we met up with her to ask how the album is coming along and whether working with a pair of DJs has persuaded her to make a dance record.
Hi Amelle. Are you pleased with the reaction to your new single 'Love Is All We Need'?
Amelle: "Definitely! Everything I've heard has been positive, which is great. Obviously I was nervous as it's the first thing I've come out with in a while after being the studio for a long time, but it's been refreshing and I'm looking forward to doing some shows."
How did the whole thing come about?
Nightcrashers: "We had the song for a while but we had been saving it for an amazing guest vocalist. We couldn't believe it when Amelle said she loved the track and would vocal it - she has an incredible voice. She nailed it straight away, and she was a positive influence in the studio."
Amelle, has it encouraged you to make more dance music for your solo album?
"It's been across the board to be honest. Some of it is quite quirky. A lot of what I write is something I've been through, done or based on someone else. I've written some really stripped back ballads as well. Obviously the label will get final say about what makes the album, but fortunately we're on the same page, which helps a lot! I'm just writing and writing all the time."
You've been recording songs for quite a while now…
"I know, it's because I'm being very picky about what will make the album! I'm glad the label have let me have time as it's my first solo album and I want to be proud of it. We're looking at releasing it early next year. It's been great to experiment and see what works for me. I've made some weird songs that will definitely never see the light of day!"
© Amelle Berrabah
How weird are we talking here?
"The lyrics and melodies are just very quirky. There's one song where I'm putting on an accent and playing a character. It was just me losing my mind for a while, I definitely have a strange imagination!"
Are you still in touch with Heidi and Jade?
"Me and Heidi are really close and we always have been. She's really happy and I'm happy for her. Same with Jade - she's cool - she's just got back from holiday. Because you're with those people 24/7, you're always going to have that close bond."
Are Sugababes over for good then?
"We're thinking of getting back together at the end of next year. I'm currently promoting this single now, then my own album. Hopefully after that we can rebuild and see what we're going to do."
What do you think of the new original Sugababes track 'Flatline'?
"I like it! It took me a few listens, but I like the melodies. They can all sing beautifully! It's a great song."
Adam J, Nightcrashers and Amelle's 'Love Is All We Need' is out now. Watch the official music video below:
Follow us: @digitalspy on Twitter | digitalspyuk on Facebook
Sunday, 1 September 2013
Video of Jade being drawn by a caricaturist at @TheCooperative #charity event
2 days ago
Video: @TheCooperative #charity event, a caricature artist has "drawn happiness" on @JadeEwen and; #youngcarers face
Saturday, 31 August 2013
Lovely shots of Amelle attending Lipsy 'Glam' launch
Amelle Berrabah - attending the Lipsy 'Glam' fragrance launch held at the Cumberland hotel - London, United Kingdom - Thursday 29th August 2013
Amelle Berrabah, wearing a laced purple dress with orange coloured heels, seen leaving the Mahiki Nightclub in London.
Sugababe Amelle Berrabah was also spotted, dressed in a lace midnight blue frock and orange heels.
Amelle, 29, looked far more composed than The Wanted boys and accessorised her outfit with a gold choker, gold rings, bright red lipstick and and black eyeliner.
Star-studded night: Sugarbabes Amelle Berrabah was also spotted at Mahiki on Thursday night
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2406583/The-Wanteds-Tom-Parker-Jay-McGuiness-leave-club-looking-worse-wear.html#ixzz2dTqGYDBJ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Lacy lady: Amelle Berrabah wore a blue lace number
Representing the pop world was Sugababes singer Amelle Berrabah, who wore a blue lace sequinned Lipsy bodycon number and orange heels.
