Becky Hill

Becky Hill’s second album, ‘Believe Me Now?’ is an effervescent, uplifting dance record that insists on credibility but reaches out confidently for its audience without once compromising on authenticity. Lyrics reflecting on love, self-worth, living life and letting loose sit alongside songs about loneliness, isolation and betrayal in a brilliantly empowering way. This wrecking ball of a record is ambitious, truly exhilarating and paves the way for a type of dance music where uncompromising production lives harmoniously alongside instantly captivating choruses, as witnessed by the Chase & Status-produced, Platinum-selling single, ‘Disconnect’. Hitting the Top 10, the epically anthemic track perfectly treads the line between the rave and radio. “When I thought about what had come before now, I realised I was missing a couple of things: specifically, the element of euphoria but also, I wanted to create a much more mature, sophisticated level of dance music in this album. I think ‘Disconnect’ is the perfect example of that.” Powered by Becky’s formidable vocal – which now extends to falsetto since having vocal surgery – ‘Believe Me Now?’ is the album that will take Becky, already one of the UK’s most successful artists, to a global stage. As the title asserts, it’s time to believe in Becky. She’s more than proven herself. “This has been a really cathartic record to create,” she says. “It was an incredibly direct and quick album to write because for the first time I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I’m really proud of this album and of what it says and what it stands for.” Becky’s achievements – both with this album and her career to date – are nothing short of staggering. The two-time BRIT Award (2022 & 2023) winning artist who recently announced a headline UK and Ireland arena tour has exceeded 10 billion career streams to date, plus six UK Top 10 hits, as well as a number 1 single. Becky’s Gold-selling debut album, ‘Only Honest On The Weekend’ soared into the Top 10 on its release in 2021 and featured the hits ‘Heaven On My Mind’ with Sigala and ‘Remember’ with David Guetta (150 million streams and counting), who also appeared on the top 5 anthem for female empowerment, ‘Crazy What Love Can Do’. What makes this more impressive is that Becky has achieved this as a woman in an industry, and in a genre that is far from celebrated for its parity. As the recent report by the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) concluded, misogyny in the music industry is “endemic” and Becky has felt that keenly throughout her career. It's meant that Becky hasn’t just knocked the door down; she’s had to blast it if off its hinges. And now she’s through to the other side, she’s making sure it’s left wide open for the numerous female, queer and non-binary creatives she continues to collaborate with. She has fought to be seen in videos, fought to be freed from the restraints of being a ‘featured’ artist, fought for her credits, awards, sales and streams. Here is someone who has persistently battled against an industry telling her she wasn’t good enough, she didn’t belong, she didn’t deserve success. Yet, despite this – or maybe, because of it – she has created a career that has far exceeded expectations not only of the industry but even for Becky herself. “There’s been a lot of politics along the way, but I will always use my platform – and my pen! – to confront the bullshit. Yeah, it’s a struggle, and sometimes I’ve felt exhausted, but the fight has been worth it.” This is overnight success that has been twelve years in the making. Becky, who is from Bewdley in Worcester, was brought up around an eclectic mix of music. Her parents and four older siblings filled her ears with pop, Motown, Northern Soul, classic rock, R&B and D&B. At 11 she took herself to the gym and while on the treadmill began to discover her own tastes, gravitating towards house, dance, trance, happy hardcore, and pop-punk. She began writing songs on her pink guitar at the age of 13; by 16 she was in a band called the Shaking Trees with a “48-year old drummer, a 30-year old scientist on keys, and a 26-year old Russian chef on bass”. At 17, looking for a way out of sixth form, she successfully auditioned for the BBC talent show The Voice, finishing in the semi-finals. When it was over, she could have gone back to pulling pints at the Cock and Magpie in Bewdley. Instead, she spent nearly two years diligently honing her skills as a performer and writer, before signing to a label and co-writing the double platinum single ‘Afterglow’ for Wilkinson, and, alongside collaborator and friend MNEK, the double platinum-selling Number 1 ‘Gecko (Overdrive)’ for Oliver Heldens. Outside of her music, Becky’s critically acclaimed podcast, The Art Of Rave, has just begun its second series with dream first guest, Fatboy Slim. As well as a hugely successful Ibiza residency, Becky is a favourite at festivals with storming sets at Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds, and Manchester’s Parklife, which she will headline this summer. It was with all this in mind – performance, empowerment, persistence – and on the back of the success of sales, streams and awards, that Becky, who recently turned 30, began writing ‘Believe Me Now?’ The record sees her reunite with both longterm collaborators such as Garage icon MJ Cole, MNEK (Dua Lipa, Little Mix, Beyoncé), Franky Wah (Jessie Ware), Karen Poole (Sugababes, Lily Allen, Kylie), Scott Lowe (David Guetta) and Lauren Aquilina (Rina Sawayama). “I gathered the people I’ve become friends with over 12 years of being in the music industry and told them my deepest, darkest secrets. Together we’ve bought everything to life that I wanted to say in the way I wanted to say it.” She also began new relationships with Chase & Status, PARISI (Fred Again, Ed Sheeran), Toddla T (Roísín Murphy, Stormzy), producer/ DJ duo Maur, dance music don Mark Ralph and the chart-topping Jax Jones. Becky knew she wanted to create a deeper dance experience that would be loved by both hardcore heads as well as more mainstream fans. The playlist she took to producers included club classics such as ‘Hallelujah Anyway’ by Candi Staton, ‘Acapella’ by Kelis and ‘Make A Move On Me’ by Dave Lee. Other references included hits from Eric Prydz, Fedde Le Grande, the Freemasons, Basement Jaxx, Fatboy Slim and the Shapeshifter’s memorable smash ‘Lola’s Theme’. “The mid-oughts were a really special time for dance music because it was when it crossed over from being a late 90s underground scene to the charts. I wanted to encapsulate that past brilliance but keep a sense of the future in mind.” As the title ‘Believe Me Now?’ suggests, Becky wanted it to be an album about affirmation. It’s a challenge not only to the industry, or to those that have caused her harm, but it’s a statement of assertion for herself too. She belongs here, she has something to say, and people want, and need, to hear it. The album opens with ‘True Colours’, a deeply personal song about a sexual assault Becky experienced at the age of 21. It was a difficult time, but she went to therapy, and later the police which has helped her find some resolution. When it came to writing about the attack, she wanted to sidestep sadness or victimhood; this upbeat, uplifting song is about empowerment, not enervation. “I didn’t want it to be emotional and I didn’t want it to be angry – I’ve had years of therapy to examine that anger and not allow it to inform me, who I am. It’s a punchy start to the album, and one that sets you up for a new era.” The album takes the listener on a journey from the anticipatory beginnings of the night, through to the height of the rave before the hazy hours as dawn rises. It’s a record to party to with friends but also a place for solo contemplation too. On the emphatically trance-led smash, the PARISI produced ‘Outside Of Love’, destined to be a festival favourite, Becky lets go of a relationship that is making her isolated. “It’s about having an argument, or a feeling of loneliness with your partner. I love it because it’s this really beautiful, vulnerable song but with the amazing, tranc-y beat underneath it.” The hard synths of rave-centric offering ‘Darkest Hour’, co-written with MNEK further considers feelings of isolation and uncertainty against a brilliant trancey backdrop. It’s a massive highlight of the album. She forces despair aside with the transcendingly joyful ‘Never Be Alone’, made with DJ and producer Sonny Fodara. Becky is particularly proud of how potent her penwomanship has become. “I’ve never been this mature before. The songwriting has felt a lot more concise; I didn’t want to do meaningless or records that were broad in what they were saying. I wanted them to be quite specific, so it’ll be interesting to see how people gravitate towards them and which people like the most.” You could almost be in ‘90s Berlin as Becky takes a moment for the mostly instrumental, beautifully unadulterated hypnotic trance of ‘Linger’. Toddla T takes us back to the mid-aughts with the piano-riff driven banger ‘Keep Holding On’ as Becky demands more from her partner. ‘Multiply’ is a fantastic future house track destined to dominate dancefloors all summer and is followed immediately by ‘Swim’, an anthemic trance banger where Becky reflects on being let down. ‘You used to answer straight away, now you just let it ring/ You used to wipe my tears away, now you just let me swim.’ “My life is in a perfect place now and has been for a while, but I’ve had a pretty rough ten years, probably longer. I was so unsettled and turbulent. Now I feel so calm and confident, more than I ever have before. I’ve come to the place I’ve been dreaming of for a very long time.” We see this as the pace changes and Becky celebrates her fiancée on ‘Man Of My Dreams’ accompanied by MJ Cole’s arresting piano and the subtle yet sumptuous orchestration of The Heritage Orchestra. Written during lockdown with long-time collaborator Karen Poole, “The lyric – ‘You wrote a heart in the sand, got down on one knee, left hand saying will you marry me’ – popped into my head one day, not long after my fiancée had proposed. Karen and I got to work and when we got the master though, we were both in tears, crying! Karen calls us the Bernie and Elton of dance. She does melodies and I do lyrics. I love working with her.” The album closes on a moment of sheer bliss as Chase and Status deliver perfection in the form of ‘Right Here’, a celebration of self-love, growth and acceptance. “That’s your big anthemic togetherness moment that I felt was the perfect, warm, fuzzy ending to the album.” Becky has already achieved a huge amount over the past decade, but of course there’s so much more left to do. “I’d love my music to be resonated with across the globe. I’ve love to have a long-lasting, fulfilling artist career that isn’t boundaried by being the young hot stuff on the scene but where I can continue to lead and pave the way for other women, other people wanting to do this genre of music. I’d love to have real longevity in this industry. I feel like some of my goals have aligned but the one that’s remained constant is that I just want to make great music,” she insists. “She’ll be doing this into her sixties, right? “Oh, trust me, I’ll be raving forever!”