Bea Kristi is tired. She’s had a long day at school, and now she’s sat opposite me – clad in baggy brown cords, a comfy sweater, and silver jewellery – in Room 1 at The Grove Studios in west London, as she takes a break from rehearsing for her first ever gig, due to take place the next day. Bea, a singer-songwriter, is better known as Beabadoobee, and came to attention via her disarmingly simple, gentle love song “Coffee”, which attracted 300,000 YouTube views through one of those fan-upload accounts before she was even aware of it. Industry interest quickly followed, and she chose to sign with the Dirty Hit “family.”
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It’s with Dirty Hit that she released her EP Patched Up last Friday (7 December). Taking the promise of “Coffee” and other early tracks like “Bobby” and “Home Alone”, Patched Up expands on Bea’s soft but warm aesthetic, and ends up sounding like how looking at a sunset out of your childhood bedroom window feels. With music this touching and emotionally real, Bea has resonated massively both in her own peer group of teens, and beyond, and she looks to have a massive 2019. It’s about time the world got acquainted with Beabadoobee, so here are the 11 things you need to know:Bea was born in Manila, in the Philippines, but grew up in London after moving to the UK with her parents aged three. Though she’s got lots of influences, she thinks that her music is “low-key similar” to “some of my mum’s OPM music – which is old Filipino music.”“Most of the music I listen to is by people who are dead, or American,” she laughs. “Most of the artists I look up to are like, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Elliott Smith, Daniel Johnston.”“I was 17 when I started playing guitar, and I’m 18 now. I always wrote songs, but the first song I ever wrote on guitar was “Coffee,” she says. She is, however, a seasoned violinist, and feels like her experience has been a help and hindrance to her guitar-playing: “I learned the violin for seven years,” Bea tells me. “The thing is when you play the violin, you’re supposed to hold the neck quite tightly – even now, every time I play guitar, it feels like I’m holding a violin.”When I ask who made her want to start making music, Bea tells me: “Kimya Dawson. Basically the Juno soundtrack was the one where I was like ‘ohh my god.’ Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson – that kind of battered down, rough sound.”
1) Her Filipina roots have influenced her musical style
2) Elsewhere, her tastes fall a bit more into the US rock and folk categories
3) Kind of amazingly, Bea first picked up a guitar aged 17
4) Her inspiration for learning to play came from an unlikely place
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