XO magazine - MUSIC: #FIRSTLISTEN AMELLE - ‘LOVE IS ALL WE NEED’
The genre of pop music can be a crazy thing, sometimes reaching soap opera proportions - especially girl groups (has there ever been a girl group spared the dramas of breakup rumours, egos, and all around cattiness?). But every now and then you’ll have a member of said group, rise above all the drama and pave their own way. Meet Amelle, who if you didn’t know is 1/3 of the current incarnation of UK mega-trio, the Sugababes. Last week saw the release of her new solo single, ‘Love Is All We Need’, a collaboration with Adam J and the Nightcrashers. The single is typical club fare - featuring dupstep-esque break downs, pulsating beats and a shimmery melody. But what really stands out with this track is Amelle’s vocals, which are as soulful and powerful as ever. This track though isn’t a representation of where her debut solo album is going though. “‘Love Is All You Need” is a really fun track and a great collaboration between Adam J and I, as it really happened quite organic and sonically, but the album will sound a little different. Its more soulful and quirky. I really experimented and took my time in seeing where I wanted to go. Which was great because my label gave me a lot of time and freedom to do so.” It was that freedom that really allowed her to create something a bit different than what people might expect. After spending a year and a half in the studio, the album is “a nice mix of everything, there’s ballads, uptempo songs, its cheeky and quirky, but most importantly its me and I just hope people are into it ya know?” Her favourite track on the album? She has two: ’Come On” ( a mid tempo ballad “very Alicia keys and sentimental as there is a real story behind it”) and ‘Wrigley’s Extra” (like the chewing gum! ) are her standouts.
While we still have a while before the album debuts (the release date is slated for early 2014), Amelle will release another collaboration track this fall, and then her big solo debut after. But for now we’ll be keeping ‘Love Is All We Need” on repeat and keeping our eyes and ears on alert for more!
f
'Love Is All We Need' is out now via Nightcrasher Records
Words | Le’Keisha Sims
Friday, 30 August 2013
Amelle and The Wanted's Tom Parker and Jay McGuiness leaving Mahiki
Glad You Came! The Wanted's Tom Parker and Jay McGuiness leave nightclub looking a little worse for wear...but luckily their girlfriends held them upright
|
They are known for being party animals, often seen stumbling out of clubs after lively nights out.
And Thursday night was no exception as The Wanted's Tom Parker and Jay McGuiness were enjoying another night on the town alongside their girlfriends.
Tom, 25, and Jay, 23, were seen leaving Mahiki nightclub, on Dover Street, looking a little worse for wear.
Peace: Tom was seen making hand gestures to the camera as he leaves a good night out at Mahiki
As Tom stepped into a taxi at the end of the evening, he held a peace sign up to the photographers while his girlfriend Kelsey Hardwick smiled sweetly in the background.
The Bolton-born lad was dressed an a casual tight-fitted black T-shirt, a pair of distressed ripped jeans and a pair of stained black boots.
He squinted his eyes as he left the club whilst firmly clutching onto his girlfriend's hand as they walked down Dover Street.
Good night: Tom Parker and girlfriend, Kelsey Harwick leave the club with Tom looking a little worse for wear
Girlfriend Kelsey, 24, made more of an effort for the occasion, and dressed in a black crop top, a short pink skirt with a black panel and black platform heels.
She left her long, blonde locks out and straight and accessorised her outfit with a pair of drop earrings and a long gold pendant chain.
Jay, 23, also looked to have had a rather eventful night, leaving the Dover Street club with a spilled drink down his blue denim shirt.
Oops: Jay was seen clasping on to his female partner's hand as he left the club with a stain on his shirt
Luckily for Newark-born Jay, his female companion firmly held onto his hand as they left the club, with Jay keeping his head down low.
Curly-haired Jay looked the epitomy of cool dressed in a light blue denim short-sleeved shirt, exposing his sleeve tattooes, black jeans and brown loafers.
His blonde companion was dressed in a little blue camisole top, floral-print shorts and strappy black sandals whilst carrying a heavy-looking grey leather bag on her shoulder.
Helping hand: Jay kept his head down as he left Mahiki with a stain down his top, whilst his female partner held firmly onto his hand
She left her luscious locks loose and straight and accompanied the look with a splash of red lipstick.
They weren't the only stars to visit the popular night haunt on Thursday night, as Sugarbabes Amelle Berrabah was also spotted, dressed in a lace midnight blue frock and orange heels.
