Griff has today premiered the video for ‘Paradise’, taken from the hotly-tipped 18-year-old’s ‘The Mirror Talk EP’ (also available today on Warner Records). Griff plays her first ever headline show at Hoxton Hall on November 27th, with the five-track EP including her latest self-produced track – the incredible ‘Sound of Your Voice’ - plus acclaimed singles ‘Didn’t Break It Enough’ and ‘Mirror Talk’.
Griff is a one-woman production, songwriting and visual powerhouse, who - on the strength of ‘The Mirror Talk EP’ alone, not to mention her signature bubble ponytail – is already honing future-pop powers. On the one hand, Griff is your textbook girl next door: a straight-A student from just outside of Watford, who recently graduated from school. On the other, there is a touch of the young unicorn about Griff. After all, she says, “I’m running the show here. Am I even allowed to say that?”
‘The Mirror Talk EP’ reflects not only a wisdom beyond Griff’s years, but also an acute eye for the highs and lows of those teenage years. The title track, for instance, addresses her generation’s anxious relationship with self-perception, set against a spine tingling spider’s web of bedroom beats; ‘Didn’t Break It Enough’, too, sees Griff capture the semi-masochistic drama of young heartbreak. It’s this philosophical outlook – shining through on tracks like ‘Sound of Your Voice’ - that was in part shaped by Griff’s unusual upbringing, and the process of learning to love the ways you stand out. Born to Chinese and Jamaican parents, Griff was brought up alongside two brothers and the family's foster children (they have taken in maybe fifteen kids in total: “it teaches you something about selfless love,” Griff says). In and amongst this, she found quiet by borrowing her brother’s Logic, teaching herself how to make music, and writing songs in secret from her classmates: indeed the first time many of them knew Griff was making music occurred when Annie Mac gave ‘Mirror Talk’ its first spin.
Having completed her exams this summer, Griff’s fingerprints are all over ‘The Mirror Talk’ EP – quite literally. Hers is a multi-disciplined approach which extends to Griff not only producing the bulk of the songs herself, but making her own clothes - as exhibited on her striking artwork - shooting live visuals crammed into her home studio, or trying her hand in creative direction. It’s this fearlessness (coupled with the hopes of fears of any 18 year old) that make Griff truly special: a totally modern, hands-on pop star, ushering forth a generation who appear just as willing to take charge.
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