Charlotte Emma Aitchison 

(born 2 August 1992), known professionally as Charli XCX, is an

English singer and songwriter. Born in Cambridge and raised in Start Hill, Essex, she began posting
songs on Myspace in 2008, which led to her discovery by a promoter who invited her to perform at
warehouse raves. In 2010, she signed a recording contract with Asylum Records, releasing a series
of singles and mixtapes throughout 2011 and 2012.
In 2012, Charli XCX rose to prominence with the Icona Pop collaboration "I Love It", which became
an international success, reaching top 10 in North America and Europe. Her debut studio
album, True Romance (2013), was released that year to critical acclaim but failed to meet
commercial expectations. In 2014, she contributed the hook and bridge to "Fancy" by rapper Iggy
Azalea, which finished the year as one of the best-selling singles worldwide and was nominated for
two Grammy Awards. The same year, Charli XCX released "Boom Clap", which became her first
solo top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100. Her second studio album, the punk-influenced Sucker,
was released at the end of the year, and spawned the successful singles "Break the Rules" and
"Doing It".
In 2015, Charli XCX began working alongside producers associated with the UK collective PC
Music, developing a more experimental sound and image. While working on her third album, she
released the Vroom Vroom EP (2016) and the mixtapes Number 1 Angel and Pop 2 (both 2017), as
well as a series of singles including the BPI-certified "After the Afterparty", "Boys", and "1999". Her
third and fourth studio albums, Charli (2019) and How I'm Feeling Now (2020), received widespread
acclaim; the latter was created within a span of six weeks during the COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2021,
Charli XCX co-wrote and provided vocals on the Jax Jones and Joel Corry single "Out Out". The
singer's fifth album, Crash, was released in March of 2022, and became her biggest commercial
success to date.
In addition to her solo work, Charli XCX has co-written songs for other artists, including Iggy Azalea's
"Beg for It" (2014), Selena Gomez's "Same Old Love" (2015), Blondie's "Tonight" (2017), and
the Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello collaboration "Señorita" (2019).

Contents

 1Early life
 2Career
o 2.12009–2013: Career beginnings and True Romance
o 2.22013–2015: Breakthrough and Sucker
o 2.32015–2018: Vroom Vroom, Number 1 Angel, and Pop 2
o 2.42018–2020: Charli and How I'm Feeling Now
o 2.52021–present: Crash
 3Artistry
o 3.1Musical style
o 3.2Influences
 4Personal life
 5Activism
 6Discography
 7Tours
 8Filmography
o 8.1Music videos
o 8.2Film
o 8.3Television
 o 8.4Podcast
 9Awards and nominations
 10Notes
 11References
 12External links

Early life[edit]
Charlotte Emma Aitchison was born on 2 August 1992, in Cambridge, England. Her father, Jon
Aitchison, is a Scottish entrepreneur and former show-booker, and her mother, Shameera, is a
former nurse and flight attendant who was born and raised in Uganda to a Gujarati Indian family.
[1]
 Charli was raised in Start Hill, Essex,[2][3] and attended Bishop's Stortford College in nearby Bishop's
Stortford.[4] While her parents were not very musical, she demonstrated an affinity for music from an
early age, being interested in pop acts such as the Spice Girls and Britney Spears. She began
writing songs at the age of 14, writing a song called "Fish and Chips Shop".[5][6]
At 14, she convinced her parents to grant her a loan to record her first album, 14,[7][8] and in early
2008, began posting songs from the album, as well as numerous other demos, on her
official Myspace page. This caught the attention of a promoter running numerous illegal
warehouse raves and parties in east London, who invited her to perform.[3][9] She was billed on flyers
under the stage name Charli XCX, which was her MSN Messenger display name when she was
younger.[a][10] Despite the illicit nature of the gigs, her parents were supportive of her career and
attended several raves with her.[11] In late 2008, while 14 was never commercially released,[12] she
released the two singles "!Franchesckaar!" and double A-side "Emelline"/"Art Bitch", under Orgy
Music.[13][14] She has since frequently expressed her distaste for her music of the time, going as far to
call it "gimmicky dance tracks" and "fucking terrible Myspace music".[9][15] At the age of 18, Charli
moved to London to study for a fine art degree at UCL's Slade School of Fine Art but dropped out in
her second year.[1]

Career[edit]
2009–2013: Career beginnings and True Romance[edit]
Main article: True Romance (Charli XCX album)

