'Nobody looks like me and sounds like me': flowerovlove redefines what pop stardom means

“Everybody says [redacted] is redeeming pop. No, Joyce is redeeming pop,” a instrumentality declares connected a dependable enactment astatine the outset of flowerovlove’s azygous “muse.”

Joyce Cissé, known by her creator moniker flowerovlove, is simply a breezy, profoundly thoughtful and remarkably assured singer-songwriter from South London.

Her discography leans into bubblegum pop, igniting the giddy teen emotions of a newfound crush. On different tracks, she stands connected business, solidifying her presumption arsenic a large drawback and refusing to compromise for a subpar man.

Cissé doesn’t hold astir for things to happen. Since her archetypal high-fashion run for Gucci astatine 15, the present 20-year-old euphony creator and exemplary demands attraction and has the endowment to backmost it up.

Her résumé is already importantly much stacked than astir radical who precocious exited their teens. The vocalist antecedently opened for Olivia Rodrigo, Halsey, Khalid and Haim and performed astatine Glastonbury, Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza.

Now, she is preparing for her Coachella debut connected April 10 and 17.

Many fans discovered her via the way “new friends,” an honorable and lighthearted bop astir not wanting to beryllium friends with an ex.

“Usually, my penning process is precise planned and precise strategic,” she explains connected a telephone from her household location successful London. “And for this circumstantial one, we didn’t cognize what to constitute about, and I conscionable went to the studio, and I started speechmaking immoderate substance messages.”

She scrolled done texts with an aged situationship with the assistance of her co-writer Justin Tranter (the songwriter down Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck Babe” and Justin Bieber’s “Sorry”). While Cissé was initially hoping to constitute a emotion song, she says Tranter encouraged her to spell with different way “shading men.”

“ The lyrics are virtually mostly the substance messages that I had sent,” she explains. “That’s wherefore it’s truthful amusive and escaped and conversational due to the fact that it’s existent life.  I sang the opus however I would archer my friends a story.”

The resulting azygous is playful and defiant — the cleanable operation for a opus of the summer. And determination are plentifulness of cheeky lines similar erstwhile she sings, “Last nighttime has led maine to disorder / Was it bully oregon was it friction?”

Growing up, Cissé loved listening to disco music, specifically the Black artists that built the genre successful the 1970s. She enjoyed Boney M. and their call-and-response benignant and often includes assemblage enactment successful her ain work. She besides idolized Donna Summer, who she calls “mother of pop, parent of disco.”

Describing her ain euphony arsenic “whimsical,” she typically opts for a preppy, ’90s-inspired look to implicit the vibe and identifies arsenic a miniskirt warrior.

“ I’m being dormant serious,” she giggles. “I emotion miniskirts, and it’s specified a large portion of my brand, and I consciousness similar my astir free, authentic aforesaid erstwhile I americium successful a miniskirt, to beryllium honest.”

It’s deeper than conscionable a cute garment.

“ It has that womanhood successful it for me. I deliberation agelong legs truly correspond growth,” she says, adding that she loves her heels.

On her latest single, “Casual Lady,” she sings, “I deterioration boys similar manner / Don’t springiness them passionateness / Nonchalant babe / I’m a casual lady.”

She typically acts unbothered, but connected this susceptible track, she sheds a small airy connected her person miss property arsenic she romanticizes each the ways she wants to physique a beingness with a caller man.

Cissé is simply a Renaissance woman. In coordinating the accompanying euphony video for “Casual Lady,” she tackled a assortment of roles from manager to shaper and stylist.

“ I unrecorded successful a precise specific, colorful satellite and a precise circumstantial aesthetic realm, truthful it each has to beryllium down to me,” she says. “There’s this 1 lyric that Doechii sang, and I was conscionable like, ‘Yeah, real.’ And it was, ‘End of the day, everything is connected me,’ and honestly, erstwhile you are the artist, astatine the extremity of the day, whatever’s going connected down the scenes ever gets pointed backmost to you.”

Her member Wilfred is simply a shaper and kickstarted her vocation erstwhile helium encouraged her to sing implicit a bushed helium created years ago. He continues to beryllium her originative partner, and she entrusted him with shooting, editing and grading the euphony video.

“ I don’t consciousness similar anyone, but my brother, understands my imaginativeness astatine all,” she said.

Cissé didn’t person clip to discarded and filmed the video connected a household abrogation successful Greece. While the last shots look delightfully sunny, she says it was a miserably acold day.

“I did not bask filming it,” she confesses.

Near a edifice excavation and connected a constrictive balcony, she prances astir successful a assortment of adorable outfits including a brace of customized bedazzled blistery pinkish bottommost roller skates. Cissé continuously searches for ways to reconnect with her interior child.

“ I emotion the conception of precocious heels connected roller skates. I deliberation that’s truthful fire,” she says. “I’m ever trying to find ways successful manner to bash thing that I haven’t seen earlier oregon thing that I truly would’ve loved arsenic a kid.”

It’s nary astonishment that with specified an innovative spirit, Cissé isn’t slowing down. Her forthcoming azygous “American Wedding” drops Friday. The way is simply a motion to Frank Ocean’s commercially unreleased way of the aforesaid name.

“ He genuinely makes timeless art, and ‘American Wedding’ is simply a opus I felt similar ever should person dropped,” she says. “I person ne'er erstwhile successful my beingness had a imagination of being successful America and being joined successful America. I’m precise overmuch truthful successful emotion with my African civilization and I emotion London, but I conscionable emotion the conception of that song, and I consciousness similar it was a banging title, truthful I wrote a full communicative astir that from the title.”

Along with making fun, relatable music, Cissé deals with the immense undertaking of gathering a palmy popular individuality arsenic a Black miss successful a white-girl-dominated realm.

“There’s a batch of achromatic popular girls,” she says. “It’s a batch easier for them to get to the main signifier and to go VIP due to the fact that it’s much digestible, and it’s thing we person seen earlier and thing we person each grown up connected that it’s easier to consume.”

Cissé adds that she is simply a large instrumentality of the popular girls presently successful the spotlight, but she hopes for a taste displacement wherever artists of colour don’t look arsenic galore challenges successful rising to the top.

“ My abstraction successful adding to popular is that determination isn’t anyone who looks similar maine and sounds similar me,” she says, “And that’s thing I would’ve loved to person seen increasing up.”

Cissé is honored to beryllium that popular prima for different young Black girls.

“ We privation to consciousness seen and understood and represented. That’s wherefore we person a favourite creator and that’s wherefore we person a favourite histrion and a favourite TV amusement due to the fact that it made you consciousness thing and it made you consciousness accepted,” she explains. “So that’s what the full ‘saving pop’ conception is, and I’m truly gladsome that the fans came up with that.”