Breakthrough Award – Bree Runway – She's that girl
Rolling Stone UK|December 2022/January 2023
This was Bree Runway's year. She collaborated with Stormzy, added more A-listers to her growing fan base and is now regularly recognised in the streets of London, her hometown. Rolling Stone UK met Bree for her most intimate interview yet
By Kemi Alemoru. Photography by Stoney
Breakthrough Award – Bree Runway – She's that girl

There are few things more integral to the adolescent daydream of being a pop star than conceptualising a music video where you look hot while an electric fan blows through your hair. On the set of her new single 'That Girl', Bree Runway's legs are straddling a powerful white motorcycle, her ombre wig flying back from her angular and contemplative face as she basks in the breeze. It's still too tame for her. "Fuck me up. I want to feel like I'm riding through the West End," she calls to a nearby assistant. She then asks for her body - which is nearly bare save for a custom two-piece outfit fashioned from a small number of black belts - to be oiled up. The camera starts rolling and she goes full throttle, rapping: "If you bad and you know it, better show out, girl" to the camera. She punctuates each word of the bar by gyrating up and down on the seat: "It's. Just. Like. Whatever."

Bree Runway - real name Brenda Mensah - makes it look easy. Her kaleidoscopic vision is due in part to the fact that she is a child of the music channel generation. "Flicking from MTV all the way to the white rock channels like Kerrang! showed me what you're supposed to give. Looks need to be served. Nothing I saw was boring. Since I was a kid, I knew that if you are in this position to be a pop star you needed to wow," she explains.

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