Getting Twiggy With It

With an ethereal voice, edgy style and a tough-but-sweet image that just won’t quit, FKA Twigs finds her niche in these dichotomies.

- Katie Glass

Everyone calls her Twigs, although she was born Tahliah Debrett Barnett. She earned the nickname because of the crack her joints make when she warms up. She added the letters FKA after complaints from another artist over the name Twigs. And Twigs is an artist whose work deals in vulnerability. As she reveals, “I don’t trade in money, I don’t trade in fame, I trade in feelings.” A performance-art polymath, she is a dancer who writes her own lyrics, co-produces her music and co-directs her videos. In 2014 her critically acclaimed first album, ’LP1’, was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize. In 2015 she was nominated for British female solo artist and British breakthrough act at the Brit Awards. She then released a new EP, titled MELL1SSX. She is comparable to a young Kate Bush, early Björk or Lady Gaga (before she became predictable). Like them, part of what makes her so captivating is her ability to be at once powerful and fragile. On stage, her lithe dancer’s body transforms into a commanding presence; her music pairs full orchestral sounds with jarring, searingly honest “completely autobiographical” lyrics. Her music videos are artistic and fearless. Her art is open, especially in the way she explores sexual power dynamics, often in her own relationships.

Here, journalist Katie Glass traces the journey of this star from where she started, the insecurities of not growing up as a blonde-haired-blue-eyed teen, her meteoric rise to fame, and how she maintains full creative freedom (and rightly so). And the way she depicts women’s sensuality and sexuality in her body of work? Everything that we need in 2018.

THE OVERNIGHT SENSATION?