“Just enjoy every moment – don’t stress. Just be yourself.”
― Mabel
“I feel so blessed that I grew up in the age of the independent woman, the survivor. I had Destiny’s Child telling me I didn’t need a man to feel good about myself, and I want to carry on that message.”
― Mabel
“I found being a teenager quite difficult, actually. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and now, looking back at it, I really wish that I had relaxed and just enjoyed it more.”
― Mabel
“Harry Styles threw a cream pie at my face in front of 15,000 people to thank me for the months we spent on the road.”
― Mabel
“What gives you real power is when you know your power. And I feel quite powerful.”
― Mabel
“Being mainstream is fun.”
― Mabel
“I’m such a control freak that camping, for me, is difficult. I can’t be this crazy, carefree person that wears the same outfit for four days.”
― Mabel
“I want to make people dance, I want to make people smile, and I want my music to get played in clubs.”
― Mabel
“Being a solo artist in general can be incredibly lonely. It’s funny how often the bigger you get sometimes, the lonelier you feel.”
― Mabel
“The important thing is that my music is getting a positive reaction and that people are connecting with it.”
― Mabel
“Kehlani is so refreshing in terms of R&B.”
― Mabel
“I had a difficult childhood. I had lots of anxiety and questions. I found the world scary and intimidating.”
― Mabel
“Having a Top 10 record changed my life a lot, you know?”
― Mabel
“I work hard, and I’m very separate from what my parents do.”
― Mabel
“There’s so many inspiring women dominating the charts, so I feel like I’m definitely a part of a wave that’s just really interesting and really cool.”
― Mabel
“I think growing up, people want to put you in a box and label you quite often, just because it’s kind of easier, I guess.”
― Mabel
“Coming from an R&B background, I was like, ‘I’m gonna make slow jams.’”
― Mabel
“I wish I could teleport and cut out the travelling in between gigs. I want the luxury of the shows without the painful bits stuck on a tour bus.”
― Mabel
“In the bathroom, having taken my make-up off and opened my eyes, I always think there’s a ghost behind me. It feels like there’s a weird presence. Maybe it’s my brain reacting to me without make-up.”
― Mabel
“Swedes celebrate Christmas Eve. Every Sunday leading up to Christmas, we light a candle, then make gingerbread and saffron buns.”
― Mabel
“I was a sensitive kid.”
― Mabel
“I think there’s something amazing about British soul.”
― Mabel
“I want to be known for my music, and that takes time.”
― Mabel
“I really wanted to find my own path.”
― Mabel
“My first-ever radio interview was with Annie Mac on Radio 1!”
― Mabel
“All the buzz can be very much here today and gone tomorrow, but my focus is creating music that will last forever.”
― Mabel
“I grew up listening to loads of afrobeats; my grandad’s Sierra Leonean, so that was always around. My mum loves those kind of beats, too.”
― Mabel
“Youssou N’Dour was really important to me growing up.”
― Mabel
“I’ve been working a lot with this girl Kelly Kiara. She’s amazing. She’s going to be super important for R&B coming out of the U.K.”
― Mabel
“I am very much my own person and my own artist.”
― Mabel
“I think people look back at the ’90s as a golden era of female empowerment.”
― Mabel
“I like to spend time alone before I go on stage.”
― Mabel
“I have a lot of energy in general, and I am pretty crazy.”
― Mabel
“I’m not going to lie: I’d love to win a Grammy.”
― Mabel
“I definitely idolised Beyonce growing up.”
― Mabel
“I’m not embarrassed to say I want to be successful, but only on my terms.”
― Mabel
“I must have been five or six when I realised all the stuff I was writing made sense with what I was playing on the piano.”
― Mabel
“You have to be so careful with your voice, especially when you’re using it every day.”
― Mabel
“It was such a wake-up call going to music school and being one among so many that are really good at singing.”
― Mabel
“I want to be an artist that grows slowly. If you appear overnight, there’s a chance that you will also just disappear overnight.”
― Mabel
“I don’t want to be all over the place with my style and my music, but I am experimenting.”
― Mabel
“I just want to make music that makes people feel good about themselves.”
― Mabel
“I lived wherever my parents felt like making music, which had its ups and downs – I’ve had to move schools, but I’ve also seen a lot of amazing places and been on tour with my parents.”
― Mabel
“My mum is one of my style icons!”
― Mabel
“I’m the biggest Drake fan – my favorite is ‘Tuscan Leather’ because it’s like three songs in one, and for somebody that’s obsessed with keys, the outro has the best keys ever.”
― Mabel
“I moved from Stockholm to London, and I didn’t want to work with my parents or have them help me in any way, I think just to prove to myself that I have my own talent.”
― Mabel
“I put a song on Soundcloud, and Annie Mac made it record of the week, and a month later, I signed my record deal.”
― Mabel
“I’m pretty much writing all the time.”
― Mabel
“Producing isn’t my favourite bit about what I do, but the fact that I know how to do it gives me this sense of power in situations that are super male-dominated.”
