‘It felt liberating’: Laura Mvula on her ‘unfiltered’ Mercury Prize reaction and championing female artists

Published

3 years ago

October 6, 2021

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After this year’s Mercury Prize ceremony had wrapped up, Laura Mvula found herself in tears in a hotel room. Nominated for a rare third time – she has never released an album that hasn’t been shortlisted – the pressure had built up.

While Mvula never really went away, the ’80s pop-inspired Pink Noise was a return of sorts, released through Atlantic in July after she was unexpectedly dropped by former record label Sony early in 2017. A difficult period was followed by yet another when the pandemic hit, and suddenly an accolade that previously would simply have been the cherry on top of an exceptional career had become all-consuming.

On the night, the prestigious Mercury Prize went to Arlo Parks, for her debut album Collapsed In Sunbeams. “I get robbed. A lot,” Mvula tweeted afterwards, following it up with: “Mercury Prize can lose my number.” The next day, she shared a longer message on Instagram: “I really thought Pink Noise might’ve won last night… I needed it for several reasons too complex to dive into here. I don’t expect to be understood fully by the British public but try not to judge my pain… I’m just tired. Please buy the album if you can and come to a show. Many thanks. Love you.”

A few weeks later, Mvula is feeling a lot more positive, her energy and infectious laugh lighting up a Zoom call. We are here to talk about National Album Day, for which she is an ambassador this year, and she is keen to praise the artists who have inspired her – everyone from Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and Des’ree to contemporaries such as Lianne La Havas, Little Simz and Nao, as well as the late Amy Winehouse and composer Errolyn Wallen.

She is also candid about how strongly she feels about her own record and the Mercury Prize. There is “no malice” towards Parks but she is honest about how missing out made her feel.

“I was so exhausted,” she begins. “I don’t just mean from the day, I mean from the moment I even thought about making a third record… I’d had two previous nominations so there was a sense of ‘third time round’. I allowed myself to get caught up in the noise, pardon the pun, of it all. That’s what I regret the most, is that for the first time I really started to make so many things matter to me that ordinarily have nothing to do with what I really care about.”

Mvula chuckles as she adds that she’s “mid-30s, still trying to make a living”, but it matters. It’s not often an artist is so candid about their own personal situation, but the way the industry treats female artists as they get older is no secret.

“It’s a weird thing to get used to high critical acclaim,” Mvula goes on. “There’s something bittersweet because it’s wonderful to be acknowledged as an artist who makes things people respect. That’s something I consider to be a high privilege and something I’m proud of. But at the same time, when it doesn’t necessarily translate to something tangible, that can be where it gets complicated. And [there’s a] need or desire to be visible and to have a growing audience, to not want to just have a legacy that is, ‘yes, we know of her, but oh, she never broke through’, or whatever the narratives are in my mind.”

Of the handful of artists who have been nominated three times or more, the classically trained musician is not in bad company when it comes to those who have not won: David Bowie, Coldplay, Laura Marling, Florence And The Machine, to name a few; Radiohead have a record five nominations, but no win. So clearly it speaks nothing of her talent; she won the equally prestigious Ivor Novello award for best album in 2017 – just months after being dropped by Sony – for the previous year’s The Dreaming Room, on which she collaborated with Nile Rodgers and reportedly had to turn down Prince.

But still, in that moment, it hurt. “I really yearned for it in a way that I wasn’t even ready for. When it went to Arlo, it was almost nothing to do with Arlo Parks and her music and Laura Mvula and her music, and all the other artists and the music, it became about something else.”

She refers to recent comments made by Ed Sheeran about awards shows, which he described as “filled with resentment and hatred”. “There’s something really draining about the whole experience, and the win and the lose aspect,” Mvula admits. Her tweets after the Mercury Prize were tongue in cheek, she says, but came from a place of truth. “I guess, that was the real, unfiltered Laura. It was my rejection of all the pressure and all the nonsense and all the being pitted against one another… Here we are all desperately trying not to care. But somehow you end up caring so much.”

