Goldielocks
Words by Rosie McArthur
Once upon a time there was a girl called Goldielocks. She had curly blond hair which gleamed like gold in the sunshine and lived in town called Croydon: a magical place with 1960’s concrete architecture, a JD Weathspoons and multi-story office blocks.
Goldielocks, is not as you might expect a real life version of the pigtailed, rosy cheeked, smock wearing fairytale protagonist from our popular childhood bedtime stories. She is fact twenty three year old Sarah Louise Akwisome, who’s not really that keen on porridge and who could probably reduce the three bears to tears.
Encouraged by her tutors at Croydon’s Community Music College, (a ’really hands on’ institution where she spent the latter part of her teenage years) Goldielocks took the plunge and uploaded some of her music onto MySpace- ‘I was a bit shy to start playing things to people who I’ve never met, I did it to get confidence’’. Not only has it boosted her reputation and given her more of a name on the underground grime/dubstep scene in Britain, but it has allowed her to attract worldwide recognition: ‘It is a really good place to get feedback from people all around the world.’
Aside from another golden locked starlet- Kate Moss, Croydon also homes underground dubstep artists, Skream and Benga, with whom Goldielocks has been collaborating with this year. Although she hopes to one day up and move to the Big Bad LDN, right now she’s content in Croydon. It is this mutual bond of the home town that got her in collaboration with Benga- ‘We’ve been working on some tracks together, we just sit and chat jokes, people from home you just naturally feel more comfortable with them.’ It seems like Croydon does have some things going for it after all. Who would have thought, after all she jokes, ‘what more does a girl need than a massive Primark’?
Like other female artists of her genre, Lady Sovereign and Kate Nash (‘Someone once said that I could eat Lily Allen for breakfast’), Goldielocks lyrics describes her life as it is – from having a pint down the pub with her mates, to the unfairness of the stereotypes placed upon the younger generation; her tale is one of reality. Her song Wasteman was written as a pick-me-up for her sister who was messed around by some guy, ‘She was a bit down about it, we were just messing around, and I was trying to get her to write lyrics to cheer her up. It started as a poem, just writing words.’ Social Suicide revolves around her job at her local Starbucks, where she combined the coffee bean with the music scene: organising gigs and meetings on the one hand, and frothing up a mean cappaccino on the other.
A big fan of the king of grime, Mr. Dizzee Rascal and E3’s Wiley, Goldielocks really believes in the takeoff of underground music - ‘ Grime has definately has become more mainstream, we can be commercial but we choose not to be, i reckon it will keep going. Look how popular indie bands have become’.
With all this praise for East London’s latest talent, the question is, will she be wearing her Rolex? ‘’ I’m not a ‘look at me’ kind of person, i like using colour a lot but not new rave. I’ll just wear cool t-shirt’s band t-shirt, skirts dresses jeans.’ But do not bracket this lady ‘It’s wrong to say if you do this kind of music, you have to wear these clothes’. If you want to see her blood really boil, then pop her into a musical stereotype, ‘unless your an indie artist your urban, which I hate.’ And whilst we’re playing the hate game, what else gets this girls goat? ‘‘People who aren’t original piss me off’.
Although her MySpace page tells us ‘I’m not a thug, but I’ll spit in your face’, she is refreshingly modest. Comparing herself to the more conservative Kirsten Dunst ‘coz she’s a bit goofy and laid back like me’ and admiring Gwen Stefani’s eclectic originality, Goldielocks recognizes the need for self control ‘I used to swear a lot in my music, but I’m trying not to because it kind of brings across the wrong image. I’m not a thug’. Stating ‘Aladdin’ as a ‘classic’ film and her most memorable childrens TV programme as Keenan and Kel, she emulates everything you might expect from an a child born in the good old 80’s.
Having performed this year at East London’s Underage Festival, and attended Love Music Hate Racism, Goldielocks admits to a wide variety of musical inspirations. Other than fellow grimsters Frisco, Neon Hitch and Tinchy Stryder, she also admires the likes of Bob Marley, and The Doors. And why not? Because, as she says with the confidence and ease of the late James Brown, ‘If music has got soul, then I like it’.
So what’s the next chapter in Goldielocks’ musical fairytale? More collaboration’s with her Croydon counterparts? ‘Maybe this time next year you’ll be hearing Goldielocks feat. Dizzle Rascal, who knows?’. But in the meantime, with a single coming out before Christmas, she’s getting her head down and concentrating on her new album, focusing around her own material ‘I want write all new songs and I’m going to produce it all myself’. As if that wasn’t enough to be getting her teeth into, the golden girl also hosts her own monthly club night, ‘Hard Knock Wife’, where she caually flits between DJ-ing and performing her own music. Not only does it give her a chance to showcase her own material, but gives other young artists the chance to be heard, ‘we play everything from grime, dubstep, house – it’s all types of underground music, people perform, DJ’s come down, DJ battle, all good fun and really positive’.
Evidently, this girl doesn’t need bears as her backing singers, nor does she need to follow someone else’s footsteps on the yellow brick road to stardom. She’s here to talk frankly about her own life, and to introduce some fresh and original sounds from the underground scene. May she continue to do so happily ever after.
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Posted Thu, December 04, 2008