The Growth of Olivia Dean

Part of Olivia Dean’s recent return to self has been unpacking her past. For many years, she straightened her natural hair, without ever questioning the reason behind her routine. “It’s hard accepting the features you’re born with if stereotypically in our culture they’re not deemed as beautiful,” she says. For the singer, hair is symbolic, a memory of childhood where she looked different to her mostly white classmates. “In primary school, I was the only black girl in my class at one point. In secondary school it was a bit more diverse, but I straightened my hair every single day. But I never unpacked why I did that, it was just something I did and I never spoke about it. It was an unconscious uniform that I felt I had to wear.” 

Just two years ago, Dean stopped straightening her hair. It wasn’t a statement decision or necessarily conscious, but since the Black Lives Matter movement became a louder conversation in 2020, the artist has reflected on her own Caribbean ancestry. While she still loves her hair slicked back, like she wears it in our shoot and when I speak to her, the freedom of embracing her natural hair shaped her EP Growth. The album is a concoction of jazz-inspired, neo-soul anthems and is centred around self and love. The ending of a longterm relationship, combined with the period of self-reflection Dean experienced in lockdown alone last year, narrated the themes of the five-piece record. 

The vulnerability in Dean’s lyrics is refreshing and her honesty comes from the opinion that people will apply their own meanings to her words anyway. “If it’s my story and things that happened to me, then I don’t really give a shit,” she says. “Everyone’s a character in everyone else’s story and everyone’s entitled to share the things from their lives. I also think people aren’t really thinking about my life when they’re listening to my music. They’re attaching it to their own stories; thinking about that boy that done them wrong or the argument they had with that person. I don’t think they’re thinking about little old me in Southeast London,” she laughs. 

Dean’s right in that her words are personal but also centred around oh-so-human experiences. In the song Be My Own Boyfriend, she speaks to self-love, with lyrics such as “Lately, I’ve been just what I need” and “Hold me close, love myself the most,” a shared experience for many in pivotal life stages such as our early twenties or that period of time after a breakup. Olivia uses speech in parts of her songs, speaking the lyrics rather than attaching any melody or difference in pitch to them – a technique that humanises the poetry. Growing up, she cites Paul Simon as a favourite singer, loving the way he writes about details. 

“That’s what I really like in songwriting, writing about really small things but attaching big meaning to them.” Another love was Amy Winehouse, with Dean admiring the prowess she had for storytelling. “She would say real turns of phrases. I think it’s important sometimes to not try and be so poetic with things, because I think music and art is supposed to capture the time you’re in.” She writes about love, but is pragmatic in that she needs to be alone right now, to grow. “Falling in love is quite tiring, it’s very time-consuming,” she says. “I’m someone where when I’m in love, I’m in it. You know, I’m 100 percent a romantic and really invest in people and their lives. Growth is exploring those themes.” 

Although her music and videos have an air of old-world glamour, Dean’s innovative and quirky, too. In the midst of a dire 2020, she brought music to communities in the UK with a truck tour; a bright yellow lorry was driven to various outdoor locations so Dean and her band could keep music alive in a pandemic-ravaged year. She has a quiet kind of confidence, one that comes from self-assuredness and a sense of bravery instilled in her up- bringing. Her mum’s Christine Dean – a passionate feminist and Deputy Leader of the Women’s Equality Party. “She’s so powerful,” says Dean. “So I think maybe I’ve got a little bit of that in me,” she smiles. Dean’s bold, but still in the early stage of her career. Take her performance at East London’s All Points East festival over summer: she had an early afternoon spot and had no idea who or how many people would show up. The doors to the festival opened at 1.30pm and she was onstage at 2pm. “We were doing soundcheck at 10 minutes to two and it was literally my mum, dad, brother and like two other humans in the crowd,” she laughs. “I was like ‘Oh this will be so embarrassing.’ But then I had to go onstage and walked on to like 3000 people in the crowd. I thought ‘Oh my God, where did they come from?’ I was completely shocked and overwhelmed.” The experience is now what she describes as a career highlight. 

As of late, taking time to slow things down hasn’t come naturally for The Brit School educated Gen- Z’er, with her late teens spent in the performing arts school before touring as a backup singer with Rudimental. Of her time at school before Brit, Dean remembers being the class performer. “I was always that kid in school who was weird and annoying,” she says. “I always wanted to sing in assembly and everyone was like ‘OMG babe we’ve heard you sing Alicia Keys 10 times… just relax.’” That was before she got to the Brit School at 16, and everything changed. “When you get to Brit, everyone’s that annoying person so it’s a safe place.” 

Despite the fast pace of recent years, Dean is in full rest mode when we speak. This looks like eating carbonara three times a week (she describes it as her “reset food”) and watching television. “Resting looks like drinking tea, making carbonara and watching How To Get Away With Murder. I’m less involved in my life right now and I’m trying to be involved in a TV series.” She’s also recently been to her first fashion show, witnessing the extravagance that was Rejina Pyo. “Fashion was always something I was interested in but I didn’t really know a lot about it. If you don’t grow up in that world, it can be quite elitist,” she says. “So I’ve really enjoyed having a look in. I love experimenting with clothes and colour and being quite bold.” 

In the moment we’re speaking though, both fashion and her first love, music, come secondary to the enthusiasm she gives her favourite pasta. Carbonara is the symbol of reset mode right now, so it’s only natural to ask how she makes hers. “The secret is you don’t need any cream. Any recipe that says you need to use cream is false,” she says. “All you need is whipped up egg yolk, parmesan, black pepper and a bit of bacon. That’s it.”