100% Miraa May: the Tot­ten­ham singer with zero fucks to give

Ever feel your­self need­ing a reminder that you are, in fact, a bad bitch? If so, lis­ten to Miraa May. She’s a fierce­ly proud Mus­lim Alger­ian immi­grant, out­spo­ken with a thick North Lon­don twang, and uses her sharp-wit­ted tongue to com­ment on every­thing from Ins­ta-obses­sives and fuck boys, to those who chat pure shite. We all know a few of those peo­ple, don’t we?

Hav­ing already released three projects with the last being a col­lec­tion of heart­felt tunes explor­ing gam­ing, ani­me and her love of cook­ing, her new EP Dark is a com­par­a­tive­ly angri­er fol­low-up. Adopt­ing a notice­ably more defi­ant atti­tude, May chan­nels her stand-off­ish ener­gy (​“Yeah I got a pussy but I ain’t no pussy / try­na be a lady but you keep try­na push”) into six genre-blend­ing tracks, merg­ing pop, R&B and garage. Recent sin­gle Angles, fea­tur­ing BBK leg­end JME and a play­ful video star­ring Grime Gran, is includ­ed as a bonus track.

Below, we give May the 100% treat­ment to find out what she loves, loathes and what musi­cians can do to save the world…

10%: Where were you born, where were you raised and where are you now based?

I was born in North Africa and I was raised in North Lon­don and now I reside by the river. 

20%: At what point did you realise you’d be able to do what you love for a living?

Prob­a­bly a cou­ple of months ago. I got signed this time last year but it took me a cou­ple of months to get into it. When I was in LA, I clocked that I could be doing this pret­ty much for a life­time, ​‘cos all I’m doing is going to ses­sions and writ­ing songs which I’m real­ly good at and I enjoy. 

30%: What’s a piece of advice that changed your life?

There’s not one piece of advice that’s changed my life. It’s hav­ing a sup­port sys­tem that’s changed my life – that’s my piece of advice. 

40%: What kind of emo­tions and expe­ri­ences influ­ence your work?

All of them. 

50%: What can you tell us about your album, which is out today?

I try to make my EPs very self-explana­to­ry. The EP is called Dark and it’s a pret­ty dark EP.

60%: Break down your typ­i­cal day at work…

I can’t. Every day is dif­fer­ent. I don’t have a sched­ule. I just wake up, my man­ag­er phones me and tells me where I have to go and what I have to do. 

70%: What can artists do to help save the world?

Use paper straws. 

80%: You rule the world for a day, What went down?

I would gath­er up all the flip­pin’ evil, racist, preda­to­ry peo­ple in the world and just lock them up some­where far away. I would also leave a plan to rebuild and reha­bil­i­tate the planet. 

90%: Love, Like, Hate?

Love cook­ing, like choco­late, hate Trump.

100%: No.1 hol­i­day destination.

Bali.