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his past summer, when FKA Twigs stepped offstage after playing a giant festival in the Netherlands, the first thing on her mind was heading to a techno haven she’d heard had the best electronic music in the area. The British artist — known for her genre-bending sounds and gravity-defying dance moves — made her way there straight from her set, dressed in the same bright-red leather jacket and leather pants she’d worn while performing.
“Onstage, it looked incredible, but when you leave the stage, I kind of look like a Power Ranger,” she remembers, laughing lightly. When she got to the club, the woman at the door was far from impressed. “She was like, ‘Have you been here before?’ And I was like, ‘No,’ in my Power Rangers outfit.” The doorwoman asked if Twigs knew who was DJ’ing that night — another no. “And she was like, ‘Well, you’re going to have to stand to the side and read the club rules and memorize all the DJs.’”
Twigs did as she was told, and stood outside until the woman came back. “I got in, but it was funny because she looked at me, and she was like, ‘You’ve never been out before.’ I wasn’t going to do the whole, ‘I was just headlining this festival.’ I was like, ‘I’ll just take it on the chin and do the work.’”
It’s stories like that — about moments outside the club, the euphoria of the dance floor, the hours late in the night at the afterparty — that shape Eusexua, from January, and Eusexua Afterglow, which came out in November. Those two standout albums are a big reason Rolling Stone named Twigs one of our Voices of the Year for 2025. Together they mark an inventive new chapter in Twigs’ decade-long career, which has already made her one of pop’s most wildly imaginative stars, known for her futuristic vision and boundless imagination.
But Twigs has also bared it all for fans throughout her career, speaking up about the traumas and tribulations she’s gone through, and pouring her most vulnerable thoughts into her music while opening up about everything from complex sexual dynamics to dealing with racism to having fibroid surgery. Outside of music, she’s also come forward about being in an abusive relationship, and had to manage herself after a “touring disaster” — her team at the time didn’t secure visas and paperwork in time, leading her to cancel Coachella and reschedule multiple shows — that nearly derailed her career.
Despite all of it, Twigs has had a breakthrough year, after a long time working her way to the top. During her Rolling Stone Interview, she opens up about her identity, her approach to vulnerability, and all she’s had to overcome to get to where she is today.
You just released Eusexua Afterglow, which is a continuation of your 2025 album Eusexua. What was it about this era of your music that made you think, “Okay, I’m not quite done. There are more stories to be told here?”
I’ve always been curious about the type of artist that I am, because I’m always discovering that. In the beginning, I thought maybe I was a visual artist or a performance artist. It’s been interesting for me, trying to fit my music into a traditional album release structure. It’s something that I’ve always struggled with. After all of my projects, there has always been this burst of creativity afterwards.
The majority of the [Afterglow] songs were brand new, so I’d say a good 80 to 85 percent I made in a two-month period. A couple of them were ideas I had for a long time. For example, “Wild and Alone,” I began to write that 10 years ago, and that actually leaked. I had this huge leaking disaster where I had 85 demos leak, and that was one of the ones that leaked. So, then I reimagined it, so it sounded different. When it was finished, I was like, “Oh, I think PinkPantheress would sound incredible on this”.
“Stereo Boy” is from something that I started a few years ago, but everything else was in this incredible, six-week period of purging and inspiration and being very free and meeting some incredible new collaborators. I met this amazing artist producer and quite underground and respected techno DJ called Manni Dee, and we linked up through an artist friend of mine. Manni and I just went on this crazy music-making … it was just weeks and weeks of us being in the studio. I felt like we took over each other’s lives for six weeks and started creating. It’s all just been very natural. I’m just going with the flow.
Tell me a little bit about the experiences that inspired these songs, especially the club experience that’s central to both Eusexua and Eusexua Afterglow.
I have two sides of my personality. One side is I’m an absolute purist and very serious, and I take my craft very seriously and I like to practice. If I discover something, I want to pay homage to the roots of where it came, and I have to study and go deep into the very seed of the art. For me, that’s Eusexua. I’ve always said it’s not exactly a dance album. It’s a love letter to the way that dance music makes me feel and is influenced heavily by dance music. It kind of has this crystal quality, and everything’s very HD, and everything feels very, for me, present.
