FEATURE: Spotlight: Lava La Rue — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Benjamin Askinas for Wonderland.

Lava La Rue

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AS she has been nominated…

as this year’s AIM Awards, I wanted to take some time to spotlight Lava La Rue (Ava Laurel). She is a visual artist, rapper and musician from London, founder of NiNE8 collective. I will work my way up to a review for La Rue’s E.P., BUTTER-FLY, as it is one of the finest of this year. I want to source a series of interviews, so that we can get to know the remarkable Lava La Rue better. In this DAZED interview from 2018, we discover more about La Rue’s flat (at the time) In London - in addition to what it was like growing up:

“Lava La Rue’s flat is a creative space. Paintings, torn-out magazine pages, a photo of Grace Jones, and a couple of spray-painted skateboard decks hang from the wall, while some friends hang out on the sofa. The flat is in Ladbroke Grove, an area of west London whose ultra-wealthy residents often obscure the fact that the borough has one of the starkest equality gaps in the UK. It’s a council flat, a rare bit of social housing remaining in a city that’s sold most of its stock to private landlords, and it’s somewhere the 20-year-old artist can express herself and create her art on her own terms. Lava has been here for the past two years, when she left the foster care system that she’d been in since she was 14.

“I was hopping around, in and out of foster care, until I was 18,” says Lava La Rue – an anagram of her own name, Ava Laurel – while sitting outside her window on a blisteringly hot summer’s day. “I had my dreams set: ‘I wanna do this, I wanna be doing music, I want my own place”.

Laurel grew up locally, raised by her grandmother. When she was 16 years old and still in foster care, she started making music, initially being in a band before getting involved in the spoken word scene. At college, she met a group of like-minded individuals, who not only helped shape the music she was making herself – a lo-fi style of hip hop/neo-soul defined by her hushed raps, diary entry lyrics, and dusty boom-bap beats – but also led to the formation of NINE8, a 15-strong collective of musicians, producers, artists, and designers doing things less do-it-yourself, more do-it-together.

What was it like growing up around west London?

Lava La Rue: It’s inner city, so you have huge affluence and then severe poverty across the road. It’s different to certain areas, where it’s just poverty. Growing up, I’d go to school and there’d be the kid of this (important and wealthy) person, and then kids I knew from the block, all in one classroom. But that’s London, ain’t it?

Can you tell me what foster care was like for you?

Lava La Rue: I was quite lucky. I didn’t go into care until I was in my mid-teens, which is a totally, totally different thing to being in and out of care from the age of five or six. Your experience of identity and attachment is totally different. As a teenager, I really learned a lot about self-preservation, being my own person, and not having dependencies. People learn self-love and self-care at different ages, but I really had to have my own back from a young age.

I grew up with my grandma – she was actually a carer as well, so I had loads of foster brothers growing up. A lot of people aren’t educated about the system at all, but I knew all the ins and outs. I had my dreams set: ‘I wanna do this, I wanna be doing music, I want my own place.’ That was a different experience to someone who doesn’t know. My grandmother was one of the first wave of Jamaicans to come over here, so even though I’m third generation, I have the experience of being raised by the first generation and the whole culture around that.

What do you take your inspiration from?

Lava La Rue: Where I live and the people around me. They all live really interesting lives. As cliché as it is, I’m definitely a Londoner. The shit I feel, literally walking on roads every day, that’s the stuff I generally write about. I take huge inspiration from incredible women – I love Erykah Badu, I love Neneh Cherry, women who exist and say their perspective and are unapologetic of who they are. That stuff is what keeps me going, you know what I mean?

And my collective, man! Mac Wetha is literally one to watch, because I think there’s always an appreciation for producers, but he, in himself, is a star. And obviously Biig Piig is incredible”.

