Who run the world? Er, GIRLS dummy! In The Whatever The Weather Issue, i-D’s Music Editor Hattie Collins rounds-up some of finest British femmes in the music industry right now. Between hair, make-up and snapping with photographer Thomas Lohr, i-D online grabbed a couple of quick questions with Russo, one of the lucky ladies who made the cut.
“I think there’s a gap for me. I don’t think I’m the best, cos I’m not, but I’m honest and I’m realistic and I’m not made up. I have faults. And I love that about artists like Amy Winehouse. She was honest.” First setting the ‘nets alight in 2011 with the delicious ‘Fool’, South London singer Russo has since signed a deal with Polydor Records. As direct, sharp and straight to the point as her sonics suggest, the red-haired singer’s darkly epic ethic, produced by duo Yo Video is confident yet cautious, hard yet vulnerable, retrospective yet futuristic. Having worked with Scrufizzer (Laters I’m Off) and Dot Rotten (Bad Tonight), her forthcoming debut album will be all about Russo. “I want to do something more like Kelis’s first album,” she says. “It was produced entirely by The Neptunes and you could feel that; no one else influenced or infiltrated it, it was their own sound that they created. I want to have that same impact with my first album. I don’t want to be some regurgitated version of someone a producer worked with on their last session; I don’t want to look and sound the same as everyone out there.
To read Hattie’s interview with Russo and see the full round-up, grab yourself a copy of The Whatever The Weather Issue and see all H.C’s ladies in all their glory here.
Russo wears shirt Benetton.
Text: Hattie Collins
Photography: Thomas Lohr
Film: James Champion and Katrin Obenauf
Film interview: Zainab Jama
Styling: Ger Tierney and Raphael Hirsch
i-Buy: Order The Whatever The Weather Issue here.
