Headlining the first day of this year’s SXSW Rolling Stone Future of Music showcase on March 12, Lola Young returns to the stage in one of the first performances after her months-long mental health hiatus. Rolling Stone played a video interview of Young to introduce her set, where she said, “I needed to take that break, but I’m back.”
The 25-year-old pop singer from South London gained popularity with her hit song “Messy.” However, Young received backlash for canceling live shows last year following a legal dispute with her producer, Carter Lang, according to the BBC. Following this criticism, her hiatus ended after she accepted this year’s Grammy award for Best Pop Solo Performance.
Decked out in a baby pink tracksuit, Young started her 14-song set with “d£aler,” a song off her most recent album. Captivating the audience with lyrics about freedom and self-release, the crowd sang along with her, maintaining a high-energy experience throughout her performance.
Young stopped the set after the third song to give a speech that she had written on her Notes app, titled “Art is Rebellion.” Pulling out her phone, Young made a statement about the fear she feels with the current state of the world.
The audience’s silence pierced through her moment as she left them with this — “We must continue to stand in togetherness, hold hands and take a deep breath …” Using her platform as a way to spread awareness, the audience’s cheers echoed throughout the theater in agreement as she segued into “Penny Out of Nothing.”
In the Rolling Stone video clip from the opening, Young said, “The music that I make is just unapologetic. It doesn’t say, ‘it can be a bit of this, a bit of that,’ but it feels very honest.”
Young’s set exemplified this as she went through songs about sadness, liberation and empowerment. Filled with emotion, one of Young’s last songs of the night, “You Noticed,” prompted waving flashlights around the theater.
“There might come a day where I don’t get to kiss your face / But I tried my best to not love you tonight / And you noticed,” Young sang, with rasp and grit in her voice as the audience swayed along.
Young ended her set with the song that she said “changed (her) life.” The audience erupted in cheers as the drum started the beat for “Messy,” her most popular song with more than 1.1 billion streams on Spotify. As she turned the mic to the audience, they sang, “I’m too messy / And then I’m too fucking clean / You told me ‘Get a job’ then you ask where the hell I’ve been.”
Closing out one of her comeback performances, Young gave thanks to the band that played with her throughout the night. She left the stage saying, “I love each and every one of you with my whole being, thank you so much.”
