Lucy Clue is a Germany-based Italian artist, musician and songwriter. Her music reflects her inner strength while sonically offering a subtle mixture between pop, synthpop, and hip hop influences. Best described as oldschool meets modern vibes, with instrumentals bringing 80 ́s and 90 ́s sounds back, Lucy Clue’s music deploys a visionary art that incorporates past influences. She has an innate ability to create catchy melodies, cool rhymes and relatable metaphors. She has been compared to a wide range of artists from The Weeknd to Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga and Doja Cat. Her first official single, “In Your Eyes,” was released August 4, 2021 alongside visuals featuring famous Italian model Manuel Di Bernardo, counting 180K views on YouTube. We had a chance to chat with the emerging artist about her new single, artist name, background, and future plans!
Congratulations on the release of your new single “In Your Eyes”!
Thank you very much. It’s the first professional release out of many many other songs that will come.
Tell us more about it, what inspired you to record this song?
I work very closely with my main beat producer Eddie Vance. He is well-known on Soundclick and I discovered his instrumentals in 2019, got in touch with him and we both became partners and friends. He started sending me his beats before he would release them, so I could decide which one of them I would write on. In spring 2020 he sent me the beat, which later would be the song called “In Your Eyes.” The funny thing about it is that beat producers very often give their beat names, which are an inspiration for the artist. And this is what happened here. The beat name was “In Your Eyes,“ I listened to it, started immediately freestyling on it and included the title of the beat and that’s how the chorus was born. Additionally, it was a moment in my life, when I had a specific feeling rising up for a specific person, that I really could not stop thinking about. And I felt this energy in me and around me, no matter where I was, it was following me and it followed me as well into my dreams. So I definitely had to write about it to get it out of my mind. The sound of the beat was very 80s stylistic and it was the first time I experimented with that style of beats. All the other beats, I wrote on before that time, had a rather hip hop and rap sound but all the beats, Eddie had sent me after “In Your Eyes” had this 80s and 90s feeling and this evoked a process of a bunch of new songs, that I wrote the last 2 years, that have 80s and 90s influences, meeting new sounds from nowadays. While I was writing this song, I was only thinking about this feeling and this energy that I was experiencing, when two people know that they want each other, but don’t tell each other. You feel it with your body, you see it with your eyes, you hear it in the melody of their voice and your goosebumps tell it to you. So what you start picturing is the most intimate thing that two people can have, and this is what I was picturing the whole day and I needed to release the thoughts by writing the song. I wanted to write the lyrics metaphorically very nice and use many symbols instead of telling directly what my head is actually picturing. The lyrics are using many symbols that make the song sound innocent but looking at the meaning it is rather the opposite. I wanted to write a radio-friendly song to give it the opportunity of ending up on Airplay.
What’s the story behind your artist name ‘Lucy Clue’?
After I recorded my first song I wondered about my artist name. My real name is Lucia, which is Italian and I was given the name because my Italian Dad’s mom was called Lucia, too and the Italians love to give their children their parents‘ name. When we had English classes at school, our English teachers always liked to rename all our names into the English version of the name and during English classes I was not Lucia, I was Lucy. I liked the name and when I was thinking about my artist name, I knew that it must deal with “Lucy“ in the beginning. I was thinking about a second name or nickname or epithet that would directly come after “Lucy“. I could not make up my mind. So there was a moment of silence and I had an idea to get help with it. I just took my English-German dictionary, I closed my eyes, I randomly swiped through the pages, stopped when I had the feeling to stop, put my finger randomly somewhere on the book, opened my eyes and my finger was on „clue“. I read the meaning and thought „Hell yeah, this is it!“. Since that day I have been Lucy Clue.
What artists have influenced you the most?
As a child I was inspired by Michael Jackson. I was not able to understand the lyrics, as I started to learn English later at school but it didn’t matter. Michael was so amazing in creating rhythm, sound, harmonies, melodies and choirs, that I look up to him until today. He was a very big influence since then and still is. He was writing songs that are timeless and this timeless manner of making music is also something that I try to incorporate in my music. In my youth I started to listen to rap and Emimen was a lyricist that convinced me with technique, like nobody else did. Not only that he was the technical goat, it was also his sad story, that he was broke, had no family support and had a lot of difficulties with his mom which made me identify with him as I had similar problems. These two artists are the artists that influenced me the most as on the one hand, I see myself trying to create choirs, like Michael Jackson did and inventing timeless songs and on the other hand writing technically obsessed lyrics, like Eminem did and still does.
What’s your background, tell us more about your Italian and German origins.
