Expect a wild, prop-heavy show from Charli XCX in Hong Kong
Rebellious singer Charli XCX has built a cult following but little mainstream success — not that she cares much anyway
She's the cult pop starwith Katy Perry-sized ambitions; the bad-mouthed Britney whose songs are played at indie clubs.
It's difficult to pigeonhole Charli XCX. She's got the sass of Rihanna and the vocal strength of Beyoncé, but the following of The Strokes. And if you find her puzzling, that's just fine by the 22-year-old, who was born Charlotte Aitchison. She's not interested in what you think.
"I don't really care if people like me or not — you're asking the wrong person," she says over a crackly line from Latvian capital Riga. "Success is being able to make the music I want to play and the videos I want to make and really convey my music in a certain way."
You may gather that there's no nonsense about Charli XCX, the Hertfordshire-raised singer-songwriter, who has written hits for big-name contemporaries such as Icona Pop and Rita Ora. Her latest album, , picks up the girl-power baton dropped years ago by the Spice Girls, only she's not so much carrying it as a symbol of female empowerment as using it to bludgeon down the doors of pop conformity.
is a streetwise tour de force, a pop anvil with punk and rock-chick hammers shaping a brittle middle-finger salute to anyone who'll listen. It's upfront, bold-as-brass lyrics demand that you shut up and let Charli do her thing.
"I really like working in the studio. It's where I have the most fun in my life and also where I can be most creative," she says of the album, released at the end of last year and declared by magazine as the No 1 pop album of 2014. "But I'm an attention seeker and so I love to be on stage, creating the props that are gonna go on stage. I like control."
