Skye Newman: "Coming from my world, and my life, I’m always going to feel like someone’s ready to pull the rug from under my feet"

“It feels like it was just five minutes ago,” Skye Newman says of her last visit to Dublin – supporting Lewis Capaldi at the 3Arena in September, as part of his major UK and Ireland tour. “Literally. I’ve blinked, and I’m back. It’s mental.”

If these past seven months have felt like a time warp for the London artist – now one of the most buzzed-about names in UK music – it’s understandable.

A month after that 3Arena support slot, Skye unveiled her debut project, SE9 Part 1, a soulful yet captivatingly gritty pop offering shaped by her “early family life, trauma, [and] internal battles.”

Named after the area she grew up in – moving between temporary homes in Southeast London and Kent, as the youngest of six – the EP included her 2025 breakout singles ‘Hairdresser’ and ‘Family Matters’. On the latter, Skye recalls being “raised on pure dysfunction,” in a home impacted by loss and substance abuse. Peaking at No.5 in the UK, and garnering over 41 million streams on Spotify, the unapologetically raw track clearly resonated with other young people, both in her native city and far beyond.

In January, the 22-year-old’s rapid ascent was recognised with BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2026 award – beating out Sombr and Geese for the prestigious honour, which has previously gone to the likes of Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish, Adele, Lady Gaga, Stormzy and Dua Lipa.

Now, Skye has returned with Part 2 of her SE9 project, and, at the time of our conversation, is back in Dublin for a sold-out two-night run of her own headline shows, at the 3Olympia Theatre. Before the year is out she’ll have also played Electric Picnic, brought her Survival Tour across the UK, and opened for Harry Styles in Sydney.

Right now, however, Skye is more interested in singing the praises of her “bestie”, Irish singer-songwriter Aaron Rowe, who was also opening up for Lewis Capaldi back in September. She even joined the Dublin artist onstage for a rendition of his track ‘Hey Ma’, at both the 3Arena and The Ruby Sessions.

“He’s incredible – extremely incredible,” she says of Aaron. “We had crossed paths a few times, because of Columbia – we’re both on the same label – but we didn't properly meet until this showcase we both did. And then we got to do the Lewis tour together. Besties from there!”

Copyright Maizy Kharrazian-www.hotpress.com

Like Aaron, Skye proudly embraces her own accent in her music – presenting herself, and her world, with a brazen authenticity. But it wasn’t an approach she landed on immediately, she tells me.

“Not that I didn’t want to sound like myself – but when you’re young, you naturally end up singing in an American accent, trying to sound like what you hear on the radio,” she reflects. “That’s just because it’s what you’re surrounded by. You feel as though that’s what you’ve got to sound like.

“But it got to a point in my adult years, where I was like, ‘I don’t want to sound like everyone else.’ And I got comfortable in my voice, and my own sound. I found my little space. It was working, and it was what felt right to me.”

But just how deeply people connected with – and related to – tracks like ‘Family Matters’ still took her aback.

“It’s surreal,” she says. “And it also breaks my heart, because they’re quite deep subjects. I’m blessed to be able to have people understand, but it’s also not an ideal situation.

“There's definitely certain songs where it's a bit tougher to be like, ‘Okay, I'm going to give this to you, and I'm just going to let you guys run with it!’ Because it means so much to me, and it is so personal. They're my stories. It's my life, and it's my pain.”

But with SE9 Part 2, she wanted to not only share those painful experiences, but “give some strength” to her fans too.

“It’s the next part of my life – so more about my growing and my healing throughout all of this,” she explains. “And my first steps into adulthood.”

Among the highlights of Part 2 is ‘Woman I Am’, a tribute to the women who have been a supportive presence in Skye’s life, with zero Hallmark platitudes – instead referencing synced-up periods, and cleaning up each other’s vomit.

“I just write how I talk!” she smiles. “And that was just a song that needed to be written. I appreciate my women so much, and I don’t feel I’d shown that in my music yet. I’d written so much about pain, and the stuff men in my life have put me through. I’d focused on the negative rather than the positive – and how incredible it is to have this much love around me. That’s what’s pushed me here.

“So I literally just wrote our stories out, and it ended up being a great song – if I do say so myself!” she laughs. “It was probably one of the quickest songs that I wrote. In about five or ten minutes, those words were on that paper, because they were just genuine feelings.”

Copyright Maizy Kharrazian-www.hotpress.com

Was she writing like that from a young age?

“I’ve always been able to write music pretty easily,” she nods. “It’s always been a natural thing. Somebody blessed me with the ability to write. I don’t know who, but I thank them every single day – the universe, God, somebody! It’s always been my therapy, and my release. It literally has got me through everything in my life, so I don’t know what I’d do without it.”

It’s hard to believe, considering the amount of career milestones she’s already ticked off, that Skye released her debut single only 14 months ago. But as she adjusts to her new reality, she tells me she still struggles with the fear that “it’s all going to end” any day now.

“Coming from my world, and my life, I’m always going to feel like someone’s ready to pull the rug from under my feet,” she reflects. “I’m just hoping and praying that everyone loves me for as long as they can – because I want to be doing this for as long as I can.”

SE9 Part 2 is out tomorrow, May 29. Skye Newman plays Electric Picnic, Lo. Laois (August 28–30).