Flowerovlove: “It’s always felt like my calling to be a pop girl”

The 19-year-old Londoner talks her new EP ‘Ache In My Tooth’, having a song featured in the third season of ‘Heartstopper’, and why she’s in her self-love era

“I love love, for real,” says Flowerovlove, earnestly laying down her heartfelt manifesto for NME. “I believe greatly that just because something is going to hurt you, [it] doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put your all into it, and you shouldn’t feel it to its fullest extent.”

Hearing the 19-year-old singer’s sugary sweet pop songs for the first time does feel a bit like being struck by Cupid’s arrow. Flowerovlove (real name Joyce Cisse) knows those feelings of woozy butterflies and dizzying infatuations well. She bottles them up in “crush anthems” like ‘Breaking News’ and ‘a girl like me’, her frolicking pop melodies and kittenish vocals capable of leaving even love’s greatest cynics blushing and kicking their feet.

After all, writing about big feelings has always always come naturally to Cisse. Born in London and raised at home in Essex speaking Mandingo, the language of her parents’ native Ivory Coast, Cisse first started making music aged 13 around the same time her older brother Wilfred taught himself how to produce. The first song they made together was a rap track that she’s already decided will soundtrack her Album Of The Year win at the Grammys one day. “I realised: ‘damn, I really do love writing’,” she recalls.

In her teens she was scouted as a model and featured in a Gucci campaign as her first professional gig aged just 15. Balancing budding careers in both modelling and music, Cisse left school after her GCSEs and swapped exam halls for fashion shows with stars like Zendaya. After independently dropping her 2022 debut EP, ‘A Mosh Pit In The Clouds’, the singer signed to Capitol Records on her 18th birthday.

Fresh from her Glastonbury debut this summer and still riding the high of a much-coveted sync on the Heartstopper season three soundtrack, Cisse – who SZA recently declared “fire as hell” – is ready to drop her open-hearted new EP ‘Ache In My Tooth’. “This is therapy for me, getting these songs out,” she shares. “But the ones that made it onto the EP were not songs I wrote for myself. They were songs that I feel are very universal and will reach people.”

It’s clear you’re really confident in knowing who you are as a person. Has this always been the case or is it something you’ve learned?

“It’s definitely something I had to learn and grow into. I feel like when you’re in this industry, you have to grow up really fast. Everyone is an adult, and you’re the only kid, and you don’t want to really be seen as the kid. So there’s a lot of growing up and maturing that has to happen. Even in the fashion industry when I was a model, there was a lot of growing up. And I think when a lot of stuff goes on in your personal life, you have to learn to deal with it and grow up. In business, I’m definitely the boss, but in my life with my friends, I’m the biggest child ever, and I love that.”

Your new EP captures universal experiences but they’re all told through Flowerovlove’s light-hearted and fun sound. Why are you drawn to that approach with storytelling?

“I connect most to songs about love, whether it’s self love, or it’s about other people. Love is so universal, which is why I’m writing about love. Stuff was happening in my love life and I was like, ‘There’s nothing I can do but write songs about this pain or this amazing feeling’. It’s crazy how love can turn to hatred so fast, and from the start of the EP to the end, I go through that journey sonically as well as lyrically.

“The EP is about different types of love, and it’s in chronological order. It tells a story. And I honestly just love the sound of pop. It’s the music I’ve always wanted to make.”

“There’s a space to be filled for a Black girl in pop”

You’ve captioned some of your TikToks ‘Black girls in pop >’. What does it mean to you to be a Black woman in the current pop landscape, and are there any challenges with that?

“I haven’t experienced any challenges yet which is great, because I think I’ve made it very clear since forever that this is my lane. But I do ask people, ‘What kind of music do I look like I make?’ And sometimes people have been like, ‘A Willow Smith or a soul vibe’. I’m like, ‘That’s interesting, because I don’t make that kind of music, I make pop music’.

“But I think it’s important because there’s a space to be filled for a Black girl in pop, and I mean a mainstream pop sound, because I have personally never, ever seen one. I’d love for someone to show me her, but it’s me. It’s important, because I’ve not seen anyone like that growing up. It’s also just always felt like my calling to be a pop girl.”

What does ‘Ache In My Tooth’ mean in the context of the new songs on your EP?

“When you’re in love, it can be so sweet that it hurts so bad, like a toothache. Every time I eat candy, my teeth always hurt. I have such sensitive teeth, and I feel like I’ve got such a sensitive heart, that that was the only thing that just felt right. When I was in LA last year, I wrote a song and one of the lyrics was like, ‘You’re so sweet, you make an ache in my tooth’. I haven’t used that song, but I wanted to use that lyric somehow, so I made it the title of my EP. It just feels like the most accurate and honest way to describe how I feel about love sometimes.”

‘A Girl Like Me’ has really resonated with the queer community because of the gender-inclusive bridge. Why was that important for you to include?

“When I was writing the bridge, I was like, ‘What feels right, right now?’ It wasn’t super intentional. I also think sexuality is confusing sometimes – especially when people like Billie Eilish exist. I’m just like, I’m also confused! So I was like, ‘What do I feel like I want to scream? And what do I feel like other people would want to scream?’ I also hate songs that are so straight as well. It’s like, ‘A boy broke my heart’. Okay, and? What about everyone else?”

How does it feel to have your song ‘Love You’ on the Heartstopper season three soundtrack?

“It feels like a full circle moment, because the fans on TikTok are what made this happen. I don’t think [Alice Osman] would have known who I was without the fans on TikTok making it happen.

“It’s amazing because I love the show so much. I remember when I watched episode one, and I heard the Beabadoobee song ‘Dance With Me’. I already knew the song, but I was like, ‘Wait, this is about to be my favourite show in the entire world’, because I connect so highly with music that fits shows. I was like, ‘This is my exact music taste. This is my Spotify playlist back to back’. I’m really honoured to be a part of it.”

Much of your music has a nostalgic quality to it, but as your career is on an upward trajectory what’s inspiring you right now, and are you starting to look forwards?

“I’ve written so many love songs, I kind of want to step away, just because I’m in my era right now where I just love myself so much – not in a vain way – but I just really enjoy myself as a person. So I want to write more stuff about me. I want to write more stuff about myself, because I feel like a lot of people do not do that. And I want to make it a little bit more OK for people to just be obsessed with themselves. And sometimes, it’s about that one person telling them, it’s OK to be obsessed with yourself.”

‘Ache In My Tooth’ is out on October 11 via Capitol Records.