The singer and songwriter Arlo Parks was born Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho in 2000 and raised in Hammersmith, west London. Known for her reflective, soulful pop music, she released her first single, Cola, in November 2018 and won the breakthrough award at the Brits in 2021. Her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, which announced the arrival of “a major new talent” according to the Guardian, won the 2021 Mercury prize. Her second album, My Soft Machine, is out now. Parks lives in Los Angeles and her partner is the US singer Ashnikko.
1. Documentary
RapCaviar Presents: Tyler, the Creator (Disney+)
Tyler, the Creator and his collective Odd Future have inspired a whole generation of young black creatives. They started out making rap music that was quite transgressive and silly, about skating and being kids in LA, but also about struggle and grit and pain. As a young black person, it gave me the feeling that I could create music outside the bounds of what people might expect. This documentary shows how Tyler produces and the way he built his own little creative world that inspired me to do the same.
2. Book
Annie Ernaux is the French writer who won the 2022 Nobel prize. Her books are mainly autobiographical, but her tone is quite sparse and unsentimental, in a really beautiful way. Exteriors is her observations of her life on the outskirts of Paris – it’s her going to supermarkets and being on the Métro, and learning about her own inner world in terms of how she responds to the things around her. I love her as a people-watcher, and the way she notices detail is inspiring. There’s a real humanity in the way that she writes.
3. Film
Actual People (dir Kit Zauhar, 2021)
This film takes on a subject very close to my heart – people on the verge of adulthood confronting their fears about going out into the world and making their own path. The main character played by Kit Zauhar (also the writer and director) is in her final week of university. She’s reckoning with a breakup and wandering through New York and going back home to her family in Philadelphia, trying to find some sense of rooting and feeling quite adrift in terms of her prospects. I was really moved by it.
4. Shop
This little oasis is my favourite place in LA. It’s a neighbourhood greengrocer in Echo Park that sells flowers, meat, fish, fresh vegetables and all sorts of spices and sauces. A big luxury when I come home from tour is being able to wander through the aisles picking up grapes or strange chillies and then sharing food with the people I love. Whenever I’m far away from home, this is the place that I always think of. It’s just a lovely little spot.
5. Concert
Jai Paul’s first ever live performance, Coachella 2023
This was my most anticipated performance at Coachella and it’s still burnt into my memory. Jai Paul is a British artist who retreated into a cloud of mystery after his unfinished debut album leaked 10 years ago. He’d never played a live show before, but to people my age who love music, he’s like a pop star. You could tell in the most endearing way that he had never been on stage, but he had such a powerful voice. Everyone was singing along at the top of their lungs. It was my favourite performance of Coachella for sure.
6. Podcast
Flea on the Broken Record podcast
Broken Record is a podcast hosted by Rick Rubin and others that invites musicians to come and talk about their creative journeys. It’s been one of my favourite podcasts for a long time. In the episode with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he talks about how he completely abandons himself to the music – it’s almost a religious experience when he plays bass. He also talked about his charity work helping kids in California to learn instruments. I found it really inspiring to hear how, after all this time, he’s just as in love with music as he was as a teenager.
