We know you love Lorde and Adele as much as we do, but sometimes we all want to hear a new voice. The last time, we used Adele Laurie Blue Adkins’s melancholic style as a way of introducing Eska Mtungwazi, a woman who has faced loneliness, racism, and the absence of a real home. Eska knows what it means to be hurt, which is why the honesty in her sound touched our hearts. Now we present you with Sigrid, the Norwegian pop star who is sure to become a media darling this coming year.
At the young age of twenty, Sigrid is fully aware of life and the world around her. Perhaps this sensitivity is owed to two of her greatest musical influences, Neil Young and Joni Mitchel. Her first single is called “Don’t Kill My Vibe.”
Sigrid grew up in Alesund, a small town in Norway surrounded by mountains and ocean. In an interview with Vice she explained how her music career began when her brother asked her for help writing songs. “He’s a musician too. He had a show back home and he wanted me to join him on stage but told me I wasn’t allowed to play a cover. He said I had to write a song. He gave me two weeks. So I wrote a song in two weeks and performed it at the show.”
At the age of sixteen she signed with an independent label and recorded a few tracks. Despite her excitement, she also felt an incredible pressure, since she was still in school at the time. Two years later she moved to Bergen, the country’s indie capital. From that moment on, she’s been working on her debut EP which is set to be released in the UK on April 3.
We might make fun or roll our eyes at pop music, but the truth is that musicians like Sigrid show us that it’s not all bad. There might be a few popsters who are a result of media frenzy, but there’s plenty more who, like this Norwegian singer songwriter, are bringing back our hope for popular music.
Translated by María Suárez
