Video | Danish star MØ ‘so, so excited’ to perform at Clockenflap festival, see Hong Kong, and try the food

Ahead of her city debut, Karen Andersen talks to the Post about her supportive family, her upbringing in rural Denmark, her rise to fame, her love of the Spice Girls, and how she’s looking forward to seeing the Hong Kong skyline

MØ (Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen) is looking forward to playing Hong Kong’s Clockenflap music festival.

Published: 6:01pm, 20 Oct 2017Updated: 6:00pm, 20 Oct 2017

With a teacher mother, a psychologist father and a doctor brother, you may think Danish chart sensation MØ spent her youth fighting off demands that she give up her pop dreams and get a proper job.

Well, think again. The singer of high-energy dance tracks such as Lean On and Kamikaze, and one of the international highlights of this year’s Clockenflap festival, counts her family as her single biggest inspiration.

“I wasn’t really aware of what my parents did for work until I was much older, but I realised that I was lucky to be able to learn from these inspiring family members,” says the singer, born Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen, who will be performing at the festival on the Sunday night. “Growing up, it didn’t really register until I was well into my teens. That’s when I got interested in what they were doing for real.”

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In an exclusive interview with the Post just weeks before her debut gig in Hong Kong, the 29-year-old says her family instilled in her a desire to follow in the footsteps of her idols, the Spice Girls, and even inspired her stage name.

“It means maiden, or a young girl,” she explains. “It’s the initials of my middle name as well, which I share with my grandfather, who was a painter I admired.”

Growing up, Andersen was a huge fan of the Spice Girls.

Andersen’s deep love for her family shines through as she recounts her upbringing in the tiny village of Ejlstrup, a 90-minute drive through farmland from the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Not for her the struggles of identity and independence that bedevilled many a star’s younger years.

Andersen’s comfortable upbringing was a typically liberal Scandinavian one. Even her youthful involvement in radical left-wing and feminist politics found an empathetic embrace at home.