And then there’s this other side of my personality which is like, “I will rile up a party, I will make everyone go out I’ll make everyone stay out till the early hours of the morning.” Afterglow, it’s about when you leave the club, and you don’t want to go home. It starts with “Love Crimes,” and then it goes into this fun kind of sexy stage of the music. Like, “Whoa, I’m feeling fucked up now.” It’s at that moment where you start questioning everything in your life, and people start leaving. You know, when you’re just out and you’re like, “I’m having such a good time,” and then you move rooms and you’re just like, “Whoa, I shouldn’t have left that room.” People join the room, and you’re like, “Now the energy is changed,” or people leave the room, and you’re like, “No, I need those people. I need to stay with these people. We have to stay together all night.” The second third of the record is that when you’re reckoning with yourself, and it’s wavy.
You’ve described Eusexua as “finding a euphoric space where you can transcend your physical human form.” Why was it important for you to do that?
Because life can be so hard, and it can be so stressful. There’s so much tension all the time. I really feel for young people growing up online and all of the pressures that holds. If someone said, “10 million pounds to go back to being 16!” I’d be like, “Absolutely not.”
I can’t even imagine what that’s like now for young people, just to have the pressure of creating this self online that is imprinted from when you’re 12, 13, to then when you get your first job, and every political stance that you have, every idea that you had at 16, every person that you dated, every person that you were friends with, the way that you dressed, the ideas that you were starting to form as a young person, all of that is just tracked. And you can be ridiculed for it or torn apart or judged at any second. I have felt that pressure as well.
When I think about Eusexua, it’s about accepting yourself and accepting other people. It’s about tolerance, and it’s about presence, and it’s about realizing that we’re so much more than our vessels. We’re these beautiful lights. I always talk about the light inside my chest. I’m not FKA Twigs. I’m not even Tahliah. I’m a tiny light inside my chest, which is filled with endless love and possibilities. I want to connect with other people as well. It’s about realizing we’re so much more than the pressure, so much more than our ideas of who we think we are. I’m not the first person to have this idea. It’s just maybe the first time I believed it.
Eusexua was shortlisted for Mercury Prize and earned you a Grammy nomination. How do you feel about the reaction?
It’s been confusing at times. I don’t know whether it’s because Eusexua was maybe more popular than some of my other albums. At times, I saw stuff online, and I’d be like, “What? People don’t like it?” And I think some of my fans, they can be hard on me, which I get. It’s just part of the job that I have. But then it has been confusing because sometimes I’ve thought like, “Oh, maybe people don’t like it,” and then I’ll go and play a festival with 80,000 people, and they’re all screaming the words back at me.
Sometimes I just learn from my younger self. There’s a song that I wrote called “Figure 8,” and it says, “Can you touch it? Is it real?” Sometimes the reaction you get to things, it doesn’t really matter because you can’t touch it. All you can go off is the intention that you had when you made it and the joy that it gives you in performing it or sharing it.
It has been hard to categorize you throughout your career. Do you feel like now people have started to understand your artistry?
That’s a difficult question, because I’m the center of it, so I can’t see it. I’ve always said I want to do every single step. I feel for artists that have a huge hit, and all of a sudden they have to go and perform in front of huge crowds, and they don’t have their sea legs yet.
When you’re performing, you have to get your sea legs. And I did when I was younger, when I was the house singer at [London cabaret] the Box, which was raucous. I had people throwing drinks at me and screaming, and everyone is naked and running around. But I feel like it really made me very tough onstage. I actually love it when things go wrong onstage because I’m like, “Oh, how can I overcome this?”
When did you know that you wanted to be a performer? You started incredibly young.
I’ve never really spoken about this, but I can’t explain it. All the kids would do a dance competition, but in my imagination, I wasn’t doing a dance competition. I did a character dance where I was Thumbelina. When I was onstage, I thought I was Thumbelina. In my mind, there were giant mushrooms and huge butterflies. If I was doing a dance step, it wouldn’t be like, “Oh, you’re doing a step-ball-change there.” It would be like, “You’re going there because the grass is huge, and you need to push through it.” It was this quite magical moment where I got to create a world. [Starts to tear up.] It makes me emotional because I just want to be there all the time. That’s what I want to do with my music: to create a world that people can dive into. That’s all I ever want.
You danced in music videos for different artists, including Kylie Minogue. What do you remember about that time?
