LYNX

**Lynn** **Dubois** **Xavier** (born August 8, 1988), known professionally as **LYNX**, is an English singer, songwriter, dancer and producer. Born in Bristol, England, Lynn has expressed extreme passion for music and arts in general since she was a child, which led her to attend Leeds College of Music, where she was spotted by a record label scout.

She, then, signed with Warner Music Group in 2015 and released her debut album, ***"Why Is It So Hard To Accept The Party Is Over?"*** in 2016. The album peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart, and produced four singles, including *"Heard It All Before"*, *"Love Galore (feat. Travis Scott)"*, and the UK number-one single *"Hard Place"*, which also peaked at number nine in the *US Billboard Hot 100.* In 2017, LYNX won the Brit Awards for British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act. The album and its songs were also nominated for two Grammy Awards, while LYNX was nominated for Best New Artist at the 59th annual ceremony. *Why Is It So Hard To Accept The Party Is Over?* was ranked as the best album of 2016 by *Time*.

In 2018, *"Mr. Policeman*" featuring PopCaan, the lead single of her sophomore album, peaked at number one in the UK, and became the longest-running number-one single for a female artist in 2018. It won her the 2018 Brit Award for Song of the Year. The success of the single catapulted the campaign to her second studio album, ***"misanthrope."*** - which became one of the most-streamed albums on Spotify and achieved platinum certifications. Songs like *"Ruleta"*, featuring J. Balvin and Bad Bunny, and *"So Much Better"*, feat G-Eazy and its latin elements also turned LYNX into a musical powerhouse at Latin America.

Inspired by *"versatile strong icons"* - as stated by herself in interviews - like Lara Liwford, Geri, Janet Jackson and Cher, among others, her music background and versatility enables her to try varied styles, including pop, alternative R&B, electronic music with unexpected twists such as latin pop, bossa nova, Brazilian funk and, now, full-on disco music.

## Early life

Lynn was born at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, United Kingdom, on 8 August 1988.  She is the daughter of Helena Dubois, a social worker, and Francis Xavier, a Catalan descendant who worked as a reporter for BBC's *Panorama*.

Even though the couple divorced when she was 10, both parents were supportive of her decision to pursue a musical career, saying *"My parents brought up my sister, and me with so much love and fun and they always told me I could do anything I want."*, says. As a child, she won several singing and dancing contests in churches and talent shows.
Lynn was educated at Alleyn's School, a co-educational independent school in Dulwich in South London -, followed by the Leeds College of Music, where she graduated with a degree in Music & Performing Arts. As a top student and notorious star quality, she was sought over by teachers, who pitched her for several record labels. *"Some of them even asked if they could be my managers. They've always seen me as I golden ticket and, still, I couldn't see myself that way"*, says. After her studies, Lynn worked briefly as an Audio Engineer on Abbey Road Studios, in London.

## Music Career

### **2014-2015: Career beginnings**

In 2014, Lynn signed a contract with Tap Management, directed by Ben Mawson and Ed Millett, while working as an audio engineer in Abbey Road Studios. Subsequently, they offered her a monthly salary to leave her job and focus on writing and submitting songs to other artists. She recorded demos for songs like "Tempo", "Lottery" and "Like I Do" (the latter still unleaked to this point) to be pitched to other UK acts. However, Warner Music Group felt like Lynn had the "full package and talent" to make the songs come to life. And eventually it led to her signing a two album record deal with Warner Music Group in the summer of 2015.

Millett retrospectively elaborated: *"We felt like she didn't realize what a powerhouse she was. She had the looks, had the voice, had the presence. But she was just shy. So we needed a tool to let her confidence come out. We needed the feline out of her. [...] Our brains were just frying and then, out of the blue, she came up with the idea of the lynx after a simple name play"*. Lynn Xavier then became LYNX, after the wild mysterious cat that lives in European and African woods.

### **2016-2017: "Why Is It So Hard To Accept The Party Is Over?"**

Warner Music Group felt like Lynn's appearance, vocal range and musical style presented on her first three demos could be appealing to the US market. Several meetings and sessions were arranged with North American urban producers such as Danja, J.R. Rotem, Ricky Reed and Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins.

And, after two months of sessions, LYNX met up with her label and expressed dissatisfaction with the direction the album was taking and tried to grant some creative and artistic freedom to experiment. Sessions with with producers like Cashmere Cat, DJ Dahi and Blood Diamonds - the latter responsible for 5 tracks that defined the core direction of the album: a sultry, icy alternative R&B.

The result was an intersectional album with commercial moments and gems of glacial R&B with hints of 90s and 00s nostalgia. *"Why Is It So Hard To Accept The Party Is Over?"* was released in September, 2016 and critics rated tracks like *"Crucify Me*", *"Warm Enough"* and *"Cold Sweat"* as *"forward-thinking and even timeless jams with subversive, ambient production".* Lansky noted that *"In its own way, [the album] neatly illustrates the dangers artists face when labels aggressively try to keep up with commercial music"*.