Back in the hotel room, Mvula’s friend and sister suggested she take her online posts down. “I just went to bed crying. I ignored them and I felt sort of more alone in that moment.” In the morning, they discussed a “pain” that many women will identify with. “We’re not supposed to say things that make us look not elegant and put together and demure and softly spoken, because anything else is just ugly,” says Mvula.

“I’m not going to lie: there was something very liberating about saying what I felt, knowing that I hold no malice in my heart at all towards Arlo or any other artists, but knowing I feel so passionately about what I do, and that me and the people who work so hard around me deserve some kind of break.” She shrugs. “That was it, really.”

She is sanguine about it all now. The reason the Mercury Prize matters is because it celebrates the album as an art-form, something Mvula feels passionately about. Pink Noise and its ’80s shoulder-padded aesthetic is a fun record, a shift from the more experimental, baroque soul of her first two albums. But making it did not come easily. “In the beginning… even making one song would have felt impossible at one stage,” she says, because she has to “really believe” in everything she puts out. But now it’s here, vibrant, unsubtle and a statement of intent, she couldn’t be more proud.

“I wasn’t always the most confident person, I didn’t always want to feel loud and be noticed or be seen or heard. In fact, the idea of being on a stage as a solo artist was something that used to freak me out. Pink Noise was my celebration of my life in its loud, bombastic, romantic, fragile glory.”

While the colour pink held lazy connotations and once felt “imposed” upon young girls growing up, now Mvula embraces it. “I wasn’t interested in wearing pink clothes and fluffy dresses because that supposedly fit some ideal or that meant I was beautiful and whatever,” she says. “And weirdly, I feel more beautiful [now] than ever.”

National Album Day 2021

National Album Day takes place on 16 November and this year celebrates women in music
Laura Mvula is an ambassador, alongside Kylie Minogue, Sharleen Spiteri, Ray BLK and Joy Crookes
Tim Burgess, who launched Twitter listening parties in 2020, will host events with artists including Spiteri and Minogue as part of the celebrations
Fans will be able to buy limited edition versions of new albums, boxsets and classic reissues by artists including Stevie Nicks, Donna Summer, HAIM, Eva Cassidy, Dido, Garbage, Roisin Murphy, Patti Smith, Solange, Lykkie Li, Amy Winehouse and more
Various events will be taking place at local music shops throughout the UK

Along with artists including Kylie Minogue, Ray BLK and Sharleen Spiteri, Mvula is an ambassador for National Album Day 2021, which is this year shining a spotlight on female performers. “I think it’s so important to lift women up, and specifically in the arts and making albums because for decades there’s so many unsung heroines.”

When it comes to black, female artists especially there is “always so much work to be done” she says, in terms of making the opportunities available and visible. “But I’m encouraged because I do feel like we’re now living in a time where there’s much more awareness, much more dialogue, and there seems to be a widespread acknowledgement.

“My story began in music because I was taught I could do anything; there wasn’t a room I felt uncomfortable in, whether that was learning to play the violin and piano or putting a neo-soul band together when I was in my teens, or singing in an a cappella group with my auntie. At the time as a kid, I was not aware of how rich that plethora of different experiences was.”

Mvula is positive. “I think we’re living in exciting times,” she says. And that also applies to being able to perform live again after more than a year of venues being shut. So far this year she has performed at the Olympics Homecoming ceremony with Rodgers and played a sold-out show at Islington Assembly Hall, as well as at the Edinburgh Festival. A tour is planned and as well as Pink Noise, she also features on the soundtrack to “new-school Western” The Harder They Fall, starring Idris Elba.

“I now feel sort of ready to refocus on the next thing, which for me is performing and getting back on the road,” she says. “Trying to get that good feeling back that I think the pandemic stole from a lot of us who made lockdown albums. I think there’s a weird exhaustion that comes from that as well.”

It has been a challenging time, “dire for everyone”, she admits, but good things are on the horizon. “I was chatting with my accountant on text, and he was like, ‘yeah, man, it’s rough’, but he said we’re going to get back on the road and, you know, it’s not going to be so troublesome,” she laughs.

“We’re on the up and up, it’s just gradual. And I think that’s good because my God, am I now savouring everything. I do not miss a moment, you know, I really just drink it in. There is beauty in suffering, I think. That’s what I’ve been taking from this very trying time.”

