The week that NME touches down in Los Angeles, the city is in the midst of one of its most engaged Awards seasons in years. The Grammys – usually mired in controversy – have locked in performances from Joni Mitchell and Dua Lipa; The Golden Globes and upcoming Oscars, meanwhile, is the arena where Barbenheimer – 2023 blockbusters Barbie and Oppenheimer – will battle for supremacy. Billboards campaigning for votes tower over Sunset Boulevard and deep into downtown LA.
Nestled in west Hollywood, another bright young starlet seeks to be heard amidst the glitz and glamour: Caity Baser, a bold, colourful voice in British pop. She’s in La La Land for writing camps, the process of nailing down new songs with a variety of songwriters as she heads toward her debut album. How does Caity Baser in the US sound? “It’s quite similar to Caity Baser in the UK to be fair,” she laughs, speaking to NME in a photo studio in one of the city’s southern neighbourhoods. “I don’t think it’ll ever change my sound and how I write music. That will always be authentically me… I hope they like me in that case!”
The signs, then, are promising. In her home country, the 21-year-old is enjoying considerable success. This weekend, she’ll head to the BRITs to celebrate being nominated for the Rising Star award alongside Sekou and eventual winners The Last Dinner Party. On March 15, she’ll release her new 13-track mixtape ‘Still Learning’ and head out on a nationwide tour which flits between student union bars (Cardiff, Norwich) to London’s 5,000 capacity Hammersmith Apollo. This follows a Top 30 hit in the UK last year with the vibrant pop anthem ‘Pretty Boys’.
Baser’s is a large personality, one that seeps into every song – like bawdy new single ‘I’m A Problem’ – and on her social feeds and live performances, one that’s resonating with fans of a similar age. Her journey as an independent artist began in earnest in 2020, jacking in a job after three shifts at the Co-op stacking shelves to chase a dream even if she felt it was a faint one.
At 2022’s Reading Festival, a year after her debut mixtape ‘Lil CB’ was released and before signing with a major label, she drew a rowdy crowd for a small-stage slot. She reflects: “It was a moment of validation in what I was doing. I’d never even really been or performed at a festival and people were chanting my name before I went on. Like, how does that work?”
“I’ll be learning and fucking up and growing until the day I die”
From there, the Baser ball continued to roll. She landed collaborations with Mae Muller, Sigala and Joel Corry and broadened her dance-pop sound. In 2023, she announced that she wanted to keep her ticket prices affordable amidst the UK’s inflation crisis. Her extroverted personality occasionally riles up non-believers; last September, she told a podcast that she received a “complaint” from a family for introducing their kids to a “Fuck the Tories” chant at a festival performance. The rollout for ‘Still Learning’, meanwhile, has sparked conversation about the balance between self-promotion and discussing mental health.
Baser is bullish, undeterred about how she decides to navigate her career and early 20s. Yet she is also self-effacing, and keen to stress that she’s prone to a misstep now and then. “I’ve spent so long not being myself – that was exhausting,” she tells NME. “And if people are recognising that and seeing themselves in that, then I’m not going to censor myself for people that don’t like me. I’m still chaotic and an idiot. I’ll be learning and fucking up and growing until the day I die. And if you’re not, you’re doing something wrong.”
Baser was born and raised in Southampton, but has bounced around Brighton and London, where she’s now set up. Her big brothers were protective but loving in a house that she says was “loud, obviously”. She grew up listening to Queen, Lily Allen and Katy Perry. Baser, if you can believe it, was once a nervous performer and uncertain of her place; the latter was an artist that helped bring her out of her shell.
“I had really bad stage fright. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye, just at the back of the hall,” she says. “My mum took me to see Katy Perry and we sat at the top, right at the back… but she made everyone in that room feel so connected with her. I felt like she was waving just at me.”
