Biography of FKA Twigs and Music Career

Published At: 19 January 2021 , 07:42 PM

Biography of FKA Twigs

The difficult 2020 did not stop throwing unpleasant surprises even 2 weeks before its end. In mid-December, British singer FKA twigs accused her ex-boyfriend, a famous actor named Shia LaBeouf, of violence. In the lawsuit, the celebrity indicated that he repeatedly insulted her, exerted physical and emotional pressure, deliberately infected her with a venereal disease, and even tried to strangle her. She could not admit it earlier, because she was afraid that this would harm the career of her lover, and what she said would not be taken seriously.

Childhood and youth

Thalia Debrett Barnett (these are the real name and surname of FKA twigs) was born on January 16, 1988, in Cheltenham, located in Gloucestershire in the southwest of England, and grew up in neighboring Tewkesbury. The performer described the countryside where her childhood passed as "some wilderness."

The child was raised by an English mother who was partly Spanish, a former dancer and gymnast, and her stepfather, a big jazz fan with a rich music collection.


The adults made every effort and denied themselves in many ways so that the girl could take ballet and opera lessons. The woman often hid her behind a DJ booth at salsa evenings and kept Vogue magazines under her bed (by the way, she still sews concert costumes for the heiress). A Jamaican father, who was engaged in jazz dancing, was never seen by her daughter until she came of age.

The future singer went to the private Catholic school St Edward's School, where her studies were paid for by an academic scholarship. At the age of 16, the teenager began to develop vocally at a local youth center, and a year later he moved to South London, where he studied choreographic art. Barnett soon dropped out of The London School for Performing Arts & Technology and moved to Croydon College.


From the age of 18, Talia tried to find her unique sound, wrote the song I'm Your Doll, worked with producers in the capital of Great Britain, and then left for Los Angeles for 6 months. Upon her return, she was a dancer in music videos for Kylie Minogue, Ed Sheeran, Tyo Cruz, Jesse J (hits Do It like A Dude and Price Tag), Dion Bromfield (Yeah Right), Plan B, and Wretch 32. The girl managed to "light up" in A 2-minute sketch of Beyoncé Wants Groceries, a hostess at the gentlemen's club, and perform in a cabaret at Soho The Box.


Music

At the end of summer 2012, a photo of FKA twigs appeared on the pages of the cult British magazine ID, dedicated to avant-garde fashion, music, art, and youth culture.

Initially, the chosen pseudonym sounded like Twigs due to the crunching of joints, but later, due to a complaint from the twin sisters duo of the same name, 3 more letters had to be added to it. Some sources claimed that FKA translates to "formerly known as", but the author denied this:

“They don't mean anything concrete, they're just a bunch of letters. I was going to call myself either Fk1 Twigs or AFK Twigs. I just wanted to choose letters that would sound pretty masculine and strong. FKA worked better than the others. There is no subtext or meaning here - these are just capital letters. "

The singer was able to record EP1 (also known as twigs) unaided and released it on Bandcamp on December 4th. At the same time, the performer published clips for each of the 4 songs from the first mini-album on her own YouTube channel.


After How's That, there was also a video on Water Me, created with the help of Jesse Kanda and gaining more than 21 million views by 2021. And this is far from a record - the video that appeared on Two Weeks in the summer of 2014 won the hearts of almost 31 million users by the end of 2020.

EP2 was released on September 17, 2013, on Young Turks with the assistance of Arka and Liam Howe. The work was rated 8 out of 10 by the online publication Pitchfork, was nominated for a BBC award, and was listed on Spotify's Spotlight on the 2014 list. Billboard did not stand aside, calling it one of the “14 Artists to Watch for 2014- m ".

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