Laura Mvula’s latest album, Pink Noise, is out now. National Album Day, celebrating women in music, takes place on Saturday 16 October with new albums, boxsets and classic reissues including: Amy Winehouse, Stevie Nicks, Solange, Donna Summer, HAIM, Eva Cassidy, Dido, Garbage, Roisin Murphy, Patti Smith and more

Entertainment

With Love, Meghan: What we learnt from Duchess of Sussex’s new Netflix series

Published

6 hours ago

March 4, 2025

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With Love, Meghan: What we learnt from Duchess of Sussex's new Netflix series

The Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle series premiered this morning – in which she talks about her life in California, her time spent living in Argentina and her love of food.

With Love, Meghan – an eight-part series on Netflix – had been delayed from a January release due to the Los Angeles wildfires.

The episodes, which last about 30 minutes each, feature a host of celebrity friends along with a few cameos from her husband, Prince Harry.

From her first jobs growing up to what she was like on the Suits set, here are some things we learnt about the duchess.

‘I’m Sussex now’

One of Meghan’s guests is The Office star Mindy Kaling, who she bonds with over their lives as toddlers’ mums while putting together a tea party in the garden.

As they put sandwiches together for the tea, Meghan talks about her love of Jack In The Box – a classic US fast-food chain, to which Kaling responds: “I don’t think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack In The Box and loves it.”

The duchess laughs and says: “It’s funny, you keep saying Meghan Markle, you know, I’m Sussex now.

“You have kids, and you go, ‘now I share my name with my children’… I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go ‘this is our family name, our little family name’.”

Similarities with Archie

During episode four, the duchess goes on a hike with her friend Delfina Blaquier, who is married to Argentinian polo star Nacho Figueras, and together they have a picnic with homemade focaccia bread.

The duchess reveals how she passed time during her childhood – and the similar traits her son, Archie, has: “As a kid, I was taking a bag of tea from the drawer in my house, putting it in a mason jar or probably an empty jar that once held spaghetti sauce and putting it in the sun, and sitting there… waiting for it to change colour.

“Funny enough, which Archie does now.”

Days before the show aired, in an interview with People magazine, the duchess said Archie had told her: “Mama, don’t work too hard” during filming.

She added the five-year-old helped with the clapperboard while visiting the set with his sister Lilibet and Harry.

Life in Argentina

The two friends met through their husbands – “The moment we met, we bonded over our love of the outdoors and being in nature. We always hike together whenever she’s in town. And sometimes we let our husbands join us,” Meghan says.

Reflecting on when they first met, Meghan says: “What’s so funny is, I remember when we first met, and you were like: ‘Wait a minute, you speak Argentinian Spanish?’ But it’s such a pretty language because it sounds so musical.”

Her friend says: “When you started speaking Spanish and I recognised the Argentinian, I was blown away, because I didn’t know that…”

“That I’d lived there,” Meghan responds.

She adds: “When I lived in Argentina, I think the reason I loved it so much is because it reminded me of California in a lot of ways. Where you have the mountains and you have this joy of life and the joy of being outside.

“I was only there for a few months interning at the US Embassy, but I loved it.”

First jobs in doughnut and yoghurt shops – and some more childhood memories

In episode five, as Meghan hosts long-time friends, former Suits co-star Abigail Spencer and Kelly McKee Zajfen, she says that her first job was at Humphrey Yogart, a frozen yoghurt shop in Los Angeles playfully named after actor Humphrey Bogart.

That came after she told chef Roy Choi in episode three, as she presented him with doughnuts she prepared for him, that she once had a job at a doughnut shop.

“Doughnuts in general just remind me of my childhood,” she said.

“I once had a job at a little donut shop called Little Orbit Donuts. They made tiny, tiny, little mini donuts.”

She said she often helped them sell at craft venues, adding that doughnuts generally were a big part of her childhood.

“Growing up, driving down Highland to get to school, there was always a Yum Yum Donuts right there.”

“Highland and Melrose,” Choi clarifies.

“Exactly… is it still there?”

When Choi says it is, she responds: “Oh my god. I should go back in.”