I kind of loved it and I hated it, but I learned a lot, and it kind of got me set ready. Any dancer can relate, just the constant audition and casting circuit. One day, it will be, I don’t know, like “Looking for four sexy girls that do Bollywood dancing,” and you’re like, “Maybe.” And the next day, it will be, “Looking for classically trained dancers of this age,” and you’re like, “Okay, yeah, I guess I’ll try and do that.” As a dancer, was always trying to fit into something that was almost it. Because I was mixed race, I was assimilating into something that wasn’t 100 percent what I was, but almost.
I’d literally be in tube toilets, going into public bathrooms, for my next act. I was always felt slightly frustrated. But in the end, I carved out something quite special for myself, and I got to work with incredible directors very early on in my career, like Romain Gavras and Daniel Wolf. Romain Gavras cast me in this adidas advert, and Little Simz was in it as well. It was a few thousand pounds, and it was like a lifeline. I remember doing this dance audition and praying, “Please, God, if you give me this adidas advert, I’ll just be the best person ever. I’ll be so kind and generous and sweet.”
Do you have other favorite music videos or on-set experiences during that time?
Kylie [Minogue] was fab. She didn’t come to a lot of the rehearsals, and then she turned up the day before, so sweet, so present, such a little cutie. Just came in, and she was like, “OK, where have I got to stand? What’s the move?” She’s like, “OK, got it.” I was like, “We’ve been rehearsing for a week, and I barely have it.” And then we went and we did a run of it, and she did every single step perfect. Years later, I saw her at a party. I was like, “Oh, I was your back-end dancer.” She was like, “Oh, I know. I’m so proud.”
How did your songwriting evolve, particularly in how vulnerable it has been? On Magdalene, you talk about surgery and physical pain and things that are really raw.
I just love telling the truth. I just have to tell the truth. When I was in my teens, I really struggled with who I was and where I was from and where I was brought up. I grew up in a very white area, and my upbringing was very, very confusing for me, just being a mixed-race person. I didn’t know my biological dad until I was older, but I had a stepdad who raised me, who was Black. Everything, it made sense, but it didn’t quite make sense.
I found it very difficult because my family is from very working-class Birmingham, but then my mum really encouraged me with my education and pushed me to get into a private school in the Midlands in England. She would literally make me do practice tests every single day. I got into this really good private school, but I got in on a scholarship. And all the other kids, they had so much money. They were so privileged. We lived in a tiny flat, and my mum was on benefits, and we just didn’t really have anything.
I had this good education, and a lot of the emphasis was on talking properly and using your words and writing well. They instilled a lot of confidence in the students, which was amazing, but ultimately, for me, it wasn’t real because I wasn’t white and I wasn’t middle or upper class. When I moved to London, it was confusing for me because then I’m a brown girl who’s working class, who speaks well, who’s had this amazing education, but now I’m at Croydon College. I would never want to say to my friends at Croydon College, “Oh, actually I got a scholarship to go to a private school in the country.” I’d never want to say, “I don’t know my dad.” I’d never want to say, “We can’t afford food this week.” My teens and my twenties were just very guarded with information in terms of me trying to fit in anywhere and then fitting in nowhere. So, by the time I got into my early twenties, and I started to discover alternative scenes, queer scenes.
Photograph by SACHA LECCA
Spaces where you could be yourself.
Oh, my God, what a relief for me, where you meet other people that have had a similar upbringing, or look more similar to you, or think the same as you. And then, randomly, when I was about 23, I was riding with this cabbie. I was like, “Oh, what are you doing now?” He was like, “I’m going to a life-coaching seminar.” I’m like, “What’s a life-coaching seminar?” He’s like, “When someone talks to you about how to live your life and how to make your life better.” I was like, “OK, I’ll go. Why not? I’m not doing anything.” It was incredible. This guy was talking, and he said, “Vulnerability is sexy.”
It really changed my songwriting. I was like, “Oh, I can write about complicated sexual dynamics, or I can write about finding my sensuality in my early twenties on LP1, [the song] “Kicks” at 23, writing about masturbation or something. It became this thing of “What can I tell the truth about?” So, when it comes to Magdalene, I had fibroids, and I’d gone through this incredible amount of pain and operations and dealing with it. I was just like, “Yeah, apples, cherries, pain, that’s where I’m at.”
As you’ve become more public, has that relationship to vulnerability changed at all? Do you ever find yourself not wanting to share things?
