Make way for pop’s new diva METTE: “The impossible ain’t nothing but timing”

1 July, 2024

NME The Cover Mette image by Rachel Billings

METTE is entering her diva era – and she’s ready to play the role. “I’m embracing that part of myself because I’m not afraid to claim it for myself,” says the triple threat behind two surefire songs of the summer: ‘Bet’, a funk-pop sunbeam buoyed by early Janet Jackson exuberance, and ‘Muscle’, a sinewy club thumper with a glint in its eye. When METTE sings “rain that sweat, leave it all on the floor,” she isn’t thinking about Barry’s Bootcamp.

We meet a few weeks before METTE turbocharged her rise by opening for Taylor Swift in London on June 21. “We’re talking about a once-in-a-lifetime artist bestowing on me an opportunity to join her at Wembley Stadium – it’s difficult to put in words what that means to me,” she says. Instead, METTE is trying to process her Eras Tour cameo by imagining it from the viewpoint of her childhood self: the “little girl in Minnesota holding a microphone attached to a boombox”, singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at a Fourth of July party.

METTE often brings up her “journey” – from big dreams as Mette Towley in the American Midwest to the cusp of pop stardom today – as we chat over breakfast at her West London hotel. But these mentions never sounds glib or self-aggrandising: she’s grafted hard to establish herself as an artist after many years as a backing dancer. Her embrace of divadom feels earned. At her Cover shoot a few days earlier, she radiates calm confidence as she poses to a self-made playlist of Crystal Waters and Madonna bangers. “I’m looking forward to talking about metamorphosis with you,” she says purposefully when we meet between looks.

Over breakfast, METTE acknowledges that the word “diva” has historically been used to undermine bold women who know what they want, but says she’s rising above this sexist BS. “To me, it’s not a negative connotation to say I know exactly how I’d like my toast,” she says, a few minutes after ordering eggs on sourdough with sausage and hot sauce. “To me, being a diva means knowing yourself and not being afraid to live large.”

“Being a diva means knowing yourself and not being afraid to live large”

There’s little doubt that METTE is living large right now. The Los Angeles-based singer, dancer and actress has flown to London to perform at the Ivor Novello Awards, where her 2023 breakthrough single ‘Mama’s Eyes’ is nominated for Best Contemporary Song. Written while she was feeling “incredibly homesick” during the pandemic, it’s a gorgeous, gospel-channelling dance anthem that name-checks Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan and METTE’s mother, whom she calls “my ultimate diva”.

On the night, ‘Mama’s Eyes’ loses to ‘Geronimo Blues’ by Speakers Corner Quartet and Kae Tempest, but when we speak three days beforehand, METTE says just being nominated is validating. “It cements like, ‘Oh, this is happening,'” she says. “The imposter syndrome is slowly but surely fading away. And that means a lot, because we’re talking about a pivot that began five years ago. It’s not a long time since I was dancing.”

METTE was a self-confessed “musical theatre kid” growing up in Alexandria, Minnesota, but she gravitated towards dance at the cusp of adolescence. “Like a lot of teenagers, I started becoming shy and that self-awareness kind of took me away from music and poured me into dance,” she says. “Dance was where I didn’t have to communicate with words, so I found it easier to manage.”

At the time, METTE was also unsure about her singing voice. “I was in the choir, but I didn’t have the strongest soprano,” she says. “And within that choral structure, ideas of femininity reside in how high you can sing. So the fact I sang lower, in an alto [range], made me self-aware.” This exacerbated the glaring insecurity she felt as a mixed-race kid navigating a predominantly white high school. “I was so aware that I didn’t look like anyone else and I maybe didn’t sound like anyone else either.”

METTE’s accountant mother and engineer father were “never stage parents”, but proved “super-supportive” as she completed a dance degree at the University of Minnesota, then moved to LA to audition for everything from cruise ships to private parties. Big city life was a culture shift she found equal parts inspiring and intimidating. “The dancers I was working with, they would always step out in a full outfit and, like, wear sunglasses on a plane,” she recalls. “And I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that’s a bit more fierce than I’m willing to go.'”

