Words / Jalen Giovanni Jones
Photos / blacksocks
It started with a crush. Early last year she’d been working on a small music video when, upon meeting this really hot guy, she’d fallen hard, fallen fast. Malaysia-born, London-based breakout popstar Chloe Qisha confesses this to us as she struts across the stage of El Cid—an intimate venue in Los Angeles for her sold-out preview of her new mixtape, Fantasize. The only issue with this crush: he couldn’t possibly love Chloe back. Why? He likes boys.
Thus came the lovelorn clash of fantasies that spelled out her single “He Likes Boys,” and the first spark that inspired the rest of the mixtape. Honest, frank, and funny, Chloe Qisha crafts her songs with equal parts sarcasm and sexuality. Listening to Fantasize, you’ll sweat. You’ll giggle. You’ll smirk. It’s Chloe Qisha, winking at you from across the room.
Following her performance, the singer-songwriter sat down for an exclusive interview to discuss how she found her signature witty writing style, her Troye Sivan-influenced world-building, why some fans might describe her songs as “muscular,” and the “horrific” TikTok video that ended up making her music career possible.
A signature aspect of your songwriting is its cross between humor, wit, and unabashed sexuality. I wanted to know if that was a style you grew into over time, or was it more instinctual for you?
100% grown into. What people don’t know is that, while I’ve been doing music full time for about two years, in reality I’ve been developing my craft, writing with producers and songwriters for five years prior to that. In my early 20s I was doing the rounds of pop sessions in London, basically just trying to figure out how to write, what kind of writer I wanted to be, and what kind of songs I wanted to create as an artist. Initially I didn’t know what my identity was as an artist, so, I wrote every type of song under the sun — Julia Michaels-style songs, Troye Sivan-style songs. I definitely had a moment where I thought I wanted to be like Phoebe Bridgers. I tried every hat. And then I found the right collaborator in Rob, who wrote my first two EPs with me.
At that point in our lives when Rob and I met, we were both quite sarcastic and witty. He naturally brought that out of me. From then onwards, I really made it a point that in every song, even the sad ones, I want there to be a twist. A bit of humor.
You mentioned Troye Sivan—I actually see strong parallels between your work and his, especially with both of you having such overt sexuality as part of your worldmaking.
His album [Something to Give Each Other] was such an eye-opening project for me. When that music video for “Rush” released, I was, like, jaw-dropped, gagged. Hats off to his visual team and creative director. It was just perfection. It was sexy, raw, exploring his sexuality, but then also so aesthetic as well. Very iconic. That project really changed the way that I viewed worldbuilding for artists.
Having just seen you perform on stage, it’s really noticeable how in your body you are. It’s a running thread throughout your songwriting as well — the lyrics, the production, they force you to move to the music. Is that something you think about consciously as you write? How your body reacts, and how the listener’s body might react?
I’ve never thought about it consciously until you just said it, but I realize I do. It is a very physical feeling. Some guy on TikTok once described my music as muscular, and I thought that was such a good word to use. Muscular and punchy—and I love that. I do like there to be both masculine and feminine energy in all my songs. The more I do this, the more confident in my body that I’m getting. I know exactly where to touch myself on stage. [laughs]
What do you hope to inspire in your listeners’ experience through that overt physicality and sexuality?
Confidence in themselves to be able to explore their own sexualities. I’ve noticed especially in my journey this last year, it’s been very much an inward experience. I think people believe sexuality or being sexy is your reaction to somebody else that you’re attracted to, but I found my journey with sexuality to be more introspective, going inward, having confidence that I have to pour from myself, you know? That’s expressed through not just the people that you’re attracted to, but the way you do your makeup, what you decide to wear, how you do your hair that day. That’s all inherent in your sexuality and being a sexual being,
Your discography as a whole has a very 80s backbone to it, but with this new mixtape you’re taking a more center-pop turn. What inspired that turn toward center pop, and less so 80s-inspired? Is this a new direction for your artistry?
I was really going back to my pop roots of, like, “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry. 2010’s pop, it’s what I was really vibing with [this year]. I still love the 80s and weaved it in with certain bits of production that you’ll hear throughout the mixtape for sure. But I wanted my pop girly mixtape.
A stand out for me on Fantasize was “Baby Girl.” I love how it wrestles with this confusion between “do I want to be her” or “do I want to be with her?” What inspired that song?
