All photos: Ben Walsh www.benwalshphotos.com

We were lucky enough to catch Lady Leshurr for a quick chat after her Wireless performance on the first day of the festival. Although she can command a stage like a 20-strong crew, in person she is petite and charming. Chatting away to press like they’re her mates, Lady Leshurr is incredibly humble and approachable. What you see is what you get and that’s a chatty, fun and very smart girl from Birmingham, finally getting her dues and making it big on the scene. We mentioned Lady Leshurr as one to watch in our piece here, so you can see why we think she’s someone to add to your playlist: http://upcominghiphop.net/2016/07/07/access-wireless-2016-looking-day-1/

Due to those pesky festival clashes I couldn’t attend her set but our photographer Ben was there to capture it all and had this to say: “It was great capturing Lady Leshurr as she puts so much energy into her performance, constantly tracking her with my camera. She really gets the crowd to bounce off her, singing the lyrics or getting them to cheer.”

This is what Lady Leshurr had to say about working with Wiley, planning Queen’s Speech and putting her personality into her music:

I wanted to start by saying that you’re coming to New York, right?

Yes the Roots Picnic!

So exciting, I will definitely see you out there.

Congratulations on your new single ‘Where Are You Now?’ with Wiley. My first question has to be, how did you get him to turn up?! [to record]

Oh my gosh! Have you watched the video, so he didn’t turn up. I basically called him and asked him where he was, and he was in Cyprus. I just thought, you know what, because he didn’t turn up, I’m going to have to do a little skit to show people that he’s not going to be here when you hear his verse. So I just made that up on the spot, when I’m like “Where are ya man?” and then I had to perform his verse. But yeah it was a nightmare Wiley! I’ve been trying to get him on so much stuff in the past 10-12 years and he’s like, “yeah yeah yeah” and he won’t. But I’m actually happy that he finally gave me something, the verse is hard, it sounds like old Wiley and that’s what I love, that old gritty rawness. But it was a good time, I had fun.

Lady Leshurr showing Nicola UHH how she called up Wiley on set of WAYN?

The First Time Ever Performing #WAYN @ Wireless Festival 😳 #VideoOutNowOnVevo 👸🏾 #WirelessInvasion

A video posted by Lady Leshurr (@imladyleshurr) on Jul 11, 2016 at 9:05am PDT

<

p style="text-align: center;">

I always look forward to the new Queen’s Speech. Did you start them knowing they were going to be a series or did that just happen?

Yes I prepared everything. I took a year out of music and looked at what wasn’t happening in the scene, and I thought ‘fun’. No one is doing fun. And I thought I would run with that because my personality, how I am now, is how I am when I’m off stage anyway. So I just thought, maybe I should start putting my personality into my music and see what happens, and putting my accent [Birmingham] more into music because that’s what makes me stand out from the rest of all the rappers in general. So I just thought, yeah, I’m going to do roughly around five. I knew what I was going to talk about, I’m going to talk about things that people can relate to, that people are going to laugh at and get entertained by and make cultural references. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I co-produced all of the songs except for Queen’s Speech 2.

At this point, a guy we think was Naughty Boy comes up to Lady Leshurr…

[Potentially Naughty Boy]: We were both born in Egypt about 300 years ago

[LL]: In fact 301 years ago

[NB]: It’s called a Pyramid Scheme

[LL]: And we’re Indigo Babies…

[Both]: Indigooooooooo! I hope you’re not recording this…God is recording us!

[Someone else comes to say they’re going to watch Bryson Tiller, to which Lady Leshurr understandably gets excited and wants to go too]

Bryson saw my set as well and I was gassed!

[UHH subsequently spotted that Lady Leshurr got to meet Bryson, which we were very happy about]

QUEEN TILLER 😍👑

A photo posted by Lady Leshurr (@imladyleshurr) on Jul 8, 2016 at 1:45pm PDT

Real quick before you go see Bryson – you look amazing. How do you decide what to wear on stage?

I usually just fling things together on the day, it’s mad. This was given to me to wear today by Zed Tasty and Jamie McFarland. They’re amazing stylists, I love them.

Well you look great. Enjoy Bryson!

Catch Lady Leshurr at the Roots Picnic in Bryant Park on October 1^st – we definitely won’t be missing that one http://rootspicnic.com/newyork/line-up/

Take a look at why we think if you like Nicki Minaj, you would like Lady Leshurr in ‘The Brit Invasion: Approaching Grime as a Hip Hop Fan’ http://upcominghiphop.net/2016/05/24/brit-invasion-approaching-grime-hip-hop-fan/

Find Lady Leshurr online here:
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/ladyleshurr
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LadyLeshurr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imladyleshurr/?hl=en
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCecMENbFygVpGpg68jMfTHw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ItsLadyLeshurr