In a heartfelt conversation with Swedish rapper Yung Lean for Dazed magazine's Winter 2025 Issue, Charli XCX, the 33-year-old singer with Scottish and Indian roots, opened up about her journey as a mixed-race woman and the inspiration behind her record-breaking album, Brat.
Growing up in England, Charli confessed that feeling like an outsider was a constant companion. "I never felt fully accepted, whether it was in school for being half-Indian and not blonde, or not fully relating to my Indian self because I was half-white," she shared. "There was this peculiar, dislocated feeling, where I couldn't quite fit into either place."
The 365 singer, whose real name is Charlotte Aitchison, continued, "Then with music, being outside of the mainstream and wanting to be in that world, but also really wanting to reject it. It created this unique concoction that allowed me to [make Brat]," she said. "I used to be very afraid. Not since 2016, really, but prior to that I was very afraid," she added.
Despite having parents, Jon and Shameera Aitchison, who are her biggest supporters, Charli has been vocal about the challenges of growing up with parents of different races. "When I would visit my mum's family, I felt very Indian. It was the classic scenes of my nani and bappa cooking with Bollywood films playing in the background and everybody speaking in Gujarati," she told Vogue Singapore in 2024. "But then I'd go home to this other world, which was largely white. It was almost like I would experience the Indian part of my identity only on the weekends. I never quite felt like I fit into either world, which I think commonly happens with mixed-race kids," she added at the time.
