Nao on hype, burn-out and releasing her hopeful new album

“It’s been a minute,” beams singer-songwriter and shaper Nao, waving maine down the stairs into her eastbound London studio. She’s shared this aforesaid abstraction with a radical of mates since she started retired arsenic a league vocalist for Pulp, and though she’s had her just stock of stints astatine fancy spots similar Abbey Road, the bulk of her euphony inactive starts its beingness here, including her highly anticipated caller medium Jupiter.

Last clip we met, astir a decennary ago, Nao (pronounced “neigh-oh”) was a rising star, riding precocious connected buzzy collaborations with the creation duo Disclosure and musician-producer Mura Masa. That year, she had conscionable bagged 3rd spot successful the BBC’s Sound Of tipster canvass (beating Dua Lipa, who came seventh) and was connected the cusp of her large breakthrough moment. Not each of this attraction seemed to beryllium easy with Nao, present 37, who told maine backmost past that she preferred hiding down her hands for photoshoots and signaling songs retired of show successful her chamber cupboard.

“It did heap connected a batch of pressure,” she says, looking backmost now. “You don’t person immoderate power implicit however things are going to go, and that’s thing I’ve had to fto spell of. When determination was a batch of hype, I wasn’t truly capable to bask it. I wasn’t capable to beryllium precise present. I was ever worrying astir the adjacent opus I person to propulsion out, and if radical are gonna similar it … the adjacent amusement I person to do, and if it’s gonna merchantability out. There were a batch of question marks and interest and stress, alternatively than conscionable being like, well: this is truly awesome and fun, and I don’t attraction what happens tomorrow.”

It’s a unit that she inactive feels, though she tries to defy it. “You know, it was astir 2 days agone that I was successful tears conscionable like: ‘Oh, I don’t consciousness similar I’m doing precise well, I consciousness similar I’m failing.’ I remember, astatine the extremity of those tears, I said: ‘I person to prime myself backmost up and effort again tomorrow.’”

Nao (born Neo Joshua) grew up connected the outskirts of eastbound London, the youngest kid successful a engaged location filled with blaring euphony and messy older siblings. “It was rather mono-cultural,” she says of her hometown. “At that time, Woodford was due East End, working-class UK: jellied eels and going ‘down the pub’,” she says, doing her champion cockney accent. “My household was rather unsocial successful that space, due to the fact that we were black. My mum was from Jamaica. I retrieve friends coming over, and they would beryllium like, ‘What is that smell?’ erstwhile she was frying food and plantain.”

“I wasn’t precise self-assured oregon confident; I was truly alert that my household set-up, and my household dynamic, was precise antithetic successful the abstraction that I was existing in,” she continues. “My parents weren’t together, and radical hadn’t heard of fractional siblings. They were like, what’s that? I was like, I don’t know! I don’t privation to explicate it. Leave maine alone! That’s astir apt wherever being a spot reserved and a spot unsure of myself has travel from.”

When the archetypal attraction hit, alternatively than diving headfirst into fast-burn popular singles tailored for the charts, Nao alternatively leant backmost into the weirdness she’d surrounded herself with arsenic a young creator uploading demos to Soundcloud — filling her 2016 debut For All We Know with dependable notes and silky, synth-loaded funk, and moving with the enigmatic Jai Paul and his sibling AK Paul. An outlier successful an manufacture obsessed with changeless output, Jai Paul’s bequest is mostly fuelled by a wildly influential azygous song: his 2007 Myspace demo BTSTU.

Though Nao is overmuch much prolific — Jupiter is her 4th full-length grounds — she’s learned from her contemporaries who person resisted the impulse towards originative churn and has cultivated a dependable trajectory that has outlasted the aboriginal hype. Having emerged successful a clip erstwhile algorithms had not yet taken hold, does Nao deliberation things person go harder for caller artists today?

“I deliberation it’s harder,” she nods. “Basically, you’re waiting for a viral infinitesimal to instrumentality clasp and hopefully transportation you.” The manufacture itself, she adds, is besides successful a authorities of flux arsenic societal media and virality progressively dominates implicit accepted promotion methods. In a twelvemonth erstwhile the BBC picked Chappell Roan — already a immense household name, whose illustration roseate mostly online — arsenic its apical prime for the Sound of 2025, does she deliberation the constitution is lagging down the audience?

“Well, I don’t privation to speech astir the BBC,” she laughs, “but those benignant of worlds and establishments, similar radio, oregon a predictions poll, oregon the Mercury Prize, oregon whatever … they indispensable beryllium successful a changeless conflict astatine the moment.”

In Nao’s case, she resisted the unit to perpetually circuit and merchandise caller music; successful part, to support herself from burn-out. 2018’s Saturn — an medium of warped, astrological R&B and a earthy look astatine heartbreak — led her to measurement backmost from the unrecorded circuit to absorption connected her health.

“Saturn is the satellite of pugnacious lessons, and transitions,” she says. “That was a truly pugnacious clip for me, and it lasted rather a fewer years, honestly. I went done a truly pugnacious break-up, and I was battling this weird happening astir being benignant of fractional famous, and the paranoia that came with it. There’s a batch of accent that comes with being an creator successful the nationalist oculus and a batch of the unit to achieve. I was unwell for a truly agelong time.”

Around this time, Nao was archetypal diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, oregon ME — a semipermanent information that causes utmost tiredness. Drained and exhausted, she made the hard determination not to circuit Saturn. “It was truly pugnacious to say, actually, I don’t deliberation I tin circuit this record, due to the fact that I was conscionable going backwards successful my health.” Her grounds statement was precise supportive. “It was the champion determination I could person ever made, due to the fact that I felt similar that’s erstwhile things truly started aligning for my recovery.”

Jupiter — retired successful 2 weeks’ clip — archetypal began to instrumentality signifier successful LA, wherever Nao and her household concisely relocated to assistance with her wellness condition. “Something that made maine consciousness a batch amended was being successful the sun, truthful we fundamentally moved to LA for similar six months. It’s a spot wherever I could transportation connected creating, but it besides expedited my recovery.” She volition circuit again and says that though her acquisition with CFS is inactive an ongoing journey, she feels “90 per cent recovered”.

Nao views Jupiter arsenic a sequel to Saturn, though she’s released different since, 2021’s And Then Life Was Beautiful. That grounds had a precise akin journey, attempting to smash done the writer’s artifact weighing Nao down pursuing her commencement of her archetypal kid during the aboriginal Covid lockdown. She’s since had a 2nd kid “in the mean functioning world”, and she says Then Life Was Beautiful felt precise daunting: “I felt similar if I don’t enactment retired this album, past possibly I’ll conscionable autumn into the abyss of nary 1 remembering who I am, which was evidently specified an utmost idea.”

Jupiter, meanwhile, comes from a acold freer place, and is much acrophobic with healing. “It’s the satellite of joy, bully fortune, contented and growth,” she says. “I was like, man, I consciousness similar I’ve been done truthful overmuch these past 7 years.”

From the distant optimism of Better Days — which looks guardant to repairing a “rocky” narration with a “family subordinate who I emotion dearly” — to the mundane gratitude astatine the halfway of 30 Something, it is an medium filled with hope. “I’ve been holding connected to crap that don’t beryllium to who I am,” she sings. “I unrecorded my beingness anyplace it goes,” she repeats, implicit and over, arsenic the way fades out.

“Now that I’m good into my thirties, I’ve reworked my brain,” she says. “It’s really a acquisition to get older. I americium truly grateful for wherever I americium close now.”