Allow me to set a familiar scene. You wake up with alcohol on your breath, burger sauce in your hair and a sinking feeling of shame lurking in the pit of your stomach. You reach for your phone, see that you have three missed calls, seven Snapchats and a number of ‘Your Mate Just Tagged A Photo Of You’ notifications from Facebook. You think better of opening any of those messages and sink back into your hangover in the hope that it will all go away.
Lol, but also, those pictures won’t go away, mate. Not really. It’s one thing your mates having to scrape you up from the beer-soaked dancefloor, it’s another thing seeing photographic evidence of it for yourself the next day and having the image of your sweaty little rave face etched into your mind forever.
It’s happened to the best of us. And when I say best, I mean the actual best. ‘I used to Snapchat my night and I’d wake up and I’d watch it like “this is so embrassing!”, shouting off my mouth, this and that’, Lady Leshurr tells The Debrief. ‘I guess you have to go through it sometimes to be aware of you in that light’, she says.
We’re not about that life any more, though. At least, we’re trying not to be. As the face of a new Captain Morgan campaign, freestyle icon, YouTube queen, and all round slayer of the United Kingdom of grime music Lady Leshurr, is all about the responsible side of drinking. You know, the side that we often pretend not to care about but are always low-key conscious of. ‘Everyone’s gone through it,’ she says ‘like, you wake up and you don’t know what you’ve done last night, you don’t want to get to that point you always want to create memories.’
Ah, memories. Remember those? With a new song and music video Lady Leshurr joined forces with Swifta Beater to remind us that our nights out don’t have to end regrets over texting the ex you're totally (not) over.
WATCH: Lady Leshurr In 'Live Like A Captain'
It’s fair to say that we’ve all noticed a shift in the booze agenda within our own ‘health-kick one minute, bottomless prosecco the next’, generation over recent years. And while Instagram-consciousness and so-called superfood stress has definitely played a role, some of the shift in the way we drink has more to do with that boring thing of growing up (a bit) and just having different priorities.
‘I think when you’re in your late twenties as well, you start to realise’, Lady Leshurr says. ‘You’re more quiet at first, then you probably go to bars more than going out and going a bit too wild. I think I’ve lived my days of those times and now it’s more like sharing a moment with the people you love and just having a good night out and remembering it, and being able to message your friends the next day like “yeah, last night was so sick”’
Beyond #LivingLikeACaptain, though, Lady Leshurr has been busy doing what she does best; dropping new freestyles on YouTube and upping her game in the process. It hasn't gone unnoticed. Most recently Leshurr released Black Panther and, to put it bluntly, we all lost our shit. In two weeks it's closing in on almost a million views and has been praised by fellow music heavyweights like Stormzy, Dave and the one and only Missy Elliot, whose track she used for the freestyle.
'The Missy thing was just like, it was a breath of fresh air to me. Like I’m gassed', she said. 'She is someone that inspired me as far as just being herself, having fun, doing crazy visuals, not caring about what people think of you. There’s one video where she was dressed in like a bin bag kind of thing and she had a bald head. And no one really was like "haha she’s doing this" 'cause she’s confident in what she done.'
Leshurr added: 'But just to be on her song, something she done in 1999, and you know, to get that approval is everything for me.'
As an artist, your approach to style, the way you look and how you flaunt it is received completely different for men and women. It's something that Leshurr says she feels, and is conscious of maintaining her own authenticity in a male-dominated industry. 'I feel like especially as a female I feel like we have to do ten times more just to be noticed, just to get a little shoutout or something like that. But for me, because I used to act so…for me I always see music like a set, like a stage. I must perform, I must entertain and show my showmanship.'
'It is a lot of pressure, it is. And I think in generally for females it is a lot of pressure, I think in a male-dominated scene. But I’m also happy that I bring like a different kind of approach to music in general'. That different approach is infectious. It's funny and, dare I say it, relatable.
Leshurr explained that she's not been one to attract attention through sex appeal. It's never been her thing. 'Yeah, it just wouldn’t be natural to me', she explained. 'The main queen in my life at the time was my mum and so she brought me up. She never used to show her body off and she used to work three jobs and try and look after four kids, just the way she moved as a woman is the reason why I moved how I moved.'
'The most I’ll wear is like a crop top but like I say I don’t really like doing shorts and breasts out, it’s just not me. It doesn’t go with my brand. That’s not to say I’ll never do it, cos you never know what you’re gonna be like in five, ten years. But at the same time, for me it’s just not a thing I’ve ever wanted to do. And I wanted to be that person actually that can prove that you don’t have to do it that way. If you’ve got the limits, you’ve got the talent, you’ve got the star quality, then you can make it regardless of skin colour or what you’re wearing.'
Follow Jazmin on Instagram @JazKopotsha
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.