Maxine Ashley: "I want music to feel like a fantasy"

“I don’t think [image] is that important because when you focus on it too much you get lost and forget about the music,” Ashley explains to me. “I want people to see beauty in a different light, not just in a conventional way, in tight dresses or make up. You don’t always have to wear the same thing or have natural hair. Body modification is huge, now more than ever, even if it’s in the form of lip injections or boob implants, we can do whatever we want with our bodies…” It’s a bold manifesto and undoubtedly she looks incredible, but it’s a confusing contrast - to listen to her Mood Swings mixtape you’d never guess. It’s full of the kind of lush, swooning RnB slow jams that suggest we’re looking at a new Alicia Keys, a fact Ashley is quick to acknowledge is in large part thanks to producer Kerry “Krucial” Brothers – the man responsible for the first three of Keys’ albums – with whom she recorded much of the mixtape.

“[Mood Swings] is very old-school glamorous because the producers I was working with at the time, like Kerry Krucial still hold onto that old school mentality” she says. “I mostly worked with him, but I also have a cover in there (“Glory Box”) and that was what really pushed me. That’s what I really want to do.”

A cover of the Portishead classic, Ashley’s version doesn’t diverge wildly from the original - musically speaking - but allows her a chance to put her vocals at the fore and they are quite something. She’s got Beyonce’s restrained power down to a tee, a touch of Janelle Monae’s eccentricity, and even some of Robyn’s sass. But Ashley doesn’t want to be any of the above and she’s got bold plans for her debut album: “It’s gonna be theatrical, intense, and you’re gonna FEEL the emotion. Its not hidden like those smooth RnB songs, no – it’s gonna punch you.

“Now I’m working with producers who understand how to make something weird but still… suitable for a voice.”

It’s a recurring theme in our conversation: Ashley doesn’t want to be bracketed in with the other singers out there, adamant that she’ll be true to herself and her vision: “a lot of people weren’t supportive. They’d say I was living in a fantasy world. At first it hurt, because I knew it was my reality, but I realised everything we do is a fantasy at first, and then we make it a reality. So I want music to feel like a fantasy… my fantasy…”

It’s is a fantasy Ashley’s been pursuing for a long time. Raised by her mother in the Bronx, she spent her summers in Puerto Rico with her father, and still feels connected to her Latin heritage. Her musical career began at 13, when she signed a deal with Interscope and moved to Kent and then London, to be moulded into a suitable pop confection. She left the UK at 17, after several years writing music that never saw the light of day. “I wanted to go home,” she recalls, “I had missed thanksgivings, July 4th, everything…as soon as I got back, the same day, I got an email from Pharrell.”

It sounds like a Cinderella story, but Ashley acknowledges Pharrell didn’t come across her by chance. Before she’d ever met the man who’d change her life she was well known for YouTube videos that featured her singing along to Whitney Houston and Rihanna tracks. Apparently the super-producer had been following her for two years before he got in touch.

Keeping in mind the famous story of that other YouTube star Justin Bieber, I can’t help but be a little sceptical; was she just doing it for the attention? “No! I just loved YouTube. Before all this I had a bunch of skits online as well – but I took them down which I’m mad about.

“My YouTube channel was just fun, it was a fake version of what I wanted to see on TV, but that I couldn’t do because I didn’t have the money. The singing was just showing what I could do, pretty much.”

Pharrell has become a mentor to Ashley, signing her to his I Am Other imprint (she first signed with him four years ago but subsequently spent two years as an independent after ending things with Interscope), and producing several of her tracks – her first major release “Perpetual Nights” has his fingerprints all over it: stark beats whip around the languorous melody of her voice, allowing you to get lost in the magic of her lyrics without sacrificing the desire to dance.

He’s also introduced her to collaborators most young artists could only dream of working with: she’s written with Justin Timberlake and has a track on her album featuring Kendrick Lamar. Was it intimidating working with a guy who’s being touted as the future of rap? For the first time in our conversation she gushes: “Working with him was amazing! I’d seen him once before because my friend knew him, playing in this underground venue with a lot of upcoming rappers. I worked with him right after he got signed by [Dr] Dre” she explains. “Pharrell said to me: “You know how you are to me? He’s that for Dre.”

It’s undoubtedly a powerful combination, but Ashley remains tight lipped about the collaboration, which will only serve to fuel anticipation for her forthcoming long-player.

She’s grateful for the role Pharrell has played in her success, although I can’t help but feel it’s both a blessing and a curse: for all the legitimacy she’s afforded by her association with him, there’s a sense that anyone with less personality or a weaker identity could easily have been overwhelmed by such a musical force of nature. “You don’t want to be trying to be somebody else and be near people [like Pharrell] who know who they are, because you can smell that from a mile away” she explains. “They all have their own defined vision: they’re them. You don’t wanna be one of those people trying to be something else. It comes back to you: you lie for so many years and eventually you can’t keep it up.”

I ask her what she thinks it is about Pharrell that makes everything he touches turn multi-platinum. “He lets artists be themselves. He doesn’t try to manufacture anyone. He isn’t scared to help people let their artistic side out. If it were anyone else they’d say: “no you have to make something structured this way for radio,” but he’s like, “no! Be as weird as you wanna be. Be…fucking weird…”

Ashley admits she’s sitting on a huge body of work and is desperate to release it: “Everything that I’ve made, I’m completely 100% proud of and I feel like when you make music, it should be put out whenever you want – even if you change.” It’s a similar predicament to that faced by the likes of Sky Ferreira, Angel Haze and Frank Ocean: promising acts who found themselves stifled and sometimes dropped by labels who wouldn’t release their music. Her frustration shows when I ask about her the next single, which is due to drop in September. She can’t tell me which track off the album it’s going to be, blaming the fact that “there’s politics and shit”, before listing a string of potential cuts recorded with different producers including Liam Howe (who’s worked with FKA Twigs and Foxes) as well as, of course, Pharrell.

It’s clearly been a hard road, but I’m left feeling assured that Ashley is sitting on something very special. “I can’t wait to just finally put all that stuff out. I’m excited, really excited.

“Seriously, it’s like holding in a fart. I’m just ready to fart.”

Maxine Ashley appears on Billion’s “Special”, out soon via Rinse. Find out more: Facebook | Tumblr | Twitter.

Photoshoot by Gaelle Beri