Recently Shura decided she wanted to fight. Already in what she calls her Muscle Mummy era – partly inspired by the Kristen Stewart-starring, queer bodybuilding thriller Love Lies Bleeding – this buff new mindset involved the singer, songwriter and producer learning jujitsu for the video for World’s Worst Girlfriend, the soft-pop highlight of this month’s excellently titled third album, I Got Too Sad for My Friends.
Things didn’t go to plan, however. In her fourth class, coming out of a roll, she felt her knee go pop. One MRI scan later, having feared a more serious ligament tear, she was diagnosed with a knee problem known as Hoffa’s fat pad impingement. It means we’re meeting in a cafe/record shop hybrid a few metres from the west London flat she shares with her girlfriend. She reminds me that last time we spoke, around the release of her 2016 major label debut, Nothing’s Real, she couldn’t move her neck. Being a pop artist, it seems, is bad for your health. “I played football [for Manchester City from under 11 to under 16 level], I played loads of sports and I’ve never had a serious injury – until now,” she says.
