There is no denying that singer Ella Mai is having a moment.
The 23-year-old London native catapulted into the spotlight when her single “Boo’d Up” hit the airwaves–and it doesn’t sound like it’ll be leaving anytime soon.
Fresh off her very first ESSENCE Festival performance in the For The Love Of R&B Superlounge, the singer sat down with editors Lauren Porter and Sydney Scott for a conversation all about her chart-topping success.
“It’s been really crazy. I definitely didn’t expect it at all. I’m just glad that everyone loves it as much as I do,” she began. “I wrote it in January—it’s pretty old actually. We put it out in February 2017, so it’s like a year and a half old now. Last year, I was on tour with Kehlani and it wasn’t even in my set because it was so new and as the tour went on, more people kept asking me, ‘why isn’t ‘Boo’d Up’ in your set? why isn’t ‘Boo’d Up’ in your set?’ So I [added] it and this year it’s just like taken off.”
And taken off it has.
The hit single has spawned a #BoodChallenge amongst fans who just can’t stop dancing to it and has garnered a rather surprising response from men.
“It’s so humbling and I’m just so grateful. I didn’t expect men to love it the way [they] do. I thought it was definitely going to be a something for the women and men have taken it and just ran with it and we can’t have it anymore! Men are like [Drake’s hit song] ‘Nice For What’ can be for the women and ‘Boo’d Up’ can be for the guys and I would have never expected that.”
The official remix for the chart-topping hit featuring rappers Nicki Minaj and Quavo of the Migos dropped just recently but that hasn’t stopped other celeb artists from hopping on the mic and adding a bar or two. Ella dished on her favorite.
“T-Pain murdered it!,” she said. “There’s so many different ones, Plies, all of them, Fab just put one out. There’s so many different ones and it’s like hard to keep up because there’s like a new one every day. But yeah, I think T-Pain would probably be my favorite.”
In case you’ve been sleeping on the soulful singer, she’s got more hits than just “Boo’d Up.”
With three EPs and another dope track to her name, Ella shared with fans three other songs she hopes they will fall in love with too.
“Naked, 10,000 Hours and Boo’d Up of course!”
Ella Mai heads out on her sold-out ‘Boo’d Up’ Tour in August.