Amelle, 29, looked far more composed than The Wanted boys and accessorised her outfit with a gold choker, gold rings, bright red lipstick and and black eyeliner.
Star-studded night: Sugarbabes Amelle Berrabah was also spotted at Mahiki on Thursday night
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2406583/The-Wanteds-Tom-Parker-Jay-McGuiness-leave-club-looking-worse-wear.html#ixzz2dTuDmsIm
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Amelle joins Jessica Lowndes, Made In Chelsea and TOWIE girls at Lipsy 'Glam' launch
Vampish Jessicas: Lowndes goes for Gothic make-up and LBD as she launches new Lipsy fragrance alongside a similarly dressed Wright
By KIMBERLEY DADDS and EMILY SHERIDAN
|
She's known for her fresh-faced beauty and laidback glamour.
However, former 90210 star Jessica Lowndes channelled her inner vamp for a very striking look on the red carpet on Thursday night.
The Canadian beauty, 24, went for Gothic-style make-up of dark purple lips and long lashes and a lace LBD as she arrived at the Cumberland Hotel.
Vampish ladies: Jessica Lowndes and Jessica Wright both stun in LBDs at the Lipsy London Glam launch party at the Cumberland hotel in London on Thursday evening
The lady is a vamp: Jessica Lowndes teams a lace LBD with dark lipstick as the launch of the Lipsy Glam fragrance in London
Paint it black: The Canadian actress went for a more striking make-up style than usual
The actress was the main attraction at the party as she was the face of Lipsy's new fragrance Glam.
Despite her big role, Jessica's boyfriend, former rugby player Thom Evans was nowhere to be seen.
The couple haven't been spotted together since July, with Thom attending the V Festival in Essex two weeks ago without her.
However, Thursday event was predominately a female guest list with stars from The Only Way Is Essex and Made In Chelsea in attendance.
Flesh on display: Jessica showed off her curves in her own LBD with co-ordinating nude heels as she joined the party
Glammed up: She re-emerged at the end of the night holding her bag of goodies
Leggy lady: Jessica Wright shows off her figure in the figure hugging short frock
TOWIE star Jasmin Walia showed off her figure in a dark blue, bejewelled bodycon dress and peep-tope heels.
She attended alongside Made In Chelsea star Ashley James, who looked playful in a pink Lipsy heart-print dress and black pumps.
Also in attendance was former MiC star Ianthe Rose Cochrane-Stack, who briefly dated Richard Dinan in the show.
Bretnwood-meets-Brompton Road: TOWIE star Jasmin Walis (left) and Made In Chelsea star Ashley James
Lacy lady: Amelle Berrabah wore a blue lace number, while former Strictly professional Camilla Dallerup opted for a simple LBD
Representing the pop world was Sugababes singer Amelle Berrabh, who wore a blue lace sequinned Lipsy bodycon number and orange heels.
Former Strictly professional Camilla Dallerup kept it simple in a LBD, while TV presenter Lizzie Cundy wore a stunning baroque print green Lipsy number.
Strike a pose: Former Made In Chelsea star Ianthe Rose Cochrane-Stack (left) and TV presenter Lizzie Cundy
Working it: The reality TV stars shows off their toned physiques
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2406213/Jessica-Lowndes-goes-Gothic-make-LBD-launches-new-Lipsy-fragrance-alongside-similarly-dressed-Jessica-Wright.html#ixzz2dS67wbbL
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
INTERVIEW | Swallow Our Words x @Amelle_Berrabah
INTERVIEW | Swallow Our Words x @Amelle_Berrabah
Swallow Our Words caught up with the beautiful Amelle Berrabah from Sugababes to talk her Solo Career, MKS and the future of Sugababes. We spoke about her latest single Love Is All We Need featuring DJ Adam J and Nightcrashers and this is the first we hear from Amelle since she left us and went into hiding!
A new album is also in the pipeline and will be out soon, we look forward to this. Have a watch, like, SHARE and SUBSCRIBE!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)