In another episode, Kaling asks whether Meghan began cooking at home or picked it up later. Meghan replies: “I was a latch-key kid so I grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV tray dinners.

“It feels like such a different time but that was so normal with the microwavable kids meals.”

Life in Montecito house

The lifestyle show, which was filmed in a California farmhouse rather than in her Montecito house, features her describing her every day life – including how it is a “daily” task to pick fruit when it’s in season at her home.

Episode one Hello Honey! features Meghan’s friend Daniel Martin as she prepares a “thoughtful guest basket”.

It begins with her harvesting honey from bees, saying: “The biggest thing is keeping a low tone – talk in our bee voice.”

With the help of a beekeeper, she talks about “trying to stay in the calm of it because it’s beautiful to be this connected”.

Harry is the king of eggs

When asked by Kaling about how best to season eggs, the duchess says: “I have a family, a husband, who no matter what meal is put in front of him before he tastes it puts salt on, so I try to under salt.”

Harry himself, it is later revealed, is something of an egg connoisseur.

Speaking to two close friends in a later episode, she says “H” is a “great cook” and makes “the best scrambled eggs”.

She further praises him by saying he generally makes “a really good breakfast”.

Bacon was the subject of discussions on more than one occasion during the series, with Meghan saying that whenever she cooks it the kitchen “becomes full of husband and three dogs”.

“It’s not my perfume that’s bringing them all in,” she jokes.

What the duchess was like during Suits

Meghan’s days of playing paralegal Rachel Zane in popular drama Suits came to an end in 2018, the year she married Harry.

But she has clearly remained close with co-star Abigail Spencer, who played Dana Scott.

In episode five, as the pair sat in Meghan’s garden alongside Kelly McKee Zajfen, Spencer reflected on what Meghan was like during the Suits days.

She said Meghan was “the head of morale on the show,” to which Meghan thanked her and added: “I liked to plan fun for everyone.”

Heart-warming moments of Meghan with beloved beagle

The whole series ends with a tribute to Meghan’s late dog, Guy, who featured prominently in several episodes.

One morning, the duchess is seen making bone-shaped peanut butter biscuits for the rescue beagle, who died shortly after filming wrapped, saying you can make them with leftover bacon from breakfast.

She admitted there was “never” any leftovers in her house because “we eat a lot of it” – another reference to the Sussexes love of bacon.

“I would do anything for Guy, and he knows it,” she then says. “He can have whatever he wants ’cause he is whatever kind of guy you need him to be depending on the day. My sweet guy, my silly guy, my saucy little guy. Always my spoiled guy.”

Later, as she hands him a peanut butter cookie, she adds: “They provide us with unconditional love, so they get unconditional peanut butter dog biscuits. Why not?”

The Sussexes also have two other dogs – another rescue beagle named Mia and a black Labrador called Pula, who is seen trying to steal some of Meghan and her guests’ food at various points during the series.

Meghan’s ‘next chapter’

In the eighth and final episode, called Feels Like Home, Meghan prepares for Prince Harry to make an appearance.

She is putting together a brunch for family and friends to celebrate the “next chapter” in her life.

Sharing details of how she envisages the so-called “next chapter”, Meghan, wearing a blue maxi dress and putting the finishing touches to a spread of food outdoors, says: “Of course, my husband will be here, my mum will be here, my best friend since college, my community having a brunch in the sunshine with the people that I love, celebrating this next chapter of my life.”

Entertainment

Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years dies

Published

11 hours ago

March 4, 2025

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Dolly Parton's husband of nearly 60 years dies

Dolly Parton’s husband – who she married in a secret ceremony aged just 20 – has died.

The country music star’s website said Carl Dean died on Monday in Nashville.

Parton said in a statement: “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

Dean was the inspiration behind Jolene, one of her biggest hits.

She said she wrote the song after a flirty bank clerk seemed to take an interest in him.

“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008.

“And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention.

“It was kinda like a running joke between us… So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”

The pair met outside the Wishy Washy launderette, where Parton was doing her washing, the day she moved to Nashville at age 18.

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton said in 2016.

“He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

Parton said her record company had asked her to wait to get married but the couple tied the knot two years later, in May 1966.

