Beabadoobee photographed by Sammy King and ES Magazine
(Picture: Sammy King and ES Magazine)Let’s imagine if Bea Kristi could have glimpsed her current life from any number of chequered points along the way. From when she moved to London from the Philippines aged three into an entirely new culture. From the pokey Westminster studio flat that she and her parents, both nurses, shared for the majority of her pre-teens. Or perhaps from the time when, aged 17, she was kicked out of Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith for ‘unfair reasons that took a massive toll on [her] self image’. The premonition would likely not have been the spacious, two-bedroom apartment where she is sitting cross-legged today.
In many ways the flat is typical of a 22-year-old given the freedom of their first home away from home; a sea of products and detritus litters every surface of the bathroom, while her bedroom is piled with clothes, shoes and enough stuffed toys to hint that her childhood still isn’t that far in the rear-view mirror. In other more notable ways, however, it is not. Bought with the profits from Canadian singer Powfu’s TikTok megahit, ‘Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)’, which samples Kristi’s — stage name Beabadoobee — 2017 single ‘Coffee’, it’s the tangible product of what viral success can get you. Currently ‘Death Bed’ is sitting at more than 1.2 billion Spotify streams. It was the first song Kristi ever wrote.