Perry’s bombastic on-stage persona – Left Shark, slapstick humour etc. – wore off on Baser and gave her a foundation to build from. She credits Doja Cat and SZA as key influences on her current musical mindset. “I got all of my validation from myself and my team, so when I got out in front of people on stage [at Reading Festival] I had no nerves and let down all my barriers. I could be the person that I’d always wanted to be: loud and annoying. That’s what I did and I think people liked it.”
2022 single ‘Friendly Sex’ was a tongue-in-cheek reflection on friends with benefits; on ‘I’m A Problem’ she claims that she’s “out here making enemies”. But the projected image of self-confidence and bolshiness wasn’t so easy to come by as a teenager, with bullies waiting to knock down anyone for stepping out of line.
“I did whatever people told me to do, I was friends with people even if they weren’t nice to me. I wanted everyone to love me and I was compromising myself,” she says of the company she used to keep. “On my first EP I had a song called ‘Haters’ and one of the girls messaged me and was like, ‘Hey, so glad to see you’re doing well. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ It’s about you and how you made my life a living hell!”
Baser continues: “There’s things that were said to me when I was 10-years-old that I’ll never forget. I hate to say it but it is character building to have those moments. I wouldn’t be the same person if that hadn’t happened to me.”
“I don’t want my gig to have an impact on whether you can afford your next food shop or not”
She took to making music and shutting the negative forces out. In August 2020, when working at the Co-op to save money for studio sessions, her song ‘Average Student’ had a viral moment on TikTok. This would spur Baser on to be even more forthcoming in her approach to social media. “I like speaking to my fans and getting their opinions on things. If it’s going to strengthen your chances and career, it’s silly to turn that down because you can’t be bothered. I’ve got an opportunity that’s so rare and special, and I want to do everything that’s possible to keep it. There’ll be a time when I don’t have to do all of that.”
The day after NME speaks to Baser, a spanner is thrown in the works. On January 30, Universal Music Group – parent company of Baser’s label Chosen Music – announced that it will no longer licence their artists’ music to TikTok due to a dispute over royalties, claiming that the social media app was using its “platform power to hurt vulnerable artists”. TikTok denied the claims and said that UMG “had put its greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters”.
It now means that TikTok’s 1 billion users will be unable to use music by artists like Billie Eilish, Drake and Baser in their posts. It’s a brutal blow for artists hoping to reach a global audience, and at the time of writing, a return of UMG’s music to the platform does not appear imminent. A spokesperson for Baser declines to comment to NME, though the day following the news, she uploaded a typically on-the-nose response of her trailing a song to royalty-free music that demonstrates how she’ll approach it.
Baser will begin navigating the new world at the Brits this weekend, celebrating a year on from when she met her musical ally Venbee – a leading voice in the rising Loud LDN community – with the pair now both now nominated for their own respective awards. Keeping the connection with her audience, Baser says, is crucial. Speaking of the upcoming tour ticket pricings and the impact they have on young fans, she says: “I didn’t come from much, so I’ve never known what much is. I don’t want my gig to have an impact on whether you can afford your next food shop or not.”
As NME wraps up the shoot, Baser is effusive about upcoming Grammys events she’s heading to later in the week: so far, so Hollywood. Things don’t quite go to plan though: as she regales days later on TikTok – where else? – a wardrobe malfunction on the red carpet sees her “whole arse come out” to the wind. So she skips home early, changes and heads out to a dive bar where she bumps into Lewis Capaldi who sings back to her the opening line of ‘I’m A Problem’: “I’ve got big dick energy, bigger than half the guys I know”.
As Baser’s journey proves, if life knocks you down, there’s just as many people there waiting to celebrate you; or just head to Barney’s Beanery and wait for all this to blow over.
Caity Baser’s ‘Still Learning’ is released March 15 via EMI / Chosen Music
Listen to Caity Baser’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify and here on Apple Music
Words: Thomas Smith
Photography: Kristen Jan Wong
Stylist: Lucy-Isobel Bonner
Stylist’s Assistant: Sabrina Teerlink
Make-up: Tetiana Kazak
Videographer: Kat Nijmeddin
Label: EMI / Chosen Music
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