Young released the albums My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely and This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway in 2023 and 2024. The latter made the Top 20 of the UK Albums Chart after its single "Messy" went viral on TikTok and topped several singles charts. Young was subsequently listed on Forbes 30 Under 30 and won the Ivor Novello Award for Rising Star and the ASCAP Vanguard Award. Her third album I'm Only F**king Myself and its tracks "One Thing", "D£aler", and "Post Sex Clarity" peaked at numbers 3, 18, 27, and 60 in the UK. Young's health declined around the time of the album's release and she cancelled her schedule after collapsing on stage.
Life and career
2001–23: Early life and career beginnings
Lola Emily Mary Young[1] was born on 4 January[2] 2001[3] in Croydon[4] to a Jamaican-Chinese father and English mother.[5] She grew up in Beckenham[4] with three sisters[6] including Becky Young, who campaigned for the music industry environmental charity EarthPercent and ran the anti-fatphobia Instagram account Anti-Diet Riot Club.[7] Their mother worked for Mind,[8] while their stepfather was a bass player and their great-aunt was The Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson.[9] Lola started writing songs aged 11[10] and begun performing at open mic nights aged 14.[7] From Year 10, she attended the BRIT School,[11] a place she described in an interview as "a hub for people who maybe couldn’t be themselves even at home, but [...] could be themselves there".[12]
Young in 2016
In January 2016, she won the under-16 category of the Open Mic UK singing competition and appeared on CBBC's Got What It Takes?,[13] which she reached the finals of.[14]Amy Winehouse's former manager Nick Shymansky met Young the following year after she performed at The Bedford in Balham.[10] He had gone there looking for a replacement artist for a documentary[15] and subsequently became Young's joint manager with Nick Huggett, who had previously signed Adele.[8] Young was subsequently diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder aged 17.[8]
Young released her debut single, "6 Feet Under",[16] in October 2019.[17] She also released the EP Intro that year,[14] followed by a music video for Intro track "3rd of Jan (Getting Ready)" that day.[18] Promotion for Intro was interrupted by Young developing a cyst on her vocal cords, for which she underwent surgery.[19][20] By March 2020, she had signed with Capitol Records and had released the single "Pick Me Up".[21] The following month, she released the single "None for You"[22] and the EP Renaissance.[23] In July, she released the single "Woman",[24] which was accompanied the month after by a video in which she and several other women appeared nude.[25]
Young released "So Sorry" in January 2022,[32] which she performed on The Graham Norton Show.[33] Her subsequent singles "Stream of Consciousness", "Annabel's House", "Don't Hate Me", "What Is It About Me", and "Money" were released between November 2022 and May 2023[34][35][36] and featured on her debut album My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely in May 2023.[37] The title was a reference to her schizoaffective disorder[38] and many of the tracks pertained to it.[37] A returning cyst meant that Young's voice was raspier than on previous records.[37][39] The album failed to chart,[6] although "Don't Hate Me" went viral on TikTok.[40]
2023–present: "Messy" and chart successes
Between September 2023 and May 2024, Young released the singles "Conceited", "Wish You Were Dead", "Fuck", and "Messy".[41][42][43] That June, all four appeared on This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway,[44][45] an album largely written about substandard ex-boyfriends.[46] She then released the August single "Flicker of Light",[47] which subsequently featured on the soundtrack to EA Sports FC 25,[48] and the October single "Charlie", which featured Lil Yachty. Around the time of the latter, she featured on Tyler, the Creator's "Like Him" from his album Chromakopia.[49]
Young in 2025
From November 2024, Young spent five weeks undergoing drug rehabilitation to address a cocaine addiction.[6] Around this time, "Messy" went viral on TikTok[50] and live, stripped, instrumental and sped-up variations of the song were released.[51] The song eventually spent four weeks at No. 1 on the UK singles chart,[52] topped the charts in Belgium, Croatia, Israel, Australia, and Ireland,[53] and charted at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100.[54] "Like Him" also entered the top 40 in the UK and US around this time.[55][56]
