Apple Music Home Session: Baby Queen

Baby Queen is used to the difficulties that come with recording music at home. “I had to record the vocals for half of my debut EP at home, so I actually cut off one side of a massive cardboard box and put soundproofing on the inside walls to make a vocal booth,” the singer tells Apple Music. “I literally spent most of 2020 with my head inside a box. It’s looking slightly more elegant these days—thank god!” That more sophisticated scene is the setting of this Apple Music Home Session, on which the South Africa-born, London-based singer—real name Bella Latham—offers an arresting cover of Sinéad O’Connor’s unforgettable take on Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” and dials back her ultra-candid 2021 indie-pop banger “Raw Thoughts.” That process, she tells us, was enlightening. “I discovered two things,” says the singer, whose startlingly honest alt-pop has made her one of 2021’s most exciting rising talents. “One: that I can’t smoke cigarettes then expect to be able to sing the falsetto notes in the chorus of ‘Raw Thoughts’ in a stripped-down acoustic version of the song. And two: that I should write sad songs, because I think it’s actually where my voice sounds best.” Covering O’Connor’s most famous moment also led Latham to think about her own songwriting. “I became quite obsessed with \[this\] at the time of my last breakup,” says the singer. “It is the most beautiful song, and it’s so simple. I think that’s something I struggle to find in my own songwriting—genius in simplicity.” Released just as the UK was looking ahead to a way out of lockdown, this intimate Apple Music Home Session is a taste of what we can expect when Baby Queen can perform onstage. Just don’t ask her how that will feel. “I have no idea! I signed my record deal in the first lockdown, so I’ve pretty much only been an artist in the era of COVID,” she admits. “The only two Baby Queen gigs I ever played were in front of my manager and three or four friends, so I think I’m going to be walking out into a slightly different experience. But I think that’s going to be my favorite part of this job: seeing the faces of people the music is reaching and the people who have made me feel like I’m not alone.”