Rising singer with a name to Remi-mber

YOUNG Remi Nicole remembers the first time she set her heart on owning a guitar.

It was her 18th birthday and her dad took her to swish jewellers Tiffany and said she could have anything she wanted.

“I was looking around but the things I liked were all about 45,000,” recalls the London lass.

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As her eyes were scanning the counters for something both passable and on the right side of a few hundred quid, Oasis sibling Noel Gallagher swaggered past the shop window. “I thought ‘I don’t want anything from here – I want a guitar’.”

Now 23, the girl who’d also dabbled with piano, trumpet, drums and violin, releases her debut album My Conscience And I in November, before which she plays Sheffield’s Plug next Thursday.

Remi’s only been gigging a year but was already familiar with treading the boards after training as an actress, although she quickly became disillusioned with waiting on auditions and holding down an office job at the same time.

“I worked at a place called Infection Control Solutions. They audited hospitals for MRSA and I was doing admin whilst applying for acting jobs and dodgy corporate stuff,” says Remi.

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Enlightenment came late last summer at a friend’s house, watching him record a song which was almost instantly mixed by his producer in the front room.

“I was like, is it this easy? So I wrote a song called Go Mr Sunshine the very next day.”

She played it during a picnic on Hampstead Heath to a friend, who hooked her up with a mate in the music industry.

Now Remi’s an indie-pop miss raised on a diet of Rod Stewart, Tracey Chapman and reggae and soul who fell for Oasis when introduced to their music by a teenager holiday romance in Portugal.

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Remi’s music now confronts people who assume that as a young black woman she makes RnB.

“Everyone who sees me says ‘do you sing RnB?’ It just shows there aren’t enough people out there who are breaking down barriers.”

Hence she sings on new single Rock ‘n’ Roll: “They said you’re not normal why don’t you sing RnB. I said I’ve got no rhythm and I got no blues, I’m as happy as can be.”