Client: Clash
She’s been building this world – her “universe” – for years, describing it as a merge of visual nods to True Detective, Stranger Things and Euphoria, which she combines with “an expansion of the world I already grew up in. Some parts are exaggerated: I went to parties but I don’t drink or do drugs, I’m not that crazy of a person,” she adds, tugging on her black babydoll dress, her doe eyes made even bigger with kohl.
She’s just played her first ever show in London at a sold out Heaven, where the line snaked around the block. Lots of excited girls. Lots of gloriously big-soled boots and eyeliner. “From what I’ve seen all the girls seem so sweet and, like, friends with each other. And that’s what I want,” she says eagerly. “I’ve been to so many concerts where it’s male dominated and I’ve felt uncomfortable. It’s also so much fun when you wait in line and make friends with people – I want my shows and my fanbase to feel that it’s a safe place for them to be there for each other.”
LaRosa, who turned 20 in September, has been performing since childhood, when her saxophonist father would take her and her brother, Thomas, to “jams and open mic nights”, where she’d sing jazz standards while Thomas played guitar: “I’m very grateful for all the experience I had performing because now it doesn’t feel like a foreign thing.”
Taylor Glasby 