Lianne La Havas on Prince, and her teens

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The "genuinely nice" British singer Lianne La Havas Ravi Dhar

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The "genuinely nice" British singer Lianne La Havas Ravi Dhar
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Lianne La Havas in concert in Berlin last month Frank Hoensch

Ed Potton

Published at 12:01AM, June 23 2012

With killer songs and a hotline to the stars, 22-year-old Lianne La Havas has already found her voice, says Ed Potton

Try as you might to maintain a professional distance, the odd interview does end with a hug. Never in my experience has one begun with a hug. But that’s the first thing that Lianne La Havas does when we meet, leaping up from her table in a North London café to envelop me in the kind of embrace you might give to a close relative in an airport. The cynical might see this as an attempt to get a hack onside, but it soon becomes obvious that La Havas is just eccentrically, guilelessly nice.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. This is a woman who, at a gig in London this year, interrupted her erudite folk-soul to take photos of the audience, introduce Connie, her guitar, and rant conspiratorially about her ex-boyfriend. When I first spoke to her on the phone, we were nattering like mates within about 30 seconds. The 22-year-old musician with the extravagant bun seems to collect friends and fans like daisies in a meadow: Paloma Faith, who gave La Havas her break as a backing singer; Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, who saw her poised, mesmerising debut on Later with Jools Holland and asked her to tour with him; Prince, who invited her to his studio and covered one of her songs on stage. All were won over by her wry songwriting and a pristine vibrato with echoes of Dionne Warwick and Jill Scott.

La Havas has been described as having the most distinctive British soul voice since Adele, she has been nominated in the BBC Sound of 2012 poll, and her debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, is on the way. She lives in a flat down the road in bohemian Stoke Newington. It is a life, as one writer put it, “sprinkled with fairy dust”. It hasn’t always been this way, she insists, tucking one leg under the other and returning to her salmon and eggs. “For a long time it wasn’t wonderful at all: the break up [with aforementioned boyfriend]; coming out of being 18. Like a lot of teenagers I was insecure.” Her early life, if not unhappy, was certainly turbulent. Her British-Jamaican mother and British-Greek father split when she was two, and she was largely brought up by her maternal grandparents in South London before leaving home at 17.

Things really turned around, she says, when she dropped out of art college to sing and write songs, many of them nakedly autobiographical. The one that gets the most attention is Age, in which she rejects her negligent ex for a more mature beau. “So is it such a problem that he’s old?” she sings. “As long as he does whatever he’s told.” It’s about her boyfriend, Hamish, who at 36 is 14 years her senior. Does he mind being the subject of such a discussed song? “Oh, he’s fine with it! When I first played it to him he laughed out loud. That’s all I wanted really.” What about the bit about fancying younger men? “Oh, no! He’s got a quiet confidence; he knows himself better than boys my age.”

As, you suspect, does a certain purple-loving megastar. “Old Princey!” she beams. She thinks he may have heard about her from a spy at one of her shows. The first thing she knew of it was when her manager told her: “Prince would like to have a phone call with you.” They both fell about laughing. A few weeks later she was told to expect a call that evening, but she went out and forgot her phone at home. Luckily, he called her boyfriend’s instead. He said that he was a fan of hers, she said she was a fan of his, and he invited her to Paisley Park, his hideaway in Minnesota.

“He was the loveliest,” she says. “Funny, cute, his skin is amazing.” Prince has a reputation for collecting beautiful young musicians and he is a particular admirer of her song Age. Was he a bit ... pervy? “No, not at all! He’s sexy though. We chatted, had some crudités and hoummos. It was like I was talking to an old friend. He said he’d worked out my songs on the guitar. It was so surreal.” She says that she would love to work with him, but will wait for his lead.

It’s easy to forget that La Havas was a teenager three years ago. She thinks that it may have something to do with being brought up by her grandparents: “People used to say I seemed older than I was.” She speaks in measured, almost middle-aged, tones. “I don’t know where that came from,” she giggles. “I grew up with my Jamaican grandparents and they never lost their thick accents. There was a point when I could have talked like a rude girl but, I dunno, I just talked like this,” she says, muddying the point with the “dunno”.

She can still tap into her inner teenager, as anyone who has heard her rip into that (doubtless chastened) ex-boyfriend will attest. “I released a lot of aggression there,” she said after an incendiary performance of Forget, a song about him, in January. “We’re quite nice to each other now,” she says, grinning. “But I always remember the thing that I wrote it about.” In another song, Au Cinema, she compares herself to the volatile sex kitten played by Beatrice Dalle in Betty Blue. “I did see part of my character in her. Passionate and uncompromising, her temper. She wouldn’t let anyone get in the way of her man.”

It sounds like she can be a handful. “My granddad was quite strict but if I was looking after me as a child I’d have been strict. Sometimes I had a bit of an attitude.” Now, she seems to have a tighter emotional rein. Take that star-making turn on Later... last year. “I was so scared: it was a new type of fear.” Watch it on YouTube, however, and you’re just struck by her self-possession. Soon she was opening for Bon Iver. “I’d never seen that size of audience before.”

Her parents have stepped back from her success, but their influence is palpable: her father plays piano, accordion, harmonica, guitar and saxophone, while she gets her sