Leigh-Anne: "It's all about me now – and that's quite an empowering thing"

“I really want people to know who I am as an artist,” Leigh-Anne Pinnock tells me – and after a decade in one of the best-selling girl groups of all time, you can tell that she means it.

Initially grouped together back in 2011 as TV talent show contestants, Little Mix defied the infamous X-Factor winner's curse – which has seen multiple victors’ careers stall while their fellow competitors find chart success – by going on to clock up 15 billion streams, and a total of 19 Top 10 Singles, including five No.1s. In May 2021, six months after reconfiguring as a trio, following the departure of band member Jesy Nelson, they became the first female group in over four decades to win the BRIT Award for British Group.

Even today, over two years after Little Mix went on indefinite hiatus, they continue to boast over 15 million monthly Spotify listeners.

Since taking a break from the relentless pace of life as Little Mix – and the ever-spinning tabloid rumour mill that came with it – the members have each offered an insight into their own individual worlds of sound as solo artists, with Leigh-Anne recently releasing her powerful debut EP, No Hard Feelings.

“Coming from the group, and knowing that not necessarily everyone’s going to come along with me, I definitely felt like I needed to build,” she says of the new project. “Especially with how different my music is now, compared to what we were doing.”

Some degree of pressure is inevitable when a member of a popular group goes solo. But Leigh-Anne – who previously starred in 2021’s Boxing Day, and tackled issues surrounding race and colourism in the music industry in her acclaimed documentary Leigh-Anne: Race, Pop & Power  – tells me that the process has “been more fun, than anything.”

“I really tried to take the pressure away,” she explains. “With this new way that music works, there aren’t really any rules anymore. It’s almost given artists the freedom to just follow their hearts and their guts, and what they love.”

That freedom of expression is something the 32-year-old artist, born and raised in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, has been particularly enjoying.

“Now being able to do it on my own, I get to make the rules,” she notes. “I can really be as creative as I want to be for myself. It’s a really freeing thing.

“With this, I wasn’t thinking about charts or radio,” she says of the EP. “I was thinking, ‘This is a collection of music. It tells a story. It says who you are as an artist. It cements your sound. You need to put this out for that reason.’”

In a notable departure from her work with Little Mix, Leigh-Anne’s solo output has seen her embrace her long-standing passion for old school R&B, garage and Afrobeats – as well as reggae, which played a major role in her musical upbringing.

“I’m quarter-Jamaican and quarter-Bajan, and I’ve been going to Jamaica every year since I was born,” he tells me. “It was definitely a massive genre in our household, for sure. I actually delivered my children to lovers rock!

“I love it,” she adds. “So to be able to actually experiment with that genre, and put my own stamp on it, is great.”

No Hard Feelings is also a starkly vulnerable and emotional project – shaped by her own experiences of life and love, including her relationship with her husband, and the father of her twins, footballer Andre Gray.

“I am quite a vulnerable person, and at the beginning of this process, I always said that I wanted to be as open as possible,” she remarks. “I really want my fans to get to know me – and, being in a group for so long, that was quite hard to do.

“Now – having the freedom to just be as open as I want to be – there’s no compromise anymore on what we’re going to say, or what we’re going to write about. It’s literally: ‘Leigh-Anne, what do you want to say?’ And it happens to be stuff that’s close to my heart, or stuff that’s weighing heavy on my chest. Or, stuff that I’m happy about, or that I love. It’s all about me now – and that’s quite an empowering thing.”

She goes on to reveal that “it was also quite a healing process,” working on the EP.

“At first it was like, ‘Oh God, do I really want to put this stuff out there, and have everyone talk about my relationship?’” she recalls. “But actually, it’s been the most healing thing.

“There’s an element of being scared of being judged by people,” she adds. “But, at the end of the day, that’s life. Nothing’s perfect. If I can show that, and show that we were able to make it through something, hopefully that can be an inspiring thing.”

As well as being a stand-alone project “in its own little world”, No Hard Feelings serves as “a really important move” before Leigh-Anne releases her eagerly anticipated debut album, she says. For both the EP and the upcoming LP, she joined forces with a top team of collaborators, including Khris Riddick-Tynes (SZA, Kehlani, Ariana Grande); Tayla Parx (Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber); and RAYE’s up-and-coming younger sister, singer-songwriter Abby Keen.

She lists SZA among her dream collaborators – admiring how the Top Dawg artist is “so authentically her.”

“RAYE is super authentic as well, and one of the most talented people on this earth,” Leigh-Anne resumes. “And Doja Cat. These artists all have their own lane, and just do them. They don’t feel like they have to change for anyone.

“That’s what I want to do,” she adds. “Not everyone might get it at first – but they soon will. You really have to just stick to what you love. Sometimes it’s good to be different…”

• No Hard Feelings is out now. Leigh-Anne plays the Green Room at The Academy, Dublin on October 25.