If you’re up on your pop, you’ll be well aware of Alexa Goddard, the 25-year-old from Surrey who found her way onto Jay Z’s label Roc Nation .
Starting out on YouTube, Alexa’s now taking her unashamed bubblegum pop to the masses with her newest single So There. We caught up with her to find out what happened when she met Beyonce, the merits of burping and how to deal with trolls who offer to do your trolling for you.
The Debrief: Hello Alexa! How did you get from the sunny Surrey to being Jay-Z’s newest signing?
AG: About four years ago I decided to set up a YouTube channel and put videos of me singing other people’s songs, you know, singing covers. To begin with I was absolutely ecstatic even if I got 50 views on a video, then gradually the more and more videos I put up the more views I would get. After a couple of years of doing that I started to get interest from a couple of different record labels, of which one was Roc Nation, and I signed my record deal with them. I think I will be pinching myself for a really long time.
****DB: What’s the maddest thing that’s happened to you so far?
AG: Oh, it’s got to be meeting Beyonce.
******DB: **Shut. The. Front. Door.
AG: I did, I did! Oh, she’s amazing. I was lucky enough to go to Paris and watch the last show of their On The Run tour and then afterwards we got to go backstage and there was a little after-party with Jay Z and Beyonce. said to the lady from Roc Nation, ‘Oh, do you think you might be able to introduce me to Beyonce at some point?’ and she just grabbed my hand and said, ‘Hey Beyonce! This is Alexa’ I tried really hard to kind of keep composed and cool and calm, but as you can imagine it was a very big deal!
******DB: **That’s WILD. What did she say?
AG: Well first of all she put her hand out and shook my hand and gave me a kiss on the cheek. And then I just thought, ‘I’ve got to have a hug.’ So I said to her, ‘Do you think I could have a hug please?’ and she said, ‘Yes of course!’ and she gave me a big hug and then just said ‘Congratulations, it’s great that you’ve signed to Roc and I wish you all the best.’ And then, that was it for me: my life was made!
******DB: **Ah-ma-zing!
AG: But then about 20 minutes later she came over to me and she said, ‘Ooh, I really like your shoes.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God, it doesn’t get better than this.’ Like, it’s Beyonce complimenting your shoes. You know, that is… what more could you want? Seriously?
******DB: **Did you give them to her? You probably should have given them to her…
AG: I know! Honestly it crossed my mind. It actually crossed my mind.
******DB: **Judging from your new video So There though, you’ve got a million pairs of shoes. How many outfit changes do you go through in it?!
AG: Yeah, I know! I end up wearing so many outfits because I can’t choose and want to wear it all.
******DB: **Do you ever nick the stuff you’re given to wear on shoots?
AG: No, my stylist’s too on it. Like, he’d know straight away. He’d be like, ‘Uh, what’s that hanging out of your handbag?’
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******DB: **Your music is pretty much pure pop – are you bringing back Christina and Britney?
AG: It wasn’t planned that way in my mind. But it’s just what happened. Sometimes people are a little bit kind of wary of saying they make pop music. But pop music is incredible, everybody loves pop. I think the best thing for me. I don’t think of myself as ‘cool’ and I’m not ‘cool’. I just embrace the fact that I’m a bit like… The Spice Girls. I wanna be a Spice Girl!
******DB: **Which Spice Girl do you think you’d be?
AG: Oh, Baby Spice!
******DB: **Obviously! So are you terribly well behaved to match your image?
AG: I’m really not very ladylike. I think I try and make up for it with my girly style.
******DB: **Really?
AG: Like, I tend to burp a lot.
******DB: **Amazing.
AG: And I like going to the pub and I’ll always order a pint of beer and I always think, ‘Oh no I shouldn’t have done that I should have ordered a glass of wine or something,’ but, actually, why not?
******DB: **Sometimes you just want a beer…
AG: Yeah! When I go out with my girlfriends they all drink wine and they have like two drinks and it’s time to go home, I’m like, ‘What! I’m only on my third pint!’
******DB: **Starting out on YouTube means you’ve grown up online – do you ever have to deal with trolls?
AG: Yeah, I do. I think everybody does. In the beginning when I first started my YouTube channel I would read all the comments and most of them were really lovely but obviously you would get the odd one that wasn’t and I’d think, ‘Why? Why are they being mean?’ But I think, after a few years, your skin gets a bit thicker.
******DB: **So you can handle them today?
AG: What makes me absolutely laugh my head off is once I got a message from somebody on YouTube saying, ‘Hi, we are trolls and we’ve noticed that somebody has said a bad comment on one of your videos, do you want us to troll them?’
******DB: **No way!
AG: I thought this has got to be a joke. That’s when I realised people just kind of spend their days being mean.
******DB: **You’re right with that one.
AG: Since then I’ve realised that sometimes it’s just people saying things for the sake of it and trying to get a reaction. So yeah, now if I see anything that’s slightly negative I just kind of ignore it. Literally just ignore it and think about all the lovely comments that I get instead!
******DB: **A fine plan. Bye Alexa!
AG: Bye!
Alexa Goddard’s new single So There is released on 26 October and available for pre-order here.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.