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In a world so beautifully overrun by multifaceted pop artists, Aurora leads the pack. Admired by many of her peers — from Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan and Doja Cat to Katy Perry and Shawn Mendes — there’s a strong case to be made for Aurora being your favourite popstar’s favourite popstar. You know Aurora, even if you don’t know Aurora. So yes, that was Aurora’s face beaming out into the darkness during the Chemical Brothers ’2019 Glastonbury headline slot, but yes that was also Aurora’s voice on 2015’s John Lewis Christmas ad. There she was at the 2020 Oscars, performing her contribution to Frozen 2’s pivotal track Into The Unknown, but there she also was at Coachella and at Lollapalooza, and across all those US talkshows, and that’s her music on millions of TikToks and, well, you get the idea. “I suppose I am a diverse human being,” she laughs. “But then, I think all people are, deep down. I just do what I want. I’m like an animal sometimes — to be honest most of the time I relate to the animals more than humans.”

And surprises along the way. The Gods We Can Touch was originally planned for a slightly earlier release, then an unexpected TikTok trend brought Runaway to a whole new global audience meaning that six years after release and 14 years after it was first written, Runaway was clocking up 300m daily views. “I find it as refreshing as it is surprising,” she says now. “Sometimes there are forces bigger than us, urging us to change our habits and plans. I just let the world go where it wants to and take my music where it wants to take it.” With Runaway’s success complicating her album’s planned release date, Aurora embraced the situation and wrote two extra songs: Giving In To Love, which became pivotal to the album’s essence, plus You Keep Me Crawling, a song about powerplay and relationship dynamics. “I’d been trying to explain the soul of this album,” she says, “and when I made You Keep Me Crawling it felt like the last word. After I had written it, I wasn’t hungry for more. I felt like I was satisfied.”

Watch her live performance soon on Saturday, 25th February 2023. Brought to you by Nyawa Session.