“Why is no one making R&B anymore?” It’s a question I have been asked frequently over the past decade or so. It’s a valid but one with an obvious answer – in the current climate dance pop sells, so many singers have been forced to transition stay successful in the mainstream. It doesn’t help that a lot of music is misclassified as R&B; putting an R&B singer on a dance track does not make a song R&B. With this in mind, I approached my first interview of 2015 with interest.
It’s a cold, wintery afternoon, and I find myself at the home of My Ish records to meet Troy Hudson, a young South East Londoner who is aspiring to bring the 90s R&B vibe back. As a 90s child, she grew up on a stable diet of Hip Hop and R&B. “My parents were quite young when they had me,” she tells me, “they listened to a lot of that music. I was always around their friends – singers, breakdancers and MCs, and I grew up watching them perform.”
“My favourite singers were all the divas, Lauryn Hill, Mary J Blige, Faith Evans.”
“I’ve been singing ever since I could speak,” she continues, “I went to theatre school when I was 8, and I recorded my first track when I was 16. My neighbour is a producer called Mdot-E, and we used to make tracks together.”
Despite her love for singing, she actually pursued an education in Dance, training in tap and ballet while at theatre school. Her talent was recognised when she joined the prestigious BRIT school at the age of 14, alongside classmates such as Adele, Jessie J and Katy B. “A lot of people knew me for dancing, so when I moved into music it was a surprise.”
Curious, I ask her more about the process of getting into the BRIT school. “It wasn’t an audition, it was more like a workshop process,” she explains, “You take a class with the actual dance tutors at the school, and they look at your technique, and whether they can help you.”
Hudson attended the BRIT school until she was 19, all the while making music on the side. “We did everything – Youtube, play gigs here and there, and make embarrassing music videos!” she says, cringing at the memory of it. “My father ran an independent label called Banana Klan (the home of Black Twang and Roots Manuva), so he had a lot of connections in music.”
After leaving the BRIT school, she went to City University to study Live Music Events Management, an unusual choice for someone with her training. “I’ve always wanted to have my own MOBO awards,” she laughs, “I thought that if I never did anything in music or dance as an artist, then I could do my own events.”
“In my last year at BRIT I studied the arts business and the industry. I worked at PRS for a week, I went around to a lot of venues and establishments. I have so much love for music that I wanted to do something even if I wasn’t a performer.”
While at University, she was scouted to join a girl group called RD. “I was scouted to join them,” she reminisces. “A friend of mine knew the manager of the group through her uncle. I was put together with Chronz (the rapper in the group), and then Martika joined later on.”
RD took up four years of her life during and after university. The group was signed to Polydor and worked an extensive schedule of recording and performing. “The first six months we were literally in each other’s pockets,” Troy says, recalling the experience. “We were recording and touring, supporting artists like JLS, Keri Hilson, N Dubz, and we did the MOBO tour.”
“I really enjoyed touring with JLS. They were like our brothers, having been through the whole X-Factor experience. They gave us a lot of advice and looked after us.”
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RD released a couple of singles but the response wasn’t what the label were looking for, and eventually they were dropped by Polydor and their management.
“Honestly, it was a bit of a relief,” she says of the decision. “It wasn’t a shock – we were struggling at the time, and didn’t know what to do with our careers.” It’s obvious she still has a lot of affection for the other two members, using the royal we to describe her experiences. “After that we decided to go our separate ways. But I love the girls, and we’re still friends.”
Post RD, she took some time out to take a break from the music industry, and even worked as a postwoman for a year. “I’ll be honest, I loved it!” she exclaims, joking about it. “I didn’t want to stand in a shop and do retail all day, and working for the Post Office was good money. I saw a lot of young postmen and postwomen in my area, and I thought I could do it. It was a lot of fun, getting up early and going into a office full of banter.”
Despite the normal life, she was still writing songs. She started working with MdotE again on side projects, and a few of the songs on her new EP ‘P.Y.T (Protect Your Throne)’ were also written during that period. When she felt ready, she approached independent label My Ish with a view to getting back into the industry. “We had been on each others radar for a while, and it felt like a natural partnership.”
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Is there any difference working with a smaller, independent label?
“Stress free,” she says, emphatically. “It’s refreshing to be able to express myself and have others who share my mindset. It’s a lot of pressure being signed to a major label – so many people have a say in what you do, and sometimes your own opinion can get washed out.”
‘PYT’ is an interesting listen, a throwback EP that evokes memories of 90’s R&B. Consisting of seven songs, each one follows the other, telling the stories of various stages of relationships. We discuss the concept, and I ask if that was a deliberate process. “It wasn’t deliberate that it had a 90s vibe,” she answers. “That’s just the way I sing. I love that era and it’s where my influences came from. I didn’t ask for a specific sound; it just happened to come out that way”
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“When I wrote the songs, I didn’t purposely write them in a way that connected. It just worked out that they did. “So we went with it, and that led to the idea of the visual project, shooting a video for each song, with all of them connected.”
With ‘PYT’ released and the visual project almost complete, she has another EP lined up which will follow on from where the last one ended. In keeping with her theme, each song will also have a music video.
“The message will be the same, but it won’t be the same story, more like a spin off.”
After an engaging conversation I realised we’ve overrun. The next journalist arrives and starts setting up cameras, so I get one last enquiry in about her ambitions.
“Continue to express myself through music. I’ve always wanted to travel and experience music in different parts of the world – branchout as Troy Hudson, and hopefully sell thousands of records!”
Simple goals.
