No Bull Issue #41

As thecocknbullkid, Anita Blay plots world domination through negative thinking

By Beverly Bryan
Published: August 1st, 2009 | 12:00am

Rising British pop star Anita Blay, aka thecocknbullkid, says she isn’t aiming for universal appeal, but that might not be immediately apparent on first listen. With a glistening pop surface, rich cool-to-sultry vocals, and motivational beats, her single “I’m Not Sorry,” could inspire dance frenzies in almost any club — that is, if the remorseless lyrics don’t hit a nerve. “That was a song about being quite cruel to someone and not feeling bad about it, and that’s not something that a lot of people can admit to. But I knew some people would feel like that. There will always be people who respond to it because there will always be irreverent people in the world,” she says of the catchy, early Madonna-esque number.

While Blay does list Madonna as an influence on her MySpace profile, another one-name artist, Morrissey, is a bigger touchstone for the 24-year-old East Londoner: “He just subverted everything and he was completely dark and people got it. I don’t think I have to write about love for people to listen to me.”

Blay’s own subversions start with her stage name. For Americans less familiar with the “cock and bull story” idiom: “The basic translation is a fanciful story or a story that has been made up. Me naming myself was a kind of play on that. Without being too deep about it, a lot of the things that we read or see, we take at face value. It’s a tongue in cheek way of saying that.”

Take it at face value or don’t, but there’s been plenty to read and see of thecocknbullkid in the U.K. Her negative point of view has drawn an enthusiastically positive response in England’s music press and even some warm regards stateside. Her singles and the four downer-disco tunes on her EP Querelle have led to tours with CSS, Santigold, a slot on the 2008 Vice Live tour, and, finally, a deal with Island Records. Her first full-length will be available in the U.S. through Moshi Moshi by early 2010. At work on that debut album now, she’s calling in quite a team, from sometime Peaches collaborator Gonzales to Peter of Peter Bjorn and John, and some of her earlier producer/musical collaborators such as Joseph Mount of Metronomy.

The songstress warns that she’s unleashing some particularly nasty emotions through the new material, but adds we can expect the sound to be poppier and brighter than before. “It’s celestial and almost epic sounding. I just want everything to sound like you could sing it in a church. But, in so doing, she is activating her own perversity. “The minute you put something in a major key I want to go somewhere dark with it. I think that’s a lot more powerful.”

Blay’s provocative style is especially striking because this statuesque child of Ghanaian immigrants doesn’t look like Katy Perry. With a half-shaved head and enviably bold fashion sense, Blay is refreshingly comfortable with the fact. “There were a few labels that didn’t end up signing me because they thought I was too fat or whatever,” she says. From Blay’s perspective, it’s their loss. “I don’t know why anyone would encourage me to start being smaller or have longer hair. That’s the appeal of who I am. My management has just always understood what I was about and who I was as an artist.” Thank goodness. It would be a shame to waste such singular talents, such as her ability to make giant clown bows and floral thrift-store dresses look glam — even if she is wearing them at the same time.

If Blay is any sort of a fabrication, it’s one of her own making and she’s determined to achieve a grand pop takeover on her own terms. “I know I don’t look like Beyoncé, but I want to be as big as Beyoncé without having to do what she does or sing about the things she sings about. And I think it’s completely doable,” she finishes with complete equanimity. It seems that Blay knows how to cop a positive attitude when it matters most.