Lola Lennox: I’ve been privileged because of who my mother is, but I earned my own place in music
Photograph by Shane McCauley / Trunk Archive
The daughter of singer Annie Lennox, talks to Tom Pattinson about finding her own voice in her 30s, why she’s not a pampered ‘Nepo baby’ and the day David Bowie came calling…
Photography by Shane McCauley
Lola Lennox has just moved house. Although she is surrounded by boxes and it’s barely breakfast time, she already looks wonderful in an elegant black dress and immaculate make up. Outside her window, the grey, wet morning is more reminiscent of London than her adopted home of Los Angeles.
It’s not all that surprising to discover that Lennox has travelled to the other side of the world to find her place in music. Her mother is one of British music’s most successful singers and has been a household name for over forty years. Aberdeen-born, Annie Lennox formed the Eurythmics in 1980 and dominated the charts for much of the next decade with hits including ‘Sweet Dreams’, ‘Why’ and ‘There Must Be an Angel’. In 1988 Annie married her second husband, Israeli producer and activist Uri Fruchtmann, and in 1990 Lola was born, followed by her sister, the model and artist Tali, three years later.
Lennox explains that she struggled to get her career going in London. The self imposed pressure of living up to her family name, and anxiety about her own ability, held her back. It wasn’t until she came to LA, eight years ago, for a gig as a backing singer, that things started to fall into place.
“People are more open to trying new things with new artists here,” she says. “But in London people have a bit more of a group mentality of working with people they know.” Trying to carve a name for herself in an industry that regards her mother as an icon, was predictably tough. Starting afresh, in another country, on her own terms, is working out much better. Her mother is fully supportive of her career path.
Lennox, now 32, grew up on The Grove in Highgate, north London, with singer George Michael living next door on one side, and supermodel Kate Moss, the other. I imagine this was a childhood enlivened by glamorous grown-up parties with superstars popping in to drink tea and sing songs in the kitchen, but she insists this wasn’t the case. “My mum’s very low key.” There was the occasional surreal moment. She remembers her dad picking up the phone one evening. “Dave who?” he asked the caller. It was the coolest of Dave’s of course, David Bowie, phoning up for a chat with her mum. Otherwise, it was a resolutely down to earth upbringing, her mother working hard to give her as normal a childhood as her friends. When she went on tour, however, it was hard not to be aware of the differences.
“When I was about eight, we’d go to some shows and it was like we were entering into this Annie Lennox world. I knew it was a different world because going to watch a show of hers is so powerful, especially because it’s someone you’re so connected to,” she says. “But then you’d return home that night and life went back to normal.”
Photograph by Shane McCauley / Trunk Archive
From a young age, Lennox knew that she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps. By the time she had reached her early teens she had plucked up the courage to tell her that she also wanted to be a musician.
“Naturally, like with any parent, there’s a level of protection. She knows what fame can be, and how being a woman in the industry can have quite an intense impact on you. But she’s been my biggest supporter. She loves that I have something I’m really passionate about and she sees how much music gives me,” she says.
“There was the occasional surreal moment growing up. She remembers her dad picking up the phone one evening. “Dave who?” he asked the caller. It was David Bowie, phoning up for a chat with mum”
Lennox has been writing and performing since her teens, but only burst into the spotlight after a virtual performance during lockdown, aged 30, when she sang a duet with her mother on the iconic hit ‘There Must Be an Angel.”
The mother and daughter duet on ‘One World Together at Home,’ was watched by as many as quarter of a billion people around the world, and it was a turning point.
“I didn’t know it’d be as big as it ended up being,” she says of that duet. “I didn’t think too much about what would happen once it came out,” she says.
People were starting to pay attention to Annie Lennox’s daughter, but following the same career path as a successful parent is often fraught (just ask Julian Lennon or Jacob Dylan). I ask if she’s aware of the pejorative online tag ‘Nepo baby’, used to describe offspring who have succeeded in life because of their parents fame.
“Obviously I’ve thought a lot about that because I’m the daughter of someone who’s had a lot of success. I’ve always wanted to work really hard at what I do. I’ve always returned back to ‘can my music speak on my behalf rather than by the context of who I am?’,” she says.
Lola and her sister Tali pictured together in 2017
“I recognize I’ve had privileges that the majority of people might not have had. But I also think that if the music isn’t up to scratch, you might be able to get your foot in the door, but you can’t walk through it. I don’t feel like I bypassed anything – I really did earn my place in where I am now,” she says.
Lennox’s move away from London eight years ago seemed to free her from the pressures and constraints of her home city and her mother’s shadow. She says that she intentionally held back her music until she had was comfortable with her own sound, “and come to a place where I felt like I knew what I was doing,” she explains. “Then I got to a point where I thought: ‘right, let’s get it finished’.”
Lola’s mother Annie Lennox in 2018/ Shutterstock
A deeply held insecurity over her music pushed her to write a lot more, and “grind” at it. “I definitely got to a place where, after moving to LA and writing with different artists, I found my voice and found my way of producing a song.”
When she did finally get to the point where she was ready to release music, lockdown hit. “I had to face the decision of do I keep going or do I hold back and see?”
She decided to push on. Her debut single ‘Into the Wild’, a haunting vocal ballad about a breakup, was released just before the now famous mother-daughter duet, and over the course of that lockdown year she released three more singles, including the anthemic ‘Back at Wrong’.
“It was surreal to be have music coming out and being played on the radio, whilst I was just on Zoom or in my living room but the pandemic was a really intense working period for me.”
“I recognize I’ve had privileges that majority of people might not have had. But I also think that if the music isn’t up to scratch, you might be able to get your foot in the door, but you can’t walk through it.”
Lennox says music comes easily to her. Her latest single ‘Dreamer’ was written “alone at her piano.”
“When I write a song, it’s like this distillation of something that means something to me. It’s like a little gift, writing any song.” But finishing songs – the long nights and the constant tinkering in studios, she says, she has found harder. To help her on the production side of things she has turned to family and loved ones. Her mother executive produces the songs, and her boyfriend, Canadian model and producer, Braeden Wright, produces them.
“We’ll discuss ideas together. What world does this song sit in? What colours do we hear? And kind of go from there,” she says. “We all get along really well and we have gotten to be creative in that way and it’s really fun building something, seeing it come together, into this finely tuned thing.”
Her music, which incorporates elements of pop, soul, and electronic music, allows her powerful vocals and emotive storytelling to shine through. She’s starting to find an audience. Her single ‘La La Love Me’ was Radio 2 record of the week, and she recently performed at the Royal Albert Hall at a charity concert organised by Who frontman Roger Daltrey.
“It was like a dream to perform at the Royal Albert Hall, you don’t really get that much better,” says Lola. “I walked onto the stage and it was a pinch me moment.”
It seems likely that Lola Lennox will have many more pinch me moments to come in a career that she has worked hard to nurture and that is only just starting to unfurl.
Lola Lennox’s EP Dreamer is out now.
Photography: Shane McCauley
Fashion: Gorge Villalpando
Hair: Jaycee Mnirajd
Makeup: Garret Gervais
Fashion assistant: Eva Jacinto
