From Wet Leg to The Last Dinner Party, the most successful breakout artists of the last couple of years have been the ones who’ve seemingly arrived fully formed; who’ve done the work behind the scenes, writing and rewriting, plotting and planning their visual identities and the things that make them tick to burst out of the traps in an immediate blaze of glory. Since dropping her debut single just six months ago, Malaysia-born, London-based Chloe Qisha seems prepped for such a pipeline. Her second track, ‘I Lied, I’m Sorry’ – an insatiable earworm that’s part LCD Soundsystem beats, part Olivia Rodrigo deadpan pop brilliance – has already racked up 2.5 million Spotify streams; her second ever gig was as part of Pitchfork Paris Festival.
From her androgynously suited aesthetic to her nostalgia-meets-perfectly-now musical palette (think Chappell Roan and Troye Sivan trading witty one-liners over ‘80s pop and ABBA), Qisha’s self-titled debut EP landed at the end of the year like a five-track application to join the upper ranks of 2025’s UK pop girls. With an equally excellent new single due later this month and a second EP shortly after, we’ve no doubt that by the time the year is through she’ll have come good on that proposal.
We caught up with Chloe to find out how she got here.
You were writing songs behind the scenes for a long while before releasing your first batch of singles last year – did it take an adjustment to see yourself as an artist that could be in front of the camera?
It just takes a lot more being an artist these days. It’s all-encompassing. Waiting until I was the age I am now where I’m more sure about my identity and fashion and the spaces I exist in and where my music sits – it all plays a part and I don’t think I would have had that a couple of years ago. Some artists are incredibly young and they manage to find themselves an incredibly strong identity from the get-go, but for me it took a hot second to do that, and also a hot second to actually feel that I was a good enough writer that was beyond writing singer-songwriter songs in my bedroom.
Had this always been the ambition?
It just didn’t compute in my brain that it was a possibility – whether that was [because of my] upbringing and my very Asian family not knowing that music or the arts was a viable career path, or just not knowing enough. I did a couple of degrees, poking and prodding where I would fit and doing music absent-mindedly on the side and then I fell into a side of the industry where you can develop as an artist while doing sessions and writing that you just wouldn’t know exists until you’re in it.
You lived in Malaysia until you were 16 – was there much opportunity to lay foundations as a musician there?
There’s definitely a thriving music scene there, I just don’t think I was ever exposed to it. I was quite sheltered in my international school and that was the bounds of what I knew. It was just naivety. My parents weren’t particularly strict but they definitely defaulted to thinking I’d go to uni and get a degree and earn lots of money and I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine with me’. I always knew I liked to sing but I was quite a shy kid in general – I was quite a boring child! – and it wasn’t until I moved to the UK that I started picking up a guitar.
If not from your teenage years, where do your influences mainly come from?
It was purely from my parents’ music taste. They were big fans of everything ‘80s and refused to play me anything but that, so I had The Bee Gees and Tears for Fears constantly; that’s all I grew up with. So landing on ‘80s music as a sonic reference really made sense – it was a very full circle moment.
There are also nods to LCD Soundsystem, Olivia Rodrigo and lots of artists that nestle at various points along the pop and alternative spectrum – where do you see yourself sitting?
The music right now sits in a really good moment in between those two forces. Those two lend themselves very well to each other. ‘80s music was essentially pop music back in the day. Now I see [my music] as sonically drawing from older, more obscure ‘80s references but melodically and lyrically we still want to be up there with the pop girlies because that’s what I listen to on a day-to-day basis: I’m with the Sabrinas and Chappells and Troyes and Charlis, so that naturally trickles in.
And really, what a perfect time to be entering the modern pop world…
I’m really grateful and honoured and lucky to be in this moment in time where the pop girlies are really having their moment and long shall it live. Not that they weren’t present before – when I was in high school I was definitely in that Katy Perry ‘Teenage Dream’ era – but I look at them now and think gosh, the songwriting has just never been better. Particularly Sabrina and Chappell, I look at them and their writing teams and I want to soak up every bit of it like a sponge and inject that into my own music as well.
How does Chloe IRL and Chloe the pop star compare?
She’s definitely an extension of myself – I wouldn’t go as far as a persona but she’s a cooler, far more confident version of myself that I can somehow tap into in different settings. I’m still more introverted. Chloe Qisha is who I like to turn on at events, whereas at my core I hate all human beings and I want to sit at home with my cats.
Across your first EP, there was this sense of nostalgia but also lots of young lust and hot under-the-collar moments. What is the world you’re building from there?
It’s just about not trying to take oneself too seriously in all aspects of love – accepting every instance you’ve had and embracing that something was very awkward, or that an interaction was not so great but you can sit and laugh about it now and that’s character-building. ‘Sexy Goodbye’ is a great example of that kind of song where we’re talking about love and lust in quite a heartbreaking but funny way. The foundation of someone not reciprocating your feelings is very sad, but I’m gonna strut down a Hackney street with a binbag over my shoulder and I’m gonna embrace that! That’s what we try and exude in the world: embracing everything about yourself even if it’s a bit cringe, which is so the opposite of who I generally am because I like things to be very organised and perfect.
Maybe Chloe Qisha the pop star is a good influence on you!
She is! She’s like my own little therapist! It’s not that deep!
