Cat Burns had a pretty amazing 2022, going from busking on the streets of London to becoming a platinum-selling composer and backing Ed Sheeran on his stadium tour.
Go, a rebellious breakup song that she first released three years ago but found a second life on TikTok was the reason for everything.
It debuted on the chart at number 57 in January of last year and rose steadily until it reached its peak position of number two in June.
By then, Sam Smith had given the song a guest verse and flown Burns, then 22 years old, over to the US to perform it on James Corden’s The Late Late Show.
She was nominated for the Brits Critics’ Choice Award at the end of the year, and she placed fourth in BBC Radio 1’s Sound Of 2023, which predicts artists for even greater success in the following year.
The artist, who’s still processing the triumph, says, “I always imagined Go would be the song that introduced me to people, but not in the magnitude that it has.”
The song “had achieved one or two million streams and I was thrilled with that” at this time last year, she recalls.
I initially believed it had passed its prime, but this year has been mental, and I’m incredibly appreciative of everything.
But in many ways, she is exactly where she is supposed to be. Burns creates music with intention, based on her own experiences but intended to inspire, uplift, and heal.
She claims, “I always wanted to write pop music you can relate to. Or to discover songs that might make difficult circumstances feel lighter.
With the sensitive ballad Free, about her desire to come out and the anxiety she felt about telling her family, she fulfills her pledge.
If you only understood the suffering my heart went through, I let you down because I built it up so much in my thoughts.
The response was overwhelmingly positive when she revealed it in 2021.
Many people related their experiences of coming out and how their parents were more accepting after they heard the song. This is because the lyrics make it seem dramatic to want your family to accept you for who you are while yet being concerned that they won’t.
“I believe it humanizes LGBT people instead of dehumanizing us, as the media sometimes does,” the author said.
Burns’ own family, on the other hand, handled the news calmly.
Her mother responded to the announcement by saying, “OK” (followed by “a million questions” a couple of days later). What kind of girls do you like, then? her sister enquired to get the inside scoop.
Music and family have always gone hand in hand. Burns grew up listening to her mother’s record collection and developed a fondness for Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson’s timeless soul music as well as gospel tunes by Donnie McClurkin, Kim Burrell, and Kirk Franklin.
Her mother participated in choirs and urged her daughter to do the same. She recalls shouting the songs from Disney’s High School Musical at the top of her lungs at Welsh summer camps and after-school clubs.
She has other skills besides music. Burns was a talented basketball player who had the potential to play professionally, according to her coach.
And it was because of it that she chuckles, “That I realized I didn’t want to do it.” Because if you pursue it, it takes over your entire life (although I suppose that also applies to music to some level).
Since she hadn’t yet mastered playing an instrument, she had already begun writing her songs and orchestrating them in her thoughts.
“They were horrible,” she laughs, but Burns had enough natural talent to get into the Brit School after performing All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix at her audition.
Since the academy has a reputation as a “fame academy,” many graduates are hesitant to talk about their time there for fear of losing their cool or credibility; however, Burns has no such worries.
She enthusiastically states, “The Brit School provided me the courage to realize that I can pursue a profession in the arts and achieve it.
“I believe that many schools fail to convey the concept at all. They will claim that it is unrealistic, but Brit Schools will respond, “OK, is this what you want to do?” Here are some steps you can take to get there.
When Burns enrolled at the age of 14, he discovered a fellow student named Tim.Smrt had a recording studio that his family had constructed for him in their garden shed.
They collaborated to create the tracks that would make up Burns’ Adolescent debut EP, which was published when she was barely 16 years old.
“I then simply circulated the school telling people to watch it online, and I staged my headline performance at a location called Off The Cuff. I wanted to exert more effort.
One of her career’s early high points was her headline performance. She was joined by strangers who wanted to sing along. Success may have looked tantalizingly close, but according to Burns, the music business didn’t know what to do with a black gay lady who wanted to sing catchy, accessible pop songs in the style of Adele and Ed Sheeran.
She remembers, “I battled a lot since there weren’t many black female singers that they could cite as an example or as proof that this music sells or works.
And that was annoying. Since I’ve always enjoyed listening to this music, I realized there was a demand.
Lockdown ended up being her savior after years of battling. Away from record industry interference and holed up at her mother’s house, she created a TikTok account and began perfecting her sound.
“Just having the leisure to be by myself and write music was incredibly helpful. deciding on my favorite chord progressions and how simple I wanted my tunes to be.
I just kind of hyper-fixed on it and posted video after video after video because I have ADHD.
She discovered her voice while creating those videos, which are personal, acoustic pop tunes that explore and calm a generation’s fears.
Anxiety, People Pleaser, and Low Self-Esteem are just a few of her song titles that sound like chapters from a self-help book, but her lyrics aren’t preachy or self-pitying. She merely exists to be a friend, frequently to herself.
She claims, “I like to live with my songs.” “I like to stay with my writings for a bit after I finish them, especially if they are about anything personal to me, and utilize them to get through whatever it is that I’m going through.
When the moment is appropriate, you must eventually say, “OK, it’s time to give this to the rest of the world – and maybe it might assist other people, too.”
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