Forest Claudette is making layered, celebratory R&B: “It’s hard to articulate happiness in a way that doesn’t feel flippant”

Forest Claudette is telling NME about The Patch, the idyllic rural township they would eventually have to leave. Growing up in the verdant foothills of the Dandenong Ranges, an hour’s drive from Melbourne, they make it sound like Fairyland, teeming with “creatures and critters”. Claudette recalls climbing onto the roof of their parents’ house, overlooking a “somewhat untamed” garden, and trying to catch falling autumn leaves, having been told it brought luck: “I’ve caught a few leaves in my life.”

Still beauty aside, the rising avant-R&B star felt that leaving such an out of the way place was necessary for their self-discovery – and today the charming singer/songwriter is speaking to NME a world away in Los Angeles as they roll out the revelatory two-part EP ‘Jupiter & Stone Between’, following last year’s buzzy ‘Everything Was Green’.

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Coming from a musical family, Claudette (aka Kobe Hamilton-Reeves) learnt to play various instruments, notably guitar. Yet they had early exposure to the industry through their older brother Zach, frontman of the indie-dance band Northeast Party House and their now manager: “He cares about me as a person as well as my artistry.”

Venturing away from The Patch as a teen, Claudette studied sound production at Melbourne’s RMIT University and hung out with “city kids” who had deeper life experience. Initially, Claudette aired music as Teddy Elk – 2017’s indie ‘Doors’ impressing triple j’s Unearthed High team and culminating in a record deal. The vocalist started experimenting with “‘alternative R&B pop’ stuff or ‘alternative pop R&B’,” becoming ‘Forest Claudette’ – a stage name inspired by their love of “greenery” but also a politically conscious homage to American civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin. Forest uploaded covers of songs like Frank Ocean’s ‘Provider’ on TikTok, generating some early yet superficial comparisons before they established their own profile.

Claudette had long visited the US, their mother hailing from New York. But they booked their first solo trip to California to write music. Claudette had to adjust to the big city: “I didn’t have a great time. I felt super alone and I couldn’t really go out,” they say. “So I couldn’t go anywhere and I didn’t know anyone. I felt that I hadn’t really earned any of the opportunities that I was getting ‘cause I hadn’t released any music. It was just this very weird liminal space.”

That “formative” period informed Claudette’s impressionist lyricism on 2022’s debut EP ‘The Year Of February’ with the groovy break-out single ‘Creaming Soda’ – especially ‘Hologram’ and its themes of impostor syndrome.

However, Claudette soon began to enjoy their “first taste of real independence” as a young adult. They have since explored LA, made friends, dated, collaborated and found community. Above all, they’ve revelled in the city’s racial diversity. “I just see more of ‘me’ and I see more people like me – and I think that’s a really nice feeling.”

In early 2023 Claudette performed their inaugural hometown show back in Melbourne at the Australian Open – men’s singles finalists Novak Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas attracted an unusually huge multicultural crowd to the often white-dominated Grand Slam, the atmosphere festive and electric. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what a baby,’” they recall, laughing. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

The greatest industry validation came when a stunned Claudette scooped two ARIAs, including ‘Best Soul/R&B Release’, for their EARTHGANG collab ‘Mess Around’ – “one of the more ridiculous experiences of my life.” As the second non-binary recipient after Kaiit in 2019, they valued the recognition. “I think it meant more to me knowing that I was accepting it as a non-binary Black person,” Claudette says. “I was like, ‘Cool, I know who I am and I am being recognised as all of me.’”

“My life was just so full of love and romantic experiences at the time”

Retrospectively, Claudette believes that ‘Everything Was Green’ was the work of “a sapling” – ‘Jupiter & Stone Between’ more “intentional”. Conceptually, they propose that if, as John Gray stated in 1992’s titular self-help book, men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then non-binary people are from Jupiter – the planet their “muse”. But the title remains a riddle: “I don’t really know what that means, but I think it sounds cool.”

Ironically, though ‘Stone Between’ implies an obstacle, Claudette is expanding sonically and emotionally. “The more I think about it, the more it’s the universe – like it’s the galaxy, it’s life, it’s everything… my life was just so full of love and romantic experiences at the time.”

Right now, they’re missing their long-distance paramour – a similar heartache prompting the recent single ‘Press On Me’. In fact, all this change permeates ‘Jupiter & Stone Between’ as Claudette ponders Black queer identity, while penning their most emotionally vulnerable and romantic songs.

Claudette’s budding relationship proved the catalyst for understanding their sexuality and queerness. “I’d met my partner and I was so scared to tell her that I was non-binary because she’s only ever dated men. I was just like, ‘How do you tell someone that you really care about that you’re not who they thought you were – or who you thought you were?’”

Most personal is the “ambitious” lead single ‘Kobe Beef’ in which Claudette figuratively confronts the internal conflict that preceded their coming out as non-binary, singing, “My ID been on thin ice / (Cracking I’m crying).” “It was so important to me to articulate it from a perspective that wasn’t blunt, that had roundness and movement and a level of mystery and magic.” But Claudette’s favourite cut is the acoustic hip-hop ‘Only Human’, in which they express their playfulness. “I find it difficult to find genuineness and substance in joy. I feel like it’s really hard to articulate happiness in a way that doesn’t feel flippant.”

Despite touring commitments, Claudette is already contemplating the next chapter in their career. Indeed, they still have matters to resolve: “I’ve been thinking about the cyclical nature of my life and life in general – like the moments that come up over and over again that you feel like you’ve conquered, only to find out later that it can appear in another way or another form,” they say.

“After making these records, I feel sort of empowered, emboldened, to share more – which sounds kind of crazy ‘cause it’s like, ‘What else is there?’ But there’s things that I’ve thought about for a long time that I haven’t really known or felt comfortable articulating,” they continue. “As I get to know myself more and I sit with these things, they kind of just bubble to the surface. So there’s definitely more stories and more perspectives to share.”

Forest Claudette’s ‘Jupiter & Stone Between’ EP is out now

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