That song took a lot of turns in the writing process. Initially we wrote the chorus of it with the intention that it was gonna be me trying to compare myself with other artists on social media—my peers. Then we wrote the hook and we were like, “oh, that just doesn’t feel like it’s the real heart of the song.”
The feeling behind “Baby Girl” is one that I felt in high school. I didn’t quite know that I was attracted to girls, but I was. There were definitely times where it was exactly what you said—I truly was like, “I am obsessed with this person, and I am so, so jealous of her,” but now in retrospect I think the jealousy was me being attracted to her. Because it was a weird obsession. It’s sad that I’ve only realized it much later on in life, but I’m glad that I can write about it now.
You said on stage that “He Likes Boys” was the beating heart and soul of this mixtape. Can you say more on that?
She was written very early on in the mixtape-writing process. I think the only other song that was written before was “So Sad So Hot.” There was a big gap between the two. I was doing sessions for a couple months, but nothing was coming. I was getting a bit nervous, because I knew I was working toward a project, but I didn’t know where it was going. I had one song that was fun, very glistening-in-80s pop, but I needed something to ground it. I needed a throughline to follow for the whole project. When I went through that experience with that dancer in the music video shoot and then wrote “He Likes Boys”… A lot of the horny songs ended up also being inspired by that person, because I hadn’t had a crush in a very, very long time. So to have those feelings stirred up again, it was really, really inspiring. I proceeded to write a lot of the horny songs inspired by him, and a lot of the heartbreak songs inspired by those feelings as well. It was a really important moment, writing that song.
Your song “Surprise Surprise”—that one surprised me. Because when I think Chloe Qisha, I think of visceral, punchy, I’m gonna move my body. But “Surprise Surprise” is a ballad. It’s acoustic, stripped back. When you made that song, how’d you keep it so that it still had your signature energy?
“Surprise Surprise” also surprised me when we wrote it. It was what I’d call a “Hail Mary” idea in a session. We were pursuing a dancey pop song, and nothing was quite landing. We only had two hours left of the session. We just palate cleansed and tried something new for the last two hours, and it was that. It was Ilya who—it was really cute—he was learning acoustic guitar, which gags me because he’s produced like every Ariana Grande song in the world, oh my God. But he was just playing these really simple chords, and the first line just basically fell out of my mouth ’cause of a feeling of an experience that I was going through at the time. My co-writer, Caroline met me there and knew exactly where to help me take this story. It’s still very Chloe Qisha, especially in that 2nd verse, very witchy and poking, making jabs. She’s a special one.
No definitely. The wittiness is still there, even as you slow things down and give us more of a tearjerker.
There has to be at least one. As much as I hate ballads, I’m a big believer that there has to be ebbs and flows in a project. “Surprise Surprise” gives an arc to the mixtape.
You’ve mentioned that there were a few Kismet moments that happened throughout your music career that made sure you stayed on the path toward music. Could you tell us a little bit about one of those moments, and how it changed you?
The one that always comes to mind is meeting Rob, my producer and co-writer. I’m the biggest Holly Humberstone fan—a UK artist that Rob works with a lot. I knew of Holly’s music before I even knew of Rob’s existence, and I remember we were just coming out of COVID and I was so confused about music. I basically felt like I was wasting my time with it because I had no direction at the time. Nobody I knew did music. I had no manager. I just didn’t know what the fuck to do. And one day he just DM’d me.
It was just so out of the blue. I had done a really horrific cover of a song that he had written on TikTok, and then took it down like an hour after posting it because I was ashamed of it. But it turns out that in that hour, Rob had seen it and DM’d me. He was just like, “are you free this Friday?” I remember jumping up on the couch and screaming. I truly would not be here or have the writing skills that I do without him. Here’s to a hopefully very long collaboration with him, ’cause he’s on this mixtape, and hopefully for many, many more as well.
Finally, what are you most excited about for this next era of yours?
More live shows! More live shows with gorgeous people, like today’s. It’s gonna be hard to match this honestly, but I’m so excited to finally be playing these songs live. They’re really, really fun. Chloe Qisha fans are great. We have the best, best time. I’m excited.
END OF INTERVIEW.
Chloe Qisha’s latest mixtape, Fantasize, is out today! Listen, and you’ll find yourself falling for the Chloe Qisha fantasy.