― Mabel
“I think I took after my parents. Using music as one of my main ways of expression just felt natural.”
― Mabel
“Destiny’s Child’s harmonies remind me of Earth, Wind & Fire.”
― Mabel
“I remember trying so hard to get into Bon Iver. I’d lie in bed listening with my eyes screwed up, like, ‘This is just depressing me.’”
― Mabel
“Being a creative person, I want to feel the highs and the lows.”
― Mabel
“’Finders Keepers’ is guaranteed to create a vibe. If I’m having a difficult show, then I know I’ve got that song at the end to turn it around, and the phones will come out.”
― Mabel
“I went to Glastonbury when I was 14, and that was really fun.”
― Mabel
“I’ve been in two long-term relationships and – this sounds awful – they were really helpful for writing heartbreak. It makes good songs.”
― Mabel
“All my songs are things that have happened to me.”
― Mabel
“I’ve been making music since age five.”
― Mabel
“I wouldn’t be who I am if my parents hadn’t been musicians.”
― Mabel
“It sounds really cheesy, but as a woman, I feel like I sort of found myself.”
― Mabel
“I think knowing where you came from and where you want to go is really important.”
― Mabel
“I grew up in a house full of musicians, and my mum really taught me that when you listen to an album, you respect that it’s somebody’s art, and that the B-sides are just as important as the singles, and we should really listen to the album all the way through the way it was intended to be listened to.”
― Mabel
“I want people to really care when I release an album.”
― Mabel
“I feel incredibly lucky to have grown up with creative parents and around creative people, many of whom live with anxiety. My mum would sometimes say that it was a beautiful thing, and that it would come in handy when making music – and it’s made me a more empathetic person.”
― Mabel
“Yes, sharing super-personal experiences is scary, but I can only get up on stage and perform it if I really connect with the music.”
― Mabel
“Growing up, I was confused about my identity: I felt like I wasn’t black enough to be black, but not white enough to be white.”
― Mabel
“Gigs are my favourite thing – even the not so good ones, because you always learn something.”
― Mabel
“There’s so many R&B songs where guys are talking about a clingy girl, like, ‘I don’t want a girlfriend, and this girl’s so clingy, and blah blah blah.’ But I’m a woman, and I’ve been in situations that have been the reverse of that, so I wanted to tell that story.”
― Mabel
“I’m really good at the ’90s slow jams. I’ve got that down. But I love to dance, so why wouldn’t I make something I could dance to?”
― Mabel
“That’s why I love music – because I’m such a control freak, and it’s the only thing that I can’t really control.”
― Mabel
“I have, like, ‘Finders Keepers’ fever now! Sometimes I go in the studio, and I’m like, ‘That worked so well, and I wrote it in 45 minutes, so if I try wearing the same outfit and playing on the same piano, it’ll happen again.’”
― Mabel
“I can’t believe that I’m MTV’s Brand New for 2018. Big love to MTV for even giving me this opportunity and to all the fans for voting.”
― Mabel
“I think the best thing that I can do is be myself. I don’t know about being a role model; I think placing that sort of title on myself is too much. It’s trying to be this thing that puts loads of pressure on something.”
― Mabel
“I think there is a misconception that being open and honest and saying what it is you want is something we should be embarrassed about. But that’s just not me. I am a very honest person. I always tell somebody what I am looking for, and I don’t want people to waste my time, basically.”
― Mabel
“When I was younger, I would listen to Lauryn Hill, Destiny’s Child, Justin Timberlake, Aaliyah: lots of ’90s R&B.”
― Mabel
“I’m just trying to be myself and encourage other young women to be themselves.”
― Mabel
“A couple of days out of the month, I talk to my stylist, and we just get a big chunk of looks that’ll last me a while.”
― Mabel
“When it’s my show, I know that everybody is there to see me – but I like a challenge, and I like the fact that at festivals not everybody is there to see me, but I have the chance to convert people.”
― Mabel
“Relationships with cities are similar to relationships with people: being away from both can really make you appreciate what you have.”
― Mabel
“I am very much married to the job.”
― Mabel
“I don’t actually get that many DMs. I tell myself that it’s because guys might be intimidated, but I’m not that sure.”
― Mabel
“I’m independent; I live by myself.”
― Mabel
“I know I love going to my gym – I have a whole list of things I love to do by myself without needing someone else to make me happy.”
― Mabel
“Whenever I have a bad day, I tell everybody around me, ‘Just so guys know I am having a bad day and I am nervous about these things,’ and that makes all the difference.”
― Mabel
“Young women look at me and think, ‘She’s really confident. She has always had it figured out,’ but actually, I really, really haven’t. That has come over time as I became a young woman.”
― Mabel
“You have to work hard as a woman for people to take you seriously.”
― Mabel
“I’ve always been sure of my vision, but I’ve been in meetings where men have been talking about me like I’m not there… I’ve been told I should be a certain way, and I wondered if that would have been the case if I was a man.”
― Mabel
“Music became my way of processing things and a way to gain confidence.”
― Mabel
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