Yahoo Lifestyle Charli XCX honored by Reneé Rapp for EW's 2024 Entertainers of the Year: 'She's the face of pop culture and is tearing bitches apart'
The "Mean Girls" star has only the nicest things to say about the "360" and "Apple" singer, who she says is "relentless and fierce and fiercely confident."
2024 is Brat. Brat is 2024. Charli XCX has long been the best at what she does — crafting clever, often heartfelt, forward-thinking pop bangers — and this year, people have truly paid attention, finally giving the British singer-songwriter her flowers. That includes the most critically acclaimed album of the year, if not the decade, seven Grammy nominations including Album of the Year, and ownership of an entire season. And oh, what a Brat Summer it was! The rest of the year wasn't so bad either. In addition to her Sweat tour with Troye Sivan, she reconciled with former frenemy Lorde, dropped a deluxe album followed by an epic remix album, joined the rarified club of Saturday Night Live guests who pull double duty as host and performer, and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris adopted her aesthetic.
Singer, songwriter, and actress Reneé Rapp — who parlayed her breakout as Regina George in the Broadway version of Mean Girls into the Max hit The Sex Lives of College Girls and this year's movie musical adaptation of Mean Girls, reprising her Broadway role, and released her debut album Snow Angel last year — pays tribute to her new obsession (who just happens to have a song called "Mean Girls").
Charli XCX: Mike Marsland/WireImage; Rapp: Noam Galai/Getty Images for WSJ. Magazine Innovators Awards
I grew up listening to hip-hop, R&B, trap stuff — I despised pop music and thought it was so weird. I just didn’t get it, and none of my friends listened to it. Once I started making music, I realized I actually make pop music, so I had to sit with myself a minute. Then, when my girlfriend and I just started dating, she played me “Vroom Vroom” and I was like, “This is the best thing I've ever heard! This is probably the single greatest song maybe ever!” It's her and the Beatles for me. I was freaking out, and I immediately went into a deep dive and listened to Charli XCX basically every single day.
There's something about the way she conducts herself as a person that I think is incredibly difficult for a lot of people to do, especially a lot of women. She is relentless and fierce and fiercely confident in who she is — and it makes you fall in love with her music. Anything she does is inherently artistic, down to what she wears.
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When I heard Brat was coming out, I was so gassed. I went to her New York show with a friend, and I played it quite cool even though I was actually losing my mind. She was exuding sex in the most powerful way, singing her little ass off. She is one of the craziest songwriters ever and it’s kind of crazy how she is just now getting her flowers. This bitch has been doing this for a while now, and she genuinely transcends time, no matter what kind of music she's making. She said in an interview that it’s so hard being ahead, and I think that's maybe the craziest thing anyone has said; it’s the sickest thing to say ever but she's exactly right — she's been ahead and has her finger on the pulse of what music is going to be in the coming years. She is a treasure. She’s genuinely one of one — what she does can’t be taught, and she can’t be copied.
I cannot tell you how often I listen to her and have been listening to her over the last year, especially. It helps me a lot when I'm going into the studio and writing. I'm like, I can kind of do whatever the f--- I think is good because I think that's what she did on Brat, and that’s why it's so amazing. It’s so confident, and you just believe everything she’s singing — it doesn't matter if you’ve had a similar experience.
Related: Charli XCX reacts to Bowen Yang's impression of her on Saturday Night Live
Charli is just a freak of nature. And she's also the sweetest thing ever and unrealistically beautiful — she’s so hot, it's a little bit scary. When a friend introduced me to her, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how deeply obsessed with her I am and that she's informed so much how I make music and carry myself as a woman in the business — I get far too shy. But I could write a novel about all the reasons I think she's amazing and why she's the face of pop culture and is tearing bitches apart.
—As told to Gerrad Hall
EW's 2024 Entertainers of the Year
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