As it is Pride Month, I am spending time with some terrific and hugely promising L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists who are primed for big things. That is true of Lava La Rue. NME caught up with one of the U.K.’s best talents. Among other things, sexuality, gender identity and the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ experience is discussed:

“Instead of feeling like they were “being mushy” or “giving in” to writing songs about love, they came to appreciate the gravity of a queer person making music – in part for the benefit of the LGBTQIA+ community. “In the past I was using female pronouns for my lovers and people were reaching out to me and being like, ‘You have no idea how much it meant to me to just listen to a bop and it so casually be about a lesbian relationship, but not actually for the whole thing be about that.’”

“It was made in a transitional period for me. I’d fallen head over heels in love and I felt like I had cut off all the negative things in my life. And I was surrounded by really nourishing and caring people. Before that I was very much in hustle mode; trying to make sure my music could cover my living. I’d fucked off to LA [in late 2019] to write this project and suddenly I was like, ‘Do you know what? I’ve got good people around me. I’m OK. I’ve got a great team. I need to not look left, not look right and just focus on the music.’ Suddenly loads of waves of emotions hit me and I realised I started feeling things I’d been putting off for years. When you’re in hustle mode you don’t really allow yourself to process things because you’re just so busy trying to survive. So in that time period I was really emotional and I was like, ‘All right, well let me put this all into the music.’”

And what about the growing pains of identity and coming out, if at all? “To be honest I always knew that I was genderqueer and didn’t quite see myself on a specific side of the spectrum from a very young age, but those words weren’t actually in circulation to use. It was just seen as, ‘Oh yeah, little Ava, she’s a bit of a tomboy’. When I did start doing more research, I was like, ‘OK, there’s actually a word for this.’

“A misconception about being non-binary is people think it’s almost like a third gender – like a gender in a middle – where it’s actually a whole spectrum. I think my idols exuded that same energy but I those words really weren’t in circulation. Prince was probably non-binary. I realise now there’s maybe a bit more terminology for exactly how I feel, but even within that I still feel it’s a very complex thing.”

But the conversation isn’t moving fast enough, Laurel adds. “It’s very easy to feel like there’s been progression when you have your own bubble of people or if you have your own echo chamber online. Yet there’s also a whole other world of people where it’s totally not OK, especially in other countries. I have a lot of people close to me who come from countries where you’re absolutely at risk by being openly queer – let’s focus on making those people safe. They need the bare necessities and they’re still not there. To me, that’s not progression. We should be way beyond that by now”.

Before getting to the BUTTER-FLY E.P., I found an interview that La Rue gave to The Forty-Five at the start of this year. I would urge people to read the whole thing. The section about La Rue’s NiNE8 collective caught my eye:

“Unsurprisingly for someone so community-minded, accountability is huge for Lava. With NiNE8 she’s run songwriting workshops for local children, and for the release of ‘G.O.Y.D.’ she donated proceeds from the song to ‘For Our Sibs’, a Black Trans Exclusive collective centring Black Trans, Non-Binary, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex folk. It’s not just about giving back to society either, it’s about leading by example.

“The main message of NiNE8 is a collective vibe and solidarity across races and genders and identity and class. [As a solo artist] it’s about something as simple as just trying to teach people self-love, and you know the best way to do that is to put that in your own life. Because there are so many artists that talk about that stuff and just don’t follow it.”

It’s difficult to think of many other musicians who could enthuse about self-esteem, solidarity, and personal growth without coming over preachy or insincere. This ability to connect with audiences on a human level is precisely the reason we need an artist like Lava La Rue in 2021, a year that’s already shaping up to be every bit as challenging as its predecessor.

Ask Lava about her hopes for the year, however, and you’ll find her eyes already trained far further into the distance. “I’m always thinking five years ahead,” she asserts, deadly serious. “I already know the project I want to do at the end of next year and the year after that, and the project I want to release when I’m 25.

“I don’t feel like I’ve remotely peaked or shown half of my capabilities. I’ve only just gotten into the groove. There’s gonna be so much more to come”.

