2001–23: Early life and career beginnings
Young was born in Croydon [6] to a Jamaican-Chinese father and English mother [7] and grew up in Beckenham [6] with three sisters [8] including Becky Young, who campaigned for the music industry environmental charity EarthPercent and ran the anti-fatphobia Instagram account Anti-Diet Riot Club. [9] Their mother worked for Mind, [10] while their stepfather was a bass player and their great-aunt was The Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson. [11] Lola started writing songs aged 11 [12] and begun performing at open mic nights aged 14. [9] From Year 10, she attended the BRIT School, [13] 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". [14]
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?; [15] she was subsequently diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder aged 17. [10] Amy Winehouse's former manager Nick Shymansky met Young in 2017 after she performed at The Bedford in Balham. [12] He had gone there looking for a replacement artist for a documentary [16] and subsequently became Young's joint manager with Nick Huggett, who had previously signed Adele. [10]
Young released her debut single, "6 Feet Under", [17] in October 2019; [18] she also released the EP Intro that year, [19] followed by a music video for Intro track "3rd of Jan (Getting Ready)" that day. [20] Promotion for Intro was interrupted by Young developing a cyst on her vocal cords, for which she underwent surgery. [21] [22] By March 2020, she had signed with Capitol Records and had released the single "Pick Me Up"; [23] the following month, she released the single "None for You" [24] and the EP Renaissance. [25] In July, she released the single "Woman", [26] which was accompanied the month after by a video in which she and several other women appeared nude. [27]
Island Records subsequently signed Young and released her single "Ruin My Make Up" in March 2021. [28] By August, she also had released the singles "Bad Tattoo" [29] and "Blue (2AM)"; [30] that month, she released After Midnight, [29] an EP of love songs recorded on piano. [31] In September, she performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden [32] and released the single "Fake", [33] which she performed on Later... with Jools Holland. [32] In November, her rendition of Giorgio Moroder and Philip Oakey's "Together in Electric Dreams" soundtracked that year's John Lewis Christmas advert. [32] Around this time, she was nominated for the Brit Award for Rising Star [14] and came fourth on the BBC's Sound of... poll. [10]
Young released "So Sorry" in January 2022, [34] which she performed on The Graham Norton Show. [35] 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 [36] [37] [38] and featured on her debut album My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely in May 2023. [39] The title was a reference to her schizoaffective disorder [40] and many of the tracks pertained to it. [39] A returning cyst meant that Young's voice was raspier than on previous records. [39] [41] The album failed to chart, [8] although "Don't Hate Me" went viral on TikTok. [42]
2023–present: "Messy" and chart successes
Between September 2023 and May 2024, Young released the singles "Conceited", "Wish You Were Dead", "Fuck", and "Messy", [43] [44] [45] all of which appeared on her June album This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway, [46] [47] an album largely written about substandard ex-boyfriends. [48] She then released the August single "Flicker of Light", [49] which subsequently featured on the soundtrack to EA Sports FC 25, [50] 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 . [51]
From November 2024, Young spent five weeks in drug rehabilitation to address a cocaine addiction. [8] Around this time, "Messy" went viral on TikTok [52] and live, stripped, instrumental and sped-up variations of the song were released. [53] The song eventually spent four weeks at No. 1 on the UK singles chart, [54] topped the ARIA Charts and the Irish Singles Chart, [55] and charted at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. [56] In January, Young performed "Messy" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. [53] "Like Him" also entered the top 40 in the UK and US around this time; [57] [58] by April 2025, "Conceited" had also made the UK singles chart and This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway had made the top 20 of the UK Albums Chart. [59] Around this time, Young was listed on Forbes 30 Under 30 [60] and won the Ivor Novello Award for Rising Star [61] and the ASCAP Vanguard Award. [62]
In May 2025, Young released the single "One Thing", [63] which made the UK Top 20. [64] The song's music video was nominated for Best Pop Video at the 2025 UK Music Video Awards. [65] She then supported Billie Eilish in Paris on two June gigs of her Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour. [66] [67] Between then and September, she released the singles "Not Like That Anymore", "D£aler", and "Spiders"; [64] [68] that month, all four singles featured on her album I'm Only Fucking Myself. [69] By the time of its release, "One Thing" and "D£aler" had already peaked at numbers 18 and 27 on the UK singles chart [70] and "Spiders" had also made that chart. [71] The album was written about sex, drugs, and poor mental health [72] and debuted at number 3 on the UK Albums Chart; focus track "Post Sex Clarity" additionally entered the UK singles chart at number 60. [73] [70] A tour visiting the UK and North America in late 2025 and South America and Europe in 2026 was planned. [65]
Throughout 2025, Young concerts occasionally suffered complications; an April performance at Coachella was interrupted after she ran offstage retching from nerve-induced gastroenteritis [74] [75] and a June performance at the Summertime Ball reduced her to tears after her in-ear monitors failed mid-performance. [76] [77] An appearance on The Tonight Show in July had to be cancelled after Young relapsed, following which Young's team incorporated a sober coach. [8] Two days after her team removed her from a September 2025 performance at a Prudential Center charity concert on safety grounds, she got five songs into a set at All Things Go's New York festival before collapsing during "Conceited" [78] [79] and cancelling all further concerts to work on herself. [65]
