Dominique Young Unique is not your average 22 year old

She began rapping at 11, but being the only girl in a male-dominated scene didn’t exactly thrill her family: “They thought I was going to end up pregnant! I used to hang with a lot of boys, we used to do music in a circle and I’d write my little ABC rhymes”.

She got her break through recording in Tampa rap-duo Yo Majesty’s studio, where she caught the attention of producer, David Alexander. “He saw me and was like ‘wow, she’s really good, we could experiment with this.’” Since then she’s released three EPs, modelled for Vogue at the behest of Anna Wintour, and featured on hit tracks by Le Youth, (“Dance With Me”) and Diplo and DJ Fresh (last summer’s aptly titled “Earthquake”, a floor-rattling dance track). She acknowledges the former was a notable departure from her usual sound. The cut layers her jarring, ferocious flow over euro-pop beats and a distorted TLC sample. “When Le Youth played me the track it was weird,” she explains. “I was like, ‘TLC is going on in there and it’s so old school” – and then I come on with a rap verse. It’s kind of awkward, but also so different. It grew on me.”

Her debut single “Throw it Down” is her strongest work yet: a foot stomping statement of intent, mixing dance beats with a stuttering flow that marries the trap music she grew up listening to with the club tracks that dominate radio. Produced by Benga and DJ Fresh, it plays to Dominique’s chameleon like ability to adjust to her collaborators. “DJ Fresh just came up with all these new, different electro beats,” she explains. “We were in the studio waiting for Benga, and I just kept singing “Throw it Down”, going along with the beat, and it sounded wicked. We started going back and forth throwing words at each other and then I wrote my verses. We did it in one day.”

Dominique’s willingness to play with her style suggests she has a promising future ahead of her. She’s due to play her first headline show in London on 25 March, and later this summer she’ll be playing Wireless alongside the likes of Outkast and J Cole, who she mentions she’d like to work with.

However, her tastes in collaborators branches further afield; when asked which other artists she admires she gushes about Solange Knowles. “Most people just look at her like - “oh, that’s Beyonce’s sister” – but they really need to look at her like a musician. She has a great voice and she makes great music.”

At the moment her focus is on writing her album, spending days in the studio munching on “chocolate and candy – so much candy” and working on being able to harness her emotions to help her tell her life story. She’s coy about what we can expect, but warns: “I’m not going to have a lot of collaborations on there because I’m just trying to focus on myself, but there’ll be a few. It’s going to be a very different sound.“ With a track record like hers, you can’t help but believe her. This may yet be the year of Dominique Young Unique.

Throw It Down is released 20 April via Epic Records.