For a BRIT school educated singer who perfects an achingly cool blonde-hair-topknot-and-oversized-eyeliner-flick look so brilliantly we're jealous, Sasha Keable is refreshingly sweet.
If you haven’t heard her music yet, give her
(http://www.girleffect.org/) - an event organised to raise awareness for girls in poverty around the world, ahead of last Tuesday’s Girl Summit. But don’t mistake Keable as simply a musician booked to bring in the crowds; she’s fully clued up on the global issue of poverty, and wants us all to be too.
So just for anyone that maybe hasn’t heard your stuff before, how would you describe your sound?
It’s very much influenced by RnB and hip-hop - the last EP was heavily influenced by Duran Duran and Rose Royce so quite heavily 80’s influence. Soul music is my main kind of listening port - Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, all the most obvious people really, and then in terms of female soul RnB singers it’s Lauryn Hill, Brandi… all of them lot.
You worked with Disclosure on Voices – they approached you didn’t they?
Yeah, and that was really flattering. Watching them on tour, how they handle things and what they do, like what time they go to bed, you know – that’s the kind of stuff no one teaches you. There’s no school for that you just have to take it as you go. I’ve had countless conversations with Disclosure about the industry and how it works.
What the hell what it like going to the BRIT school?
I think a lot of people assume that it’s going to be jazz hands and people running around the corridors dancing and singing, and to an extent is it like that, but that mainly stays in the musical theatre strand. People are really academic there and focus on their studies; they aren’t there to high five each other.
So not like Glee then?
No, no at all!
So you’re half Columbian - have you ever lived there?
I’ve never lived there, but I’ve visited for months and months. You know it’s still a third world country and there’s still a lot of development that needs to happen in Columbia in terms of the government and its criminals, and the people as well. I appreciate that I have two different lives – well, not two different lives because I’ve never lived there, but I do have my family over there who I love and who I care about and coming back here I do just, I guess it is a bit of a culture shock. But when I do come back to the UK, I realise how lucky I am. I’m not living under corrugated iron roofs.
Why were you interested in getting involved in Girl Effect?
I think it’s just so important for girls everywhere to unite and make a massive change for those who don’t have the (same) opportunities. Just because I live in London doesn’t mean that I’m any more worthy of an education than someone from Ethiopia or India. A lot of girls in the UK don’t feel the same sort of oppression that girls in other countries experience, and I think it’s great that we can even do an event like this.
I guess it’s easy to get caught in your own bubble…
Yeah for sure. You know, people that are happy to be ignorant about these sort of situations and are just like, 'Oh this is too dark for me, I don’t want to get involved,' and pretend that it doesn’t happen. But it does happen everywhere. It’s just important that people are shocked - people try and beat around the bush about it but there are cold, hard facts that (poverty) is happening to girls around the world, all the time. And if everyone stands up and speaks, like with the Girl Summit, you know, it’s just important. I think it’s good that we can all get together and be girls. Girl power!
Girl power indeed! Can you tell us what feminism means to you?
Feminism just means equality to me. I hate it when people are like 'You’re a feminist, you want women to be higher than men', but it’s not. It’s about women being equal, and women having the same rights. Equality. That’s it.
Follow Helena on Twitter @HezzleHazzle
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.