22-year-old Amie Blu’s dilapidated, sepia-tinged, heart-melting vocals have made her one to watch this year. Just ask SZA.
The heavy doorknob to Room 538 at The Ned Hotel in London clicks open and out glides Amie Blu – soft smile, hunched shoulders, a warm pulse of energy. “Hello, how are you?” the 22-year-old South London singer asks, voice easy and familiar. There’s a quiet poetry to her name. Amie, meaning “friend” in French – a nickname that stuck when her friends gave it to her years ago – feels almost prophetic. Because that’s exactly what she, and her music, feels like: a hug that tightens when the truth gets heavier. A safe place to unravel. A soundtrack for the messy bits, for a sadness that she somehow turns into something a little sunnier.
She’s had practice. Music has been stitched into her world since she was a kid. Her dad plays guitar, her brother too, and weekends were sound-tracked by whatever they were learning – she laughs, remembering the inevitable jam to “Wonderwall”. She started out in youth clubs and
choirs, writing songs that felt too personal to share but too heavy to keep. “There was this youth club with a studio upstairs,” she remembers. “And this place called Arts Train, where we’d be playing and writing new stuff every Wednesday.”
In those early sessions, she found a voice that feels older than her years. Beneath the solemn hum of her bluesy tone, often falling to a whisper, her lyrics land softly but hit hard. Listening to Amie can feel like release. Tears might come, maybe even laughter, but it’s always for the better.
Following her debut album when all is said and done, made with her “talented friends”, a trio of rising producers, instrumentalists and songwriters Humble the Great, Will (Worm) and Will Hargreaves – Amie Blu is settling into her moment. Released this September, the reviews rolled in, and they were good. Co-signs from the likes of SZA (who liked an Instagram post of her stand-out track “shadow”), fellow Londoner Joy Crookes and a steadily growing audience of more than 260,000 monthly Spotify listeners only confirm what’s ahead: a quiet, steady ascension. Still, Amie stays grounded.
“I sound so cringe,” she laughs, “but I see music as this long marathon, and every message or co-sign or anything is like a high five. It means everything, it’s so validating, but it doesn’t change the distance. It just makes it easier though, for sure.”
After a long day on set for Wonderland, thick with outfit changes, lukewarm bath shots, TikToks to Yeat’s “COME N GO”, and the inevitable London downpour (pathetic fallacy, if you will), she finally melts into a chair at Cecconi’s downstairs, glowing in that post-shoot exhale. She orders decisively: “Spaghetti lobster with tomato and chilli, definitely.” A pause. “Actually, the crab ravioli please.” For the first time all day, she looks at ease.
The calm exterior, though, hides nerves. “I just always get a bit nervous with shoots because my least favourite part of being an artist is pictures,” she admits. “I don’t like pictures. I’m very insecure. I don’t like my face, I don’t like anything about myself.” Vulnerability sits in stark contrast to the “so beautiful” murmurs drifting from the crew all day, though contrast, in Amie’s world, is kind of the point. Take “missing everything”, an upbeat melody masking a quiet ache: ‘I can hardly believe / But lately I’m missing everything…’
“I find it easier to write with a pessimistic outlook,” she says simply. “To be honest, I just have that view on life in general.” Her then-favourite track from the album, “worse”, captures it in full: ‘Trying so hard not to break apart / You’re only gonna make it worse’. “It’s about friends being far away. I hadn’t seen mine in a while,” she says. “But the song is about my friends being there for me and me for them, and us just being there for each other. I’m so grateful for my friends.”
In moments like these, you can tell her heart is rooted in the human part of it all, not the attention that comes with it. Her album is an unfiltered catalogue of that. “Last year was one of the worst of my life. I was just like, if I continue, I am genuinely not going to be here anymore. I had no desire to be here,” she says, her head resting in her palm. And this heaviness, she doesn’t linger in it, but she doesn’t shy away from it either. Her song “if i leave” dives headfirst into that space. “It’s about not wanting to be here, but feeling like you’re forcing yourself through life for other people…and how I think that suicide can be really selfish,” she says, steady.
Weeks later, she follows up via email with something lighter: “We’ll probably hear all about it in a song one day lol. But now I’m feeling a lot better. I’m trying really hard every day to feel better, and I’m surrounded by people who genuinely love me and want the best for me. I have an amazing support system.”
From those teenage sessions to now, the growth feels both sudden and slow. “As an artist, I think I’m more confident,” she says. “I’m writing more clearly and have more of a vision, a sound.” As a person, the story’s rawer. “I’ve always felt sad…but I feel like…do I want to get better? And I think, this year, I genuinely do.”
Her antidote is refreshingly simple. “More music, more shows, more collaborations,” she says, naming Kendrick Lamar, Role Model, and Tyler, the Creator as dream partners. Then, grinning, “More fanbase. More money.”
For now, the road beckons. With her EU tour underway and the UK up next, she’s in motion again. “I love touring! Being able to travel to different countries for work is the coolest thing ever,” she beams. “I love everyone in my band. It’s like a big road trip with people I love, and I get to sing at the end of the day.”
So yes, she may call herself “sad”, but her art? It’s alchemy. And maybe that’s the magic of Amie Blu, she makes heaviness sound weightless. “I’m just trying to make music that makes you feel something,” she says. That, Amie, you very much already do.
Photography by Ollie Ali
Styling by Rosie Sykes
Makeup by Thembi Mkandla at Creatives Agency using Dior Forever Foundation and Dior Capture Le Sérum
1st Photography Assistant Patricia Benitez
2nd Photography Assistant Joe Dawson
Fashion Assistant Hannah Grant
Videography by Lauren Austin
Special Thanks to The Ned London