GENERAL USE CREDIT NICOLE NGAI 2

BABY QUEEN

  • Concorde 2, Brighton

Baby Queen has seen some shit. Since she moved to London from South Africa aged 18, the musician (real name Bella Latham) has lived in boats on Regents Canal, gotten messy at raucous house parties, and spent a lot of time looking out into the city with a sense of sharp-edged cynicism.

For much of her teenage years and early twenties, she used all of this to write alternative pop songs that transformed her into her genre’s reigning star; a fiery totem for a generation falling out of love with social media, the pressures of adhering to an “ideal” body image, and adult responsibilities. But now, Baby Queen finds herself growing up too, learning how to grapple with the realities of leaving angst and adolescence behind. She’s not quite ready to fully let go, though: “I want to be a reprobate again,” she says.