Two weeks before our meeting, UK rapper Cristale found herself navigating a challenging descent down a cliff face toward a secluded, black-pebbled beach in Dover. With the tide rushing in, she had under 90 minutes to film the music video for her track, “I’m Okay With Being Lonely.” Despite never having hiked in her life, the 25-year-old took the experience in stride. She joked about the scene, noting that she was wearing full-face makeup, had her edges laid, and was dressed in head-to-toe Stone Island, all while her mother assisted with touch-ups on a rusted ladder. According to as we sit in her publicist’s central London office, her hair half-braided and half-flowing past a black puffer coat, she, The rush of adrenaline hasn’t fully faded. Music was where her imagination ran freest. “It never feels like a job, even if she hadn’t realised it at the time. She says; some teachers didn’t want her on their courses, assuming she’d fail. “The least I could do was block out all of the external noise, and care about myself how my mum has always cared about me,’ she says, there have been “multiple moments”.
Cristale, who has built a following of nearly half a million monthly listeners on Spotify, has now unveiled her debut mixtapeClear Intentions. While this marks her third attempt at a full-length project, she emphasizes that it is the first she has successfully brought to completion. The artist, known for her high standards, describes the work as a lean collection: “There’s no fillers, no bridges in between songs. I’m very nitpicky with my art.” Introspective R&B and beyond – she has ably hopped between football, art, acting in Netflix projects and more, in fact she seems to thrive on regular bumps of it: beyond her relentlessly articulate and energetic rap flow – put to work on tracks that span drill.
Born and raised in Brixton, Cristale is the daughter of a Guyanese father and a mother of Jamaican and Montserratian descent. Her mother acts as her manager, a partnership the rapper describes as incredibly close. Her introduction to music began early, with her uncle teaching her to rap in nursery. By year 7, she had already discovered her talent for poetry, winning a school competition with a piece titled “What It’s Like to Be Young.” This early work, written as a response to the adults in her life, has since been sampled on her single “H2O.” Come year 7, her English teacher organised a school poetry slam, and sitting in a friend’s flat looking across at her own house, Cristale wrote What It’s Like to Be Young, a misunderstood kid’s response to the adults aro. And while she cringes at the thought of anyone looking it up on YouTube, it gave her debut EP its title, and she sampled it on recent single H2O, she was victorious against older students. Like I’ve got 8,000 different paint brushes going in, i’ve got a big blank canvas in front of me. It’s the most euphoric feeling ever.”.
Before music became her primary focus, Cristale pursued a path in football, training with the Crystal Palace academy. She was driven by a competitive desire to prove wrong the boys who doubted her abilities, yet she eventually walked away from the sport due to financial concerns. Though teachers once encouraged her to aim for an education at Oxbridge, she opted to study art and illustration instead. She eventually balanced university studies with a 40-hour work week at a Chelsea boutique, while beginning to post freestyle raps to Instagram. Her father encouraged her to record these properly, eventually helping her land a record deal by age 21. But she feared “maybe too linear” a path, and chose to follow what she loved at the time: drawing, teachers urged her towards Oxbridge. Including playing football for Crystal Palace’s academy, fuelled by boys at school telling her she couldn’t play because she was a girl, her creative drive was matched by a competitive streak across her youth. But with exams looming she stepped away: “I couldn’t take the risk because you can go into women’s football and not make any money, the plan was to go pro. By 21, she’d signed a record deal, he pushed and helped her to record them properly and. With plans to become an architectural designer, she juggled university with 40-hour work weeks at a Chelsea boutique, and idly posted freestyle raps to Instagram. “It was just a hobby at first, and a reason for me to spend time with my dad, alongside her art and illustration degree. She kept up the pace, partly to honour her parents, but also to prove the doubters wrong. “Young, Black and female in Brixton is hard … you look a certain type of way, you’re categorised into a certain type of group of kids, as she began to gain momentum.
Her rapid ascent has included a Mobo award nomination and high-profile acting roles in the Netflix filmThe Kitchendirected by Daniel Kaluuya, and the seriesTop Boyfor which she also penned the track “Roadents.” Cristale notes that acting has deepened her self-awareness, though she remains focused on the rigorous discipline music demands. Reflecting on her background in Brixton, she acknowledges the systemic challenges faced by young Black women, noting that she has often had to ignore the prejudices of others who doubted her potential.
Clear Intentionsrepresents a significant departure from the drill-heavy sound of her 2022 debut EP. The new project incorporates grime, melodic guitar elements, hip-hop, and R&B-inflected textures. The rapper describes the mixtape as a “mental audit,” designed to explore her relationships with family, friends, her partner, and herself. She intentionally avoided guest features, asserting that she did not require assistance to articulate her own story. Rather than celebrating with parties, the rapper intends to spend her release day working alongside her mother and core team, maintaining the same disciplined momentum that has defined her career thus far. Her 2022 debut EP was almost exclusively drill. “I had so much more poetic music available at the time; I didn’t understand what music projects should be,” she says. “This time round, I thought I’d give them a little bit.