Only her mother, the preacher and his wife were in attendance at the ceremony – held out of state so local papers wouldn’t report it.

Dean owned a paving business and famously shunned the limelight, so was very rarely seen in public with the star.

“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” Parton joked in a 1984 interview with AP.

The couple never had any children, but he is survived by his brother and sister.

Entertainment

Oscars 2025: Anora sweeps the Academy Awards with five awards including best picture

Published

1 day ago

March 3, 2025

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Oscars 2025: Anora sweeps the Academy Awards with five awards including best picture

Anora has dominated the Academy Awards, winning five gongs including best picture.

The film’s star, Mikey Madison, who plays a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, took home the best actress award – a win that was not a total upset, but many had expected Demi Moore to scoop the prize for her performance in The Substance.

Anora filmmaker Sean Baker was named best director, and used his acceptance speech to make a plea for audiences to support cinemas, which he said were “a vital part of our culture” and at risk of being lost.

Both also thanked sex workers who consulted on the film, saying they could never have made it without them.

Anora also won the Oscars for best original screenplay and best editing. Winning all four awards he was up for, Baker tied with Walt Disney’s record for the most Oscar wins by a single person in a single night – although Disney won his awards for multiple works, rather than a single film as Baker has done.

Adrien Brody won the best actor Oscar for playing Hungarian architect Lazlo Toth in architectural epic The Brutalist.

It was his second Academy Award win in the category some 22 years after his first, for The Pianist back in 2003.

Accepting his award in a lengthy speech, he paid tribute to his partner Georgina Chapman, who he said had “re-invigorated” his “self-worth” and “sense of value”.

Best cinematography also went to The Brutalist directror Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour epic, which also took home the prize for best original score.

Papal thriller Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, took just one award, for best adapted screenplay.

Kieran Culkin took the first award of the night, best supporting actor, for his role in comedy drama A Real Pain, while the best supporting actress prize was won by Emilia Perez star Zoe Saldana, her first Oscar win and nomination.

One of the highest-grossing actresses ever, she cried out “Mommy, mommy”, on stage, explaining her entire family was there with her. She became tearful at the end of her speech as she spoke of being “a proud child of immigrant parents”.

Announced by Mick Jagger, best song went to Emilia Perez’s El Mal (which translates as “Evil”), while the prize for costume design went to Wicked’s Paul Tazewell – who became the first black man to receive the award. The Wizard Of Oz prequel also won best production design.

Brazilian director Walter Salles won best international feature for Portuguese-language film I’m Still Here, set in the 1970s in the midst of the Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship.

A word-of-mouth hit, the film’s Brazilian star Fernanda Torres has gone from a relative unknown to a much-talked-about actress in the US in the last few months.

Make-up and hairstyling was awarded to body horror The Substance, a film which showcased extreme prosthetics, make-up and gore throughout. It was the film’s only win of the night.

The documentary categories went to The Only Girl In The Orchestra and No Other Land – made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective – for short film and feature film respectively.

Accepting the prize, it’s makers Basel Dra and Yuval Abraham made a political plea to the US: “The foreign policy in this country is helping to block [the path of peace]. Why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.”

Best sound and best visual effects went to Dune: Part Two, directed by Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve.

A night where independent and unusual filmmaking was rewarded, best animated feature went to Latvian computer-generated film Flow, while best animated short film was won by Iranian entry The Shadow Of The Cypress. Both international productions are dialogue-free.

Live action short film went to I’m Not A Robot, a study in an AI-fueled identity crisis.

During the ceremony’s in memoriam section, Morgan Freeman paid tribute to two-time Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, who was found dead in his home along with his wife and dog earlier this week.

A video montage honoured Academy members who have passed away over the last year, including British stars Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Joan Plowwright and Donald Sutherland, and US performers James Earl Jones, Kris Kristofferson and David Lynch.

There was also a moving segment honouring late music producer Quincy Jones, led by Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg and featuring rapper Queen Latifah.

Sky News is livestreaming the Vanity Fair and Sir Elton John after-party red carpets following the ceremony. Catching the Oscar-winners as they party the night away, join us there from 6am.