I’m coming back around to it, but in some ways, yeah, because there are a lot of things that happened during Eusexua. I had an insane touring disaster, and it was hard because I think my fans thought that one thing was going on, but it was the opposite. With Eusexua, I experienced people thinking they know everything about me, but they don’t. I made a decision at a certain point where I was like, “Do you know what? It’s actually no one’s business, and I’m just going to have to deal with this and put on my big-girl pants and suck it up and make this better.” I did, and I was so proud of the way that I was able to handle that situation and come back from the brink of destruction.
That situation inspired you to take the reins and run your own career. What has that meant for you?
If I had any advice to any artist, it would be to understand all of that stuff yourself from the beginning. Especially as a young woman of color. When I started out, there’s this idea that, like, “Click your heels and do the thing and make everyone clap. Get a little slap on the ass as you go onstage.” You’re just there doing this dance routine and not actually understanding that you have a monster, amazing business, that the world is your oyster, and what you can create yourself is limitless. And everyone’s just making so much money off you.
It’s been amazing closing that gap. My stepdad has been amazing, because he worked in finance and he’s explaining things and checking up and getting involved. With my boyfriend, as well. My partner has helped me feel really safe and understand things. I’m still learning. I have no idea what I’m doing. In my heart, I’m still that seven-year-old onstage, creating giant mushrooms in my head and skipping around in imaginary huge grass fields, but now the stakes are so high.
You also have film projects, like The Carpenter’s Son, with Nicolas Cage. Any Nick Cage stories?
When we were on set with Nick, I was talking to the makeup artist about going out. We were in Athens, and we were like, “I wonder if we can find a rave or something at the weekend to go to.” Nick, he’s a cool guy. I wanted to talk to him more, but he’s quite stoic, so I was like, “I’m just going to respect his space.” He was overhearing our conversation. He was like, “Are you girls going out?” I was like, “Yeah, we want to go out this weekend.” He was like, “You going to go and get the ya-yas out?” And I was like, “Get the ya-yas out?” Oh, my gosh, that’s just stuck with me now. Whenever I’m out, I’m always like, “Going to go and get the ya-yas out.”
Did you convince him to go out at any point or to join the rave?
Absolutely not. No, I think Nick has got the quickest de-rigging situation that I’ve ever seen. De-rigging is basically when you take off your costume. So we cut, and he is back with his family. It’s inspiring. Nick really locks in before a scene. You really see him go into himself before a scene. He’s on from when it’s take one.
Photograph by SACHA LECCA
You got North West to rap in Japanese on Eusexua. How do you approach collaborations?
In this interview, if you were like,“I played clarinet as a kid,” I’d be like, “Well, girl, let’s go.” I’d be like, “What time should I pick you up?” I’ll literally be thinking to myself, like, “Oh, I should have a child on this song,” and then, somehow, Kim [Kardashian] will message me out of the blue.
Is that how that happened, she messaged you out of the blue?
To be honest with you, Ye actually helped set it up through a friend, in the beginning. And then Kim was very helpful and sweet and helped finish it all off. When we were on set, we were just cheering North on. In the video, it’s one of the first times I really saw her let go a tiny bit. She’s so cool, and she’s so sweet, and she’s so grounded, as well. She was very playful and sparkly, and I’d not seen that side of her. It’s something so incredible about that age, from like 10 to 15, to be encouraged to do something that you love no matter who you are. I was grateful to have collaborated with her. It’s also strange because I wrote that song when I was like 12, 13 as well.
You’re going to play Coachella next year after you had to cancel the last time. What are you looking forward to, being able to have that second opportunity?
It’s going to be a crazy 10-day span because I perform at Coachella, which is obviously such a dream for any artist, and I’m going to perform with Martha Graham at their annual show. Then I’m going to fly back and do Coachella. It’s two different sides of who I am, on one side playing Coachella and in L.A., and this incredible sort of hyped up magical, fun festival, and then coming to New York to a theater to celebrate 100 years of Martha Graham and perform one of their original pieces. Then back on the plane back to Coachella to go and complete the weekend. It’s funny. I’m really curious about how I’m going to feel in that two weeks because, yeah, it’s such an intersection of who I am.
What do you want to do next?
I’ve been thinking a lot about operas. I’m really looking forward to getting older because I want to dance more, but as an older woman. I want to leave some of the more obvious sexualization that comes with being a woman in a certain age bracket behind. I’m really looking forward to having wrinkly skin and wearing a dress and flailing myself around.