She released the single "One Thing" in May[66] alongside a music video, which was later nominated for Best Pop Video at the 2025 UK Music Video Awards.[67] She subsequently supported Billie Eilish in Paris on two June gigs of her Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour at her invitation.[68][69][9] Young released the singles "Not Like That Anymore", "D£aler", and "Spiders" between June and September,[70][71] when all three and "One Thing" featured on I'm Only F**king Myself[72][sic],[7] an album about sex, drugs, and poor mental health.[73] "One Thing", "D£aler", focus track "Post Sex Clarity", and "Spiders" entered the UK singles chart, the first three at 18, 27, and 60,[74][75][76] and the album debuted at number 3 on the UK Albums Chart.[74] Young subsequently planned a deluxe version of I'm Only F**king Myself[77] and a tour visiting the UK and North America in late 2025 and South America and Europe in 2026.[67]
Throughout 2025, Young concerts occasionally suffered complications; an April performance at Coachella was interrupted after she ran offstage retching[78][79] and a June performance at the Summertime Ball reduced her to tears after her in-ear monitors failed mid-performance.[80][81] Her team hired a sober coach after she relapsed and cancelled an appearance on The Tonight Show in July,[6] and welfared her out of a performance at a Prudential Center charity concert in September. Two days after the latter, she got five songs into a set at All Things Go's New York festival before collapsing during "Conceited"[82][83] and cancelling all further concerts to work on herself.[67] By October, she had been interviewed by NME for their coffee table book The Cover 2024-2025, which had been scheduled for November.[84]
Artistry and personal life
"I typically write a song on piano or guitar, then I put it down on voice memos in my phone and type it out in my notes app. [...] I never want to force writing, because once you force something it becomes very disjointed, and not intentional. Typically I have to have had a particular experience that inspired me or if not that, I have to be in the right frame of mind and to be feeling the song. If there is no inspiration it’s hard to get something out of the thin air."[sic]
Young wrote her earlier works and her works from This Wasn't Meant For You Anyway onwards as though she was talking to a friend,[6] having been inspired to return to the practice after listening to SZA's Ctrl.[50] She cited influence from Joni Mitchell, Prince, Frank Ocean, and Anderson .Paak in 2019[86] and from Prince, Ocean, and Joni Mitchell in 2021.[87] She stated in June 2024 that she grew up listening to a combination of hip-hop such as Eminem and "singer-songwriter-type stuff" such as Avril Lavigne and Bon Iver, before developing interest in older artists such as Prince and Michael Jackson.[88] In an interview with Junkee, she described Arctic Monkeys' AM as an unconscious influence on This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway, though stated that she avoided bringing in references in favour of just making music "until something magic happens".[89]Clash used their review of I'm Only F**king Myself to assert that they could hear influence from Leonard Cohen, Ocean, and Radiohead in the album.[90]
Young was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder after writing "Messy",[3] a track she has described as "an ADHD anthem".[91] In May 2025, she replied "I like pussy as well u kno"[sic] to a comment on a video on her TikTok account of her dancing to CMAT's "Take a Sexy Picture of Me".[53] Multiple outlets interpreted Young's comment as her coming out as bisexual,[92][93] though James Factora of Them argued that liking "pussy" did not necessarily constitute attraction to women.[94] Young later discussed her bisexuality on I'm Only Fucking Myself's opening track "Fuck Everyone"[sic].[95] In August 2025, she and several other acts called on Keir Starmer to block drilling at Rosebank oil and gas field.[96] That October, she sued "Messy" producer Carter Lang after he claimed writing credits on four of her songs.[97]
"Like Him": "The ARIA Report: Week Commencing 11 November 2024". The ARIA Report. No.1810. Australian Recording Industry Association. 19 December 2024. p.5.
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