It’s Friday afternoon in Hollywood, and Leigh-Anne — as she’s known — is squeezing in studio time before catching a flight back to London. Asked about her mood, she’s refreshingly candid.
“Actually not the best, if I’m being completely honest,” she says with a nervous laugh. “I’ve heard some bad news. Yeah, but I don’t know, you either use it — and I guess it’s the perfect time to be in studio because you can just pour your heart out — or you kind of ignore it and push it down. And ya know, I feel like it’s probably the best time to be in this creative space for sure.”
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The English singer and songwriter, born Leigh-Anne Pinnock, rose to fame as a member of Little Mix, the girl group formed on Britain’s “The X Factor” — the first group and only girl band to win the series. They became an international success with a number of hits and billions of streams, but in 2020 one of its four members left the group. And two years later the remaining three took a break.
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For Leigh-Anne, it’s given her space to explore as she embarks on a solo project and discovers her sound. A standout in Little Mix, a strong vocalist and gifted dancer, her fans are following along — 10 million of them on Instagram alone.
“It’s been such an amazing week,” she says of her time in the U.S., signed to Warner Records and TaP Music management. “Because I’ve been obviously promoting things and been here and there, everywhere. But just to be back in the studio, I love to create. I just love to — I don’t know, that feeling of creating something special and knowing where it could go. And yeah, I feel like I needed it.”
She’s been in New York City and Las Vegas, too, where she attended Warner Chappell Music’s songwriting camp — which pairs up global music artists with producers of all genres.
“No one should go to Vegas for more than two days,” she chuckles. “Nah, it was fun.”
While in the States, she’s had time with record producer Danja, and Khris Riddick-Tynes, one of the names behind her latest single “My Love.” The song and its video, directed by London-born Nigerian filmmaker Meji Alabi, pays homage to Nigerian culture, featuring Nigerian singer Ayra Starr; its thumping beat and choreography is pure Afrobeat, with elements of R&B and pop. It follows Leigh-Anne’s debut, “Don’t Say Love,” a U.K. garage and dance-pop sound. She’s clearly had love on the brain.
“Oh my god, I know,” she smiles. “It’s confusing, isn’t it? I’m sorry,” she goes on, of the similarities in titles. “Love is, love is crazy.”
She’s sitting across a table, her fingers intertwined. Petite, she’s wearing a cut-out cropped knit by Manière De Voir with baggy One Teaspoon jeans and sneakers. It’s hard to image she’s a mom of twins. The newly 32-year-old became a parent in 2021 with professional English soccer player Andre Gray, who she married in June. Yes, love is very much on the brain. She’s looking forward to seeing her family after time away.
“My children, I can’t wait,” she says of returning home. “I feel like it was such a productive trip. And I feel really good. Creatively, I feel like we’ve done amazing.”
No date set for her debut album just yet; she’s taking it day by day — with a vision in mind — and today, she’s in the studio with English producer Harmony Samuels, who’s worked with Ariana Grande, and songwriter Varren Wade.
“We actually knew each other years ago, even before I got into the ‘X Factor’ and got into Little Mix,” Leigh-Anne says of Wade. “And before he had his big hits with Ella Mai. So, to work together now, to come full circle, it’s incredible. And Harmony, he’s such a hitmaker. Yeah, that’s our little room.”
Love, through song, has also been her vehicle for rebirth. In the last seconds of the music video for “Don’t Say Love,” released in June, she’s seen diving deeper and deeper under water, singing, “I just need something that’s real.” In “My Love,” out last month, she emerges taking a breath.
“It was the message, for me, that it was portraying,” she says of making “Don’t Say Love” her first single. “I got to tell people a little bit of my story. Like, at times, sometimes feeling very overlooked and unseen in a situation due to my race and color of my skin.”
Leigh-Anne — born to Black mixed-race parents with Caribbean roots in Buckinghamshire — has been outspoken about racial issues and an advocate for racial equality, opening up in her documentary “Leigh-Anne: Race, Pop & Power,” discussing colorism she experienced in her life and in the music industry, as well as in her memoir, “Believe,” out Oct. 26, written in collaboration with author Natalie Morris. Stepping away from Little Mix, Leigh-Anne has the freedom to reveal herself.
“What better way to express this than my first single, you know?” she continues. “And through a creative way. I almost wanted to, like, get it out and then put it to bed. Because it’s kind of exhausting talking about race. And I just think, for me, it was just something really important and heavy that I wanted to get off my chest. And show it in a song. That’s why it made sense to come first for me.”
Pausing, she adds, “And I wanted to show it in the videos, at the end of ‘Don’t Say Love,’ when I dive into the water, that cleanse and that rebirth. And then rising from the water in ‘My Love,’ it’s like, Bam, she’s here. She’s arrived.”