Shygirl Talks New EP and Her Rihanna Connection

Some artists’ onstage personas are heightened, uninhibited versions of themselves. But Shygirl, the Rihanna-approved vocalist from south London, puts her introversion front and center, espousing a neo-emo attitude on her new EP Cruel Practice, out today on Nuxxe Records. And while her laconic delivery and hammering beats are sure to appeal to today’s club kids, Shygirl, whose real name is Blane Muise, didn’t necessarily have the audience in mind while creating the record. “I was mostly too wrapped up in myself to think about how anyone else felt and that’s kind of the vibe that comes across I think,” she says. “I'd hope anyone that felt anything from this was just selfishly in their feelings.”

As the newly anointed patron saint of being in one’s feelings, Shygirl zeroes in on the everyday micro-horrors experienced in today’s culture. “You sound kind of rude… It’s how you move your mouth ” she deadpans on the track “Rude” over a relentless beat and diabolical synths. The EP’s gore-tinged title, Cruel Practice, was inspired by the kind of desensitized violence that life online facilitates. “I was reading an article about illegal dogfights somewhere online and it was a phrase someone used to describe them,” explains Shygirl. “I still had two tracks to finish on the EP at the time, but it felt right and gave me the push I needed to finish.”

While her goth-inflected worldview may draw on a loner sensibility, Shygirl is in fact a part of a larger musical collective. Her label, Nuxxe, is also a London-based collective comprised of Shygirl, Coucou Chloe, Oklou and Sega Bodega. And Shygirl also has friends in high places; in 2017, Rihanna included her in the soundtrack to her 2017 Fenty X Puma runway—although exactly who sent the song to Rih remains a mystery. “I would love to know,” Shygirl says. “Someone with good taste, surely.“

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