My father is Italian and my mother is German. My father came to Germany to break out of the circle of unemployment in Italy, as his family was very poor and he wanted to be the first one of the family who did not want to accept this kind of life and dared to cross borders and start a new life with new chances. He came to Germany and fell in love with my mom. He could not speak German that time, so my mom started to learn Italian for him. They got married and then they had me but got divorced when I was 2 years old. I grew up on the side of my mom, but kept contact with my dad and my Italian family. Somehow I always felt rather Italian than German, even though I grew up in Germany on the German side of my mother. I always felt like a stranger here in Germany, regarding my open-mindedness, my cordiality, my temper and my emotions. Germany is well-known for its open arms for foreigners but in my childhood I had to deal with racism due to my origin. In my first class at school I was the only pupil with black hair and curls. I looked different than all the others. I grew up in a little village, not in a big city. Big cities here in Germany are very used to multiculturism but small villages sometimes are not and the time I grew up, our village had to deal with many Nazis and I will never forget that I was six years old, walking everday home from school and got haunted by 14-16 years old Nazi youngsters who insulted my appearance and scared me to death a period of time. I also will never forget that I told my German great-grandmother about it and then she waited for them to catch them red handed and scared them to death. I really need to laugh about it today, but my white hair granny with her hunchback scared them so much that they never dared to look at me. So funny actually. When I started to study in Frankfurt am Main at the university and had many seminars I realized that people in Frankfurt almost never experienced racism, as the big cities just don’t need to deal with it due to their multiculturalism. But growing up in the rural area, I had many experiences with racism, especially at school when teachers did not want to give me the marks that I actually deserved. Many studies show that students with migrant backgrounds still have a lot of disadvantages here in Germany. But this did not keep me from doing my A-level, it rather encouraged me to.
What sparked your desire to become an artist?
After my parents got divorced when I was two years old my mom had to work a lot and she did many night shifts. That was the time when my great-grandmother was there to look after me and she was
the one making me fall asleep in the evenings. She made me fall asleep by singing different German nursery rhymes and folk songs every evening and I always thought about the lyrics, their meanings and the melodies. She never read a book, she always sang for me and this was my first bonding to music. It had a deep impact because it was directly before sleep and psychology says that things you think about directly before sleeping will end up deeply imprinted in your memory. I wanted to become a singer since I knew Michael Jackson and I got to know his music when I was three years old. I was always told that music is not a way to earn money, so I kept my wish a secret. I left home when I was 17. Later I got to know people with a music studio and I wrote a birthday song for one of my sisters. This was my first record and I realized that I am good at it. I always knew that I was a good lyricist as I was rhyming since I was a kid and also writing songs since I was a youngster but recording is always something different. That was the moment I realized I AM able to do it, my voice sounds nice, the lyrics are good but I still was finding myself, my sound, and I got to know many people and many music studios but I was never satisfied with the mixing. I also did not like to depend on other people, because they never satisfied my expectations but I depended on them because I was not able to record or mix as I did not have a studio. For two years I am at the point in my life that I have the right contacts and my own music studio which allows me to be as independent as I want to be and to sound like I want to sound like. I thank God for this independence and freedom! It took a long time to achieve it and my music studio is my baby and my music contacts are as important as my family. I treat them like diamonds.
What is one of the most defining moments you lived through regarding your music?
There are many defining moments in many different ways and it’s hard to pick only one. But since the release of “In Your Eyes” the most defining moment was when the radio station YOU FM in Germany got my attention and invited me for an interview and my song was played on one of the biggest radio stations in Germany and even people from far away heard it and told me that they heard me on air. It was a crazy feeling hearing my song on the radio for the first time and one of my sisters, my friends and I were sitting in the car and we all started crying when the song was played. It was an incredible feeling!
How would you define your own genre and style?
As I combined rap with singing ever since I never felt good calling myself just a rapper or calling myself just a singer. As my beat choice always had hip hop styles but melodic drives that make me create melodies and choirs I never felt good saying I do Hip Hop, nor saying I do pop. I can tell that my songs are a crossover and mixture out of rap and singing, out of hip hop and pop music, using 80s and 90s sounds, that are mixed into modern and chart known styles of today. The song “In Your Eyes” has many synthesizers and the beat has 80s pop influences, that’s why I would rather integrate this song into Synth-Pop but even this does not sound satisfying to explain my genre.
Besides music, what are some of your favorite hobbies?
Besides music I love languages, traveling, seeing other countries and getting to know different cultures. What I like the most about traveling is when I am at the Mediterranean Sea. I love the beaches and the sea and I always feel home anytime I am at a beach. I feel very close to the water and I love swimming and diving. Besides that I also enjoy dancing a lot and meeting my friends.
What’s next for Lucy Clue?
The next Song will be released soon and is called “The crocodile”. It is going to be mixed by Lex Barkey, who is a goat in Mix and Master and who is very famous here in Germany but also well- known world wide. Eddie Vance, my beat producer and friend, worked with me on the song. On the one hand “The crocodile” is going to show a little bit more of my private mind and attitudes and the other hand it is a Diss Track, that, due to metaphorical use, does not show directly who is meant with getting dissed. The music video is in progress :-).
