Laura Mvula doesn’t think she’s a good pop star.
The 27-year-old singer-songwriter narrowly missed out on winning a Mercury prize last year after James Blake claimed the honour and she’s now in the running to receive a best British Breakthrough Act prize at the upcoming BRIT Awards, but she admits she’s not very confident when it comes to her talent.
She told the Independent on Sunday’s The New Review: "I’m still very shy, and very private. Being a pop star is something I don’t think I’m very good at. I’m worried it’s making me too paranoid, because all of a sudden, life has become this constant assessment.
"When you put something out there and people get to hear it, then those people react to it, socially, culturally."
The ‘Green Garden’ hitmaker – who only eighteen months ago was still working as a receptionist at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – has also found it hard to adjust to her fame and doesn’t like being the focus of people’s attention.
She explained: "Nowadays, whenever I sit down with someone, or I see someone I haven’t seen for a long time, or even if I’m in the toilet in a restaurant, people want to stop and talk about me.
"They tell me either that they love my stuff, or quite possibly – and this has happened, at least once – that they don’t. They want to know about my hairstyle, or what I’m wearing, who I’m wearing."
Laura Mvula not a good pop star
