Interscope RecordsElla Mai‘s new single, “Boo’d Up,” may be a smash hit, but the British singer-songwriter had a long journey to fame, even after she auditioned for the 11th season of the U.K. version The X Factor, as a part of a girl group called Arize.
The group didn’t get very far, which is why, Ella says, she had to take her career into her own hands.
She tells ABC Radio, “I literally had an epiphany one day. I said to myself, ‘I go to school for music. My family know I can sing. My friends know I can sing.’ But I was like, ‘What am I actually doing to put myself out there?'”
“At this point… [Arize] split up. I wasn’t doing any shows or anything like that. I was just writing my own music and I didn’t have anything on Soundcloud,” Ella continues.
The rising star then decided to start post a video of herself on Instagram singing Fetty Wap‘s “679.”
When the popular gossip blog The Shade Room reposted that video, her followers increased, and one of her videos eventually caught the attention of a very influential artist.
She reveals, “I did maybe two videos a week for over a year… [then] DJ Mustard found me on Instagram, ’cause he saw one of my videos and just DM’d me and was like, ‘What’s your situation?’ I worked in retail and I was still in school.”
“A month or two after he messaged me, I was in New York and he was in Philadelphia,” she recalls. “So he drove from Philly to New York and said, ‘Let’s do a session.'”
That session led to Ella’s deal with Mustard’s 10 Summers Records label and, finally, real success.
“Boo’d Up” is currently in the Billboard top 30.
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