The last interview that I am including is from Vogue. Not only is La Rue a talented visual artist and rapper. She is a fashion icon who has a unique blend and set of influences. This is explained more in the interview from earlier in the year:

“Lava La Rue has become a household name in recent years. Many will know the 22-year-old as the singer-songwriter and rapper behind the critically acclaimed 2019 EP Stitches, and as a founding member of NiNE8 – a diverse London collective, home to rappers, producers and familiar names such as Biig Piig. Others will recognise her as a regular at fashion shows and the face of multiple campaigns, or as a vocal and active member of the Black and LGBTQIA+ community, championing Black stories and queer love in the mainstream through music and art. This summer, she released a fan-led music video exploring the “summer of love” in lockdown for her single “G.O.Y.D” (Girl Of Your Dreams) with proceeds going towards the Black Trans collective FOR OUR SIBS.

Fortunately, the pandemic has in no way diminished La Rue’s creative prowess. On 19 February, she releases her second EP Butter-Fly alongside self-made artwork and a music video for the bluesy opening track “Magpie”. Inspired by Björk, Prince and the sounds of her collective, it consists of five personal queer love stories envisioned as “individual movies with the same characters but different settings and genres”. After “Magpie” comes “Angel” – a poppy fusion of West London and American West Coast sounds followed by the ethereal love ballad “Goofy Hearts”, the trippy R&B track “G.O.Y.D”, and “Lift You Up” featuring Karma Kid – a sugary finale to a kaleidoscopic EP”.

How do you DIY your clothes?

I swap unworn clothes in charity shops or revamp them with new materials. I’d make clothes before a night out – ripping, sticking, pinning something up quickly. People liked what I made and that’s how my brand Lavaland came about. When I’m making clothes, I think about functionality and past subcultures that inspire me. I’ll see a sick photo of Joan Jett in a crazy pinned T-shirt or jeans, then go to Portobello Market and make my own version. With Lavaland and NiNE8 Garms, I buy second-hand clothes by the kilo at warehouses. For the boutique collection we did for London Men’s Fashion Week, we found loads of Korean army pants, fixed all the zips and added all the additional textures.

What is your best style or DIY tip?

Don't be afraid to DIY expensive clothes because no one else will be wearing that anyway.

What do you wear on date night?

Pre-Covid, I’d be in a full leather Matrix outfit. It’s casual, sexy and not too crazy. I wore that on my first date with my partner.

Who, in your opinion, is the greatest fashion icon?

They’re all around my house! Posters of Grace Jones, Prince, Joan Jett. I feel like 2021 needs authentic rockstars with their energy”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Cullis

I am going to end with a review from NME of BUTTER-FLY. It is an exceptional E.P. from a multidisciplinary artist on the rise. This is what they had to say:

“Take ‘G.O.Y.D’, a lush slow jam about a long-distance relationship. After a torrent of gushy declarations rapped by Laurel (“Call me Molly ’cause I been rolling like a heartthrob”), Clairo picks up the receiver to play the other longing half. It’s a welcome dabble into romanticism, and a jump from the socio-political stories that coloured early work. But, as ever, it comes with a wider purpose. They recently told NME that they were inspired to explore and vocalise these emotions so because “queer love is inherently political” and that “it’s still extremely underrepresented across all genres.”

Elsewhere, Laurel turns up the wonk for EP highlight ‘Angel’ – featuring new-gen rockstar Deb Never – a sparkling tune sprung by hypnotic synths and taut basslines. “Pupils dilating / Want you up and down”, Laurel purrs before switching to breathy R&B singing at the song’s hook. On ‘Magpie’, Laurel instead exposes the risks of love and how they fall in and out too easily. Opening up has its downfalls, after all.

Dreamy trip-hop track ‘Lift You Up’ returns to Laurel’s longtime manta of self-love and acceptance: “This world is for me it’s my Lava town”, they spit in spoken-word over swelling beats, while Karma Kid’s gorgeous falsetto strengthens the track’s hopeful message. ‘Butter-Fly’ revels tonally and thematically in Laurel’s first flush of love, and being its voyager is a rewarding experience. Their next journey will no doubt be just as thrilling”.

Go and follow Lava La Rue if you are uninitiated and unfamiliar. Her music is stunning and points towards a very bright and successful future. I will leave things there. Go and spend some time studying and familiarising yourself with…