MPHO on making “music that’s good”

MPHO, the South African-born, London-based singing sensation recently spoke to Digital Spy about the creative control she maintains over her music, the inspirations behind her work and the infamous “Echo Beach” sample she uses in her debut single “Box N Locks.”

“Do you know what, it wasn’t my idea to use the sample,” laughed MPHO. “It was my producer Switch’s idea. He uses a lot of samples so when we decided to work together we went through a load of old records and ‘Echo Beach’ was one of them. I loved the groove and the sound of guitars so we cut a loop from it and it all just happened.”

The debut single featuring the Martha and the Muffins sample is about “not letting people dictate what you should do and who you should be.” For MPHO, this is something everyone needs to define on their own. She continued: “I’ve been given numerous genre-specific titles while I’ve been developing my career and I’ve tried to shy away from each one of them. The one I’m happy landing with is ‘pop’ because you don’t know what it sounds like. You can do what you want with pop as long as it’s good and people like it.”

Though she’s been called “neo-soul,” “soul queen” and “the queen of broken beat,” MPHO disagrees with any label that’s been put to her music. She feels she just does “music that’s good,” and critics and fans tend to agree.

MPHO is inspired by “people who make amazing pop music like Prince, Kate Bush, Andre 3000.”
“I like people who are creative and don’t just follow a clear and obvious formula,” she affirms.