Charli XCX in 2011

In 2010, Charli XCX was signed to Asylum Records. She later described herself as being "lost". In
an interview with The Guardian, Charli XCX said: "I was still in school, I'd just come out of this weird
rave scene, and I wasn't really sure what to make of that. And when I got signed I hated pop music; I
wanted to make bad rap music. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I liked. Even though I
was signed, I was still figuring it out."[12] She eventually flew out to Los Angeles to meet producers,
and found it "wasn't working out for me" until she met with American producer Ariel Rechtshaid.
They had a two-hour session and wrote the song "Stay Away". She stated that's "when things
started to come together".[16][12] Early in 2011, she was featured on the Alex Metric single "End of the
World". She left during the second year of her degree course at the Slade School of Fine Art to focus
on her music career,[17][18] and in May and November 2011, she released the singles "Stay Away" and
"Nuclear Seasons" respectively, and gained attention from music website Pitchfork, where she
earned "Best New Track" accolades for both; the former was eventually named to the site's "Best
Tracks of 2011" list.[19][20][21]

Charli XCX performing at the 2013 Positivus Festival

In addition to Rechtshaid, she began working with Swedish producer Patrik Berger. He sent her two
beats, and she quickly wrote songs for each, one of which became "I Love It" and the other of which
became "You're the One".[22] She stated she didn't end up releasing "I Love It" herself as she could
not reconcile it with her sound,[23] but in 2012, Swedish duo Icona Pop re-recorded the song and
released it as a single featuring her vocals. The song became an international hit, hitting number 1 in
Charli's home country and climbing to number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013.[24][25] In June, she
released "You're the One" as a single from her EP of the same name, followed by her debut
mixtape Heartbreaks and Earthquakes, a one-track file consisting of eight songs including a cover of
the Blood Orange song "Champagne Coast" and Odd Future's remix of "You're the One".[26][27][28] In
September, she released a video for "So Far Away",[29] and on Halloween, she released a new song
called "Cloud Aura" featuring Brooke Candy,[30] followed by her second mixtape Super Ultra, released
exclusively through her website in November.[31][32][33] In early 2013, she released "You (Ha Ha Ha)"
and announced her debut album,[34] followed by "What I Like" in March.[35] True Romance was
released in April 2013. It peaked at number 85 on the UK Albums Chart,[36] at number five on
the US Billboard Top Heatseekers, and at number 11 on the Australian Hitseekers Albums Chart.
[37]
 The album was received well by music critics, earning a 76/100 on Metacritic, which assigns a
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[38] In
May, she released a song with Welsh singer-songwriter Marina and the Diamonds, called "Just
Desserts",[39] followed by the video for "Take My Hand" later that month.[40]

2013–2015: Breakthrough and Sucker[edit]

Main article: Sucker (album)
Charli XCX performing in Detroit in 2014

Charli XCX began writing her second album in mid-2013, saying she initially wanted to go to India to
record, but later decided she wanted to record in France, she said: "Two months ago, I wanted to go
to India and record it, and now I want to record it in France. So I feel like nothing is definite – like, I
feel very all-over-the-place at the moment. But at the moment, my heart's set on going to France and
recording it, but that was different two months ago, so who knows what's going to
happen?"[41] Frustrated with the music industry, she ended up going to Sweden, isolating herself from
her record label, and made a punk-inspired album over a month. Working on the album with Patrik
Berger, they made it at a fast pace, saying that it is "not thought-about, everything really
spontaneous [...] We don't think — it's like the first thing that comes out of my mouth is the cut on the
record,"[42][43] however it was eventually scrapped for a more "pop"-oriented album. The album
included a song called "Mow That Lawn", which was debuted live a year later at Ilosaarirock Festival
in Finland.[44]
In late 2013, "SuperLove" was released as the lead single from the album,[45] and reached number
sixty-two on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Charli's first solo entry on the chart.[46] In January 2014,
she released a song called "Allergic to Love" on her SoundCloud.[47] While writing the album, she did
further sessions with Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo, Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend,
production duo Stargate, John Hill, and a session with Dr. Luke which she said "wasn't for me”. In an
interview with DIY magazine, she stated that she wrote the record for girls and wants them to feel "a
sense of empowerment".[48] Charli explained in her tour diary with Replay Laserblast that the record's
genre is still pop, but has a very shouty, girl-power, girl-gang, Bow Wow Wow feel to it at the same
time.[49] She also said in an interview with Idolator that the album would be influenced by the Hives,
Weezer, the Ramones and 1960s yé-yé music.[50] "SuperLove" was eventually scrapped from the
album.