Charli xcx didn't feel 'accepted' because of her mixed-race identity
Charli xcx says her struggles to be "accepted" because of her mixed-race background contributed to last year's hit album Brat.
Charli xcx "never felt accepted" because of her mixed-race background.
The 33-year-old singer was raised in England by her Indian mother and Scottish father and explained that her feelings of being an outsider contributed to the making of last year's hit album Brat.
In conversation with Swedish rapper Yung Lean for Dazed magazine, Charli said: "I never felt accepted where I went, whether that was in school for being half-Indian and not blonde, or not fully relating to my Indian self because I was half-white."
The Apple hitmaker added: "Then with music, being outside of the mainstream and wanting to be in that world, but also really wanting to reject it.
"It created this concoction that allowed me to (make Brat). I feel like I used to be very afraid. Not since 2016, really, but prior to that I was very afraid."
Charli has previously spoken about growing up with parents from different backgrounds and likened it to living "two half-lives".
She told Vogue Singapore in 2024: "When I would go and visit my mum's family, I felt very Indian.
"It was all the classic scenes of my nani and bappa cooking with Bollywood films playing in the background and everybody speaking in Gujarati.
"But then I'd go home to this other world, which was largely white. It was almost like I would experience the Indian part of my identity only on the weekends. I never quite felt like I fit into either world, which I think commonly happens with mixed-race kids."
Meanwhile, Charli recently described how pop stardom is "f****** fun" but can also be "stupid" and "embarrassing" at times.
In an entry on her Substack last month, the Guess artist wrote: "Being a pop star has its pros and cons like most jobs in this world.
"I don’t view what I do as a ‘job’ and I secondly don’t really view myself as purely a pop star, I’m just using that terminology specifically for this piece of writing."
Charli then turned to the negative sides, noting: "You get to feel special, but you also have to at points, feel embarrassed by how stupid the whole thing is."
The singer stressed that her fans make her "feel like God" when she is performing on stage.
She wrote: "You get to make people cry with happiness, you soundtrack their break ups, their recovery, their crazy nights out, their revenge, their love, their lives."