Most of the tracks, including the hit single *"Hard Place"*, though, were critically acclaimed, turning *"Why Is It So Hard To Accept The Party Is Over?"* into a cult classic among alternative pop and R&B enthusiasts. By the end of 2016, LYNX was ranked as one of the artists to watch in 2017 and rated as the Next Best Thing on BBC Lists. New Music Express (NME) said that *"even with clear commercial handcuffs, LYNX's talent shines through and turns bland tracks into great songs"*.

### **2018–2019: "misanthrope."**

In July 2017, the campaign for the debut album *"Why Is It So Hard To Accept The Party Is Over?"* was finished. After the huge unexpected success of *"Hard Place"*, the label felt like it was time to keep up the pace and enjoy the hype surrounding LYNX's name and arranged a camp of songwriters and producers to create *"emotional and relatable songs such as Hard Place"*. Once LYNX was aware of the strategy and felt the pressure of recreating a formula, she started developing manic episodes and depression and asked for a couple months of withdrawal, claiming emotional and physical exhaustion.
The singer then headed to a cabin in Aruba, on southern Caribbean sea, where she had little to no contact with the press and the label (that was simultaneously working on songs to be pitched to LYNX as soon as she got back on her feet). In Setember 2017, she felt *"suddenly inspired*" by the Caribbean culture and latin music and contacted Jamaican DJ and singer Popcaan, who accepted the challenge and hopped on the next plane to *"simply make music"*.

LYNX stated in interviews that music *"felt like an organic process to find my own voice and subvert people and my own label's expectations of what I should do as a black singer and, above it all, a woman"*. They embarked on a journey trying to live out and enjoy the Caribbean and Latin culture as anonymous beings, low-profile visiting countries like Brazil, Dominican Republic (where they arranged a meeting with the duo Major Lazer) and Jamaica. The inspiration culminated in *"misanthrope.*", a Latin-infused album with elements of samba, Brazilian funk, bossa nova, reggaeton, afrobeat and electronic dance music.

Even though the songs were commercially palatable and sun-coated, most of the lyrical content on "misanthrope." featured themes like depression, anger management and sadness. *“Isolation, questioning, grief, overcoming, anger and regret. Those were my stages.”* she explains of the process of coming to terms with herself. *“But I didn’t want it to be this sad, depressing album*” said LYNX, *“I wanted it to uplift people who had gone through self-doubt.”*
*"misanthrope."* was introduced to the general public by the single *"Mr. Policeman"*, featuring Popcaan, who had a surprising performance on Eastern Europe and United Kingdom and was rated as the UK Summer Hit of 2018. *"So Much Better"*, featuring G-Eazy, fared moderate airplay success; whilst *"Ruleta"*, featuring Latin powerhouses J. Balvin and Bad Bunny, catapulted LYNX to an unexpected success on Latin America.

The critical reception was mixed. Some media outlets criticized the album rhythmic approach and insisted that it was a clear attempt of commercial success disguised as conceptual art; others praised LYNX's courage in dealing with real, organic topics in a light guise. All, however, praised the versatility of the singer on subverting expectations.

### **2020–present: "The Disco Moment", "La Petite Mort" and more**

After the end of LYNX's first tour as a headling artist, "Misanthropy Is Underrated Tour", whose last show was held in November 2018, the singer went on a hiatus and returned to London. Between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, she focused on personal life and started experimenting with sounds and genres at home.
Despite Warner Music Group's renewal proposals, LYNX began to study new proposals that would guarantee greater creative freedom. During this period, at a charity event in Glasgow, in October 2019, she met Geri - one of her greater inspirations -, who revealed the project of founding her own record label. After negotiations, LYNX was invited to join the cast of Incite Entertainment - who would fully fund her new project.

In an interview with North American magazine *Paper*, in 2020, LYNX announced that she was now a part of Incite Entertainment and had plans to release three new albums [*"that I prefer to call moments or chapters, since they feel like decades frozen in time, little amalgams from the past"*] - that will, later, turn into a full body of work named *"La Petite Mort"*.

She said, *"I got all these great songs so why not? [...] I've always loved the idea of triologies and, in my opinion, the traditional idea of releasing music is already obsolete and dead. Everything ages very quickly, people enjoy singles for like a week, neglect it and turn to the next batch or monthly playlist"*, explained. *"I've always preferred full body-of-works. That's why “La Petite Mort” came up with the idea of subverting traditional industry rules and trying to create something new. Keep the experience alive and intriguing even after three months or so with new tracks, videos, and all the pop fantasy",* explained.

*"The Disco Moment"*is the first chapter of the trilogy-album *“La Petite Mort”,* is scheduled to be released in August, 2020. Inspired by the 70's disco, nu-disc and was carved with help from a legendary team: Guy Lawrence and Howard Lawrence [Disclosure], James Ford, Mark Ralph, Stuart Price and the legend Giorgio Moroder - who was responsible for the lead single,*“Wildstar”*, released in July, 2020.

## Discography

* Why Is It So Hard To Accept The Party Is Over? (2016)
* misanthrope. (2018)
* The Disco Moment (Chapter I) (2020)
* The San Junípero Moment (Chapter II) (2020)
* La Petite Mort (2020)