Her first break came when she was cast in the video for Jennifer Hudson’s ‘I Can’t Describe (The Way I Feel)’, an R&B banger produced by Pharrell Williams. The N.E.R.D. frontman was so impressed that he asked METTE to join him on tour. She ended up spending the next five-and-half years as a member of his dance troupe, but METTE never felt as though she’d reached her final destination. Recently, when she met “the legend” Brian Friedman, Britney Spears’ longtime choreographer, she asked him: “How do you still do it?”

“We’re all diamonds waiting for our moment to shine through”

An even bigger break came in 2017 when she landed the lead role of N.E.R.D.’s ‘Lemon’ video, which showed METTE having her head shaved by none other than Rihanna. “I was like, ‘This is what it feels like to do a duet with the camera,'” METTE recalls today. “And I also knew it was an opportunity that would most likely not come again. So I was like: ‘Let me use this energy to try and make a pivot.'”

So, she asked to shadow Williams in the studio – “I was like, ‘OK, this is how songs are made, by people sharing ideas” – and also branched out into acting. She picked up small roles in 2019’s infamous Cats movie and Hustlers, a true-crime romp starring Jennifer Lopez. Last year, she played Barbie Video Girl in blockbuster and cultural sensation Barbie, an experience she describes as “unbelievable” because director Greta Gerwig made the set a “generous space” for all involved.

“But even when I was doing Barbie, I was still in the recording studio,” she adds. “Music is where I have the most autonomy – and to me, autonomy is the spice of life.” Having spent so long serving other artists’ visions, METTE is now absolutely focused on her own. “When I’m working with Camille Summers-Valli,” she continues, saluting the director of her ‘Mama’s Eyes’ video, “we bounce ideas off each other and there’s no hierarchy. When you’re a dancer, there is always a hierarchy.”

Though METTE has been hunkering down in the studio since before the pandemic, she released music sparingly at first. She dropped her house-flecked debut single ‘Petrified’ in March 2021, but didn’t follow it up until February 2023, when ‘Mama’s Eyes’ gave her genuine momentum. “There’s been a huge reframing for me; I’ve done the personal work to step into my own,” she told NME that May. Her debut EP ‘Mettenarrative’ followed in September 2023 and continued her ascent with solid gold bops including the delicious disco come-on ‘Van Gogh’ (“I could be Van Gogh, shawty, if you’d be my muse“).

In fact, METTE blew up so fast that when she opened for Jessie Ware at London’s 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace last November, it was only her sixth ever gig. Charming another artist’s crowd can be an uphill struggle, but METTE smashed it with a high-energy set that featured a giddy medley of Janet Jackson and Madonna bangers. “Janet was the first person I ever saw that was a triple threat,” she says reverentially today.

Now, METTE is looking forward to a summer of live shows that should really chip away at any remaining imposter syndrome. After all, her name is now on the bill at festivals, like August’s Reading & Leeds, where she once performed as a backing dancer. She is also readying a new EP that might be titled ‘Mettemorphosis’, though this isn’t set in stone.

Either way, as she teased at her Cover shoot, the idea of metamorphosis is very much an overarching theme. “Since I became a resident in LA [again], I’m spending more time there and it’s opened up my world,” she says. “I’m single, I’m out dancing, I’m meeting DJs who are showing me new music. But at the same time, I’m loving all this disco music from the ’70s and ’80s. It feels like a rebirth.”

The EP is being executive produced by LA-based musician Zhone, who produced ‘Bet’, ‘Muscle’ and also worked on Troye Sivan’s heady house banger ‘Rush’. Recently, when Sivan posted on his Instagram Story “anyone in London?”, METTE couldn’t resist sending him a DM. “I’m sure he got so many DMs,” she says with a laugh, “but I’ve always loved his music, and I’d love to work with him. So shout out to Troye – come find me, I’m here!”

Becoming a touch more serious, METTE says an upcoming single from the EP, ‘Small World’, is her favourite song she’s written since ‘Mama’s Eyes’. “I’m singing about feeling way too big for such a small world, “ she says. “You know, the impossible ain’t nothing but timing – we’re all diamonds waiting for our moment to shine through.” It’s a sentiment that fully encapsulates her journey so far and where she’s heading next. METTE’s moment is now – and she isn’t about to waste it.

METTE’s ‘Muscle’ is out now, with her EP coming soon

Listen to METTE’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify and here on Apple Music