Becky Hill and Self Esteem are letting their 'True Colours' run free: "Writing that song felt like streaking through the rain"

'True Colours' - the opening track of BECKY HILL's upcoming album 'Believe Me Now?' - is a liberating treasure fuelled by vulnerability and self-belief. Teaming up with SELF-ESTEEM, it’s the latest taster of a soon to drop album that matches dance and pop to open up new horizons. Check out the latest cover story for our New Music Friday playlist edit, PLAY.

Words: Ali Shutler.

"I feel like I haven't looked at the date in a while," laughs Becky Hill, too busy touring Europe, shooting music videos and planning a hectic summer of festivals that'll lead into her first arena headline tour to realise just how close the release of 'Believe Me Now?' is. "I'm excited but apprehensive," she continues, less than two weeks before the big day. For years now, she's been told that dance artists can't sell albums and should stick to chasing hit singles instead, so there's an understandable level of fear around the release. As she's always done, though, Becky Hill is out to prove the doubters wrong.

A pop-infused dance record, 'Believe Me Now?' is euphoric and weighty. "These songs mean a lot to me," Becky admits, having listened to the songs regularly over the past few months. "As soon as I put them out, though, they're not mine anymore. It's going to be a sad day 'cos I'll be losing an album I love, but I'm really happy other people will be able to listen to it."

"I've really seen these songs as company," she continues, wanting others to feel the same sort of comfort and understanding. "I didn't realise at the time I was writing how lonely I felt," Becky explains. But by the time 'Believe Me Now?' was done, she had songs like 'Never Be Alone', 'Disconnect' and 'Lonely Again'. "There was just all this talk of isolation and feeling alone." It was deliberate, but "it felt like I was being heard by my own music," she says. "I hope that it gives other people a sense of being heard as well."

A majority of 'Believe Me Now?' sees Becky talking about her relationship with her fiancé, who she's been with since she was 22. 'Right Here' is a celebration of how far they've come, but also an ode to self-growth, while 'Swim' and 'Outside Love' find her full of doubt. "What I love about this record is how all the songs are stories that people go through all the time. They're by no means exclusive to me, but I feel like I'm the only one talking about," she continues. With social media, people only ever share the best moments from a relationship. "Nobody wants to talk about the fact they've come home from work, and they can't talk about their day because their partner is so wrapped up in their own stress."

"I'm hoping that people find a lot of solace and a lack of embarrassment in the idea that nothing is perfect," she continues. "I would also like it to give people an excuse to dance, whether that be on their own in their bedroom, in their kitchen, in the car, in a rave or at a festival," she adds. "I want it to bring people joy and euphoria."

While 2021's debut album 'Only Honest On The Weekend' was a collection of songs written across a ten-year period, 'Believe Me Now?' is far more considered and deliberate.

"I wanted to create a body of work that felt like people could invest in me as an artist and not just have songs that they liked," says Becky. "I can only write pop songs, and I'm not ashamed of that," she continues, recruiting a number of iconic dance producers to give the record the sort of emotional, upbeat weight it needed.

"I know that I'm probably not dance enough to be considered a dance artist, and I'm not pop enough to be considered a pop artist, but I want to carve out my own space where I could have both of those things," says Becky. "David Guetta and Calvin Harris have created this commercial dance space for themselves, and I wanted a piece of that," she adds. "It hasn't been done by a woman before, and I wanted to open that door for myself and others."

"There will always be a want and a need for dance records, so people can lose themselves," she says of the genre's continued popularity, but in recent years, the likes of Fred Again.. and Venbee have used dance music to confront things like depression and loss, rather than offer pure escapism. "It's just seen in a more respected light," says Becky. "Artists are able to experiment with more serious, tangible life experiences, and that's only ever going to be a good thing."

Becky Hill lays out all her ambitions for 'Believe Me Now?' on the opening track 'True Colours'. Vulnerable lyrics are twisted into a message of self-empowerment, while a guest spot from Self Esteem leans into the healing nature of community that drives the more urgent, blissed-out moments of the record. "I was ready to do something different," says Becky, with the album taking inspiration from boundary-pushing dance records by the likes of Eric Prynz, Fedde Le Grand and Basement Jaxx from the early noughties. "I wanted to reference that moment of dance rebellion. I wasn't going to make more bubblegum dance music, I wanted to do something a little less obedient," says Becky. "'True Colours' is that to me. There's no real chorus, we're just yelling, and I love it. As soon as we wrote it, I knew it was going to be the opener. It feels very anti-everything. It was very much balls out," says Becky. "Writing that song felt like streaking through the rain."

As well as a nod to constantly having to prove herself throughout her career, the track also grapples with a sexual assault Becky experienced when she was younger. "It never really felt that vulnerable to write, but looking back at it now, it is an incredibly vulnerable song," says Becky. "I went into the idea of talking about rape very confidently. I'd done the work, I'd gone to the police, and I'd spoken to my friends, who never believed me at the time. I'd processed this really terrible thing that had happened to death, and I felt healed. By the end of the first week of talking about it, though, I was in bits," says Becky, with her therapist describing it as a "shame hangover".

"They also said talking about something that holds so much shame for people, in a way that feels so unapologetic, is incredibly powerful," continues Becky. "For me, writing that song was incredibly empowering. Playing it feels incredibly empowering. And what I'm trying to do at the moment is not talk about it in a way that it flips into being a different story," she explains. "I want that song to be an empowering reminder to myself that not even something like that can dim my shine."

That confidence can be felt across 'Believe Me Now?', which is something Becky is still coming to terms with. "My 20s were incredibly turbulent. There was a lot of not knowing who I was, what I was doing or if any of this had a point," she explains. After spending her teenage years taking singing lessons and performing in bands, Becky auditioned for the first season of talent show The Voice in an attempt to avoid going to uni. She ended up making it to the semi-finals and eventually landed a record deal while racking up thousands of pounds of debt. She went on to co-write and perform on Wilkinson's crossover hit 'Afterglow' and topped the UK singles chart with Oliver Heldens collab 'Gecko (Overdrive)'. Her first proper solo single 'Losing' was released in 2014 and entered the charts at 56. She was dropped by her label soon afterwards. "It felt like it came out of nowhere," she says today.

She continued releasing music, but there was a constant fear that she'd never have success as a solo artist. Everything changed at Reading Festival 2021. "I had a 60,000-person validation of all the records I've been a part of," says Becky, with the crowd losing their minds to the likes of 'Afterglow', 'Lose Control' and 'My Heart Goes (La Di Da)'. "I'd never seen something like that on my own terms before. It lit a fire under my ass, and I've been reclaiming my space in the dance sphere ever since."

"It took me years to realise there was any sort of belief in me as an artist," she continues, with 'Believe Me Now?' driven by that newfound self-confidence. "I feel like I can connect with people without having to apologise for my existence now. I'm thankful for that because it was getting really tiring," she adds before breaking into a grin. "Anybody who doesn't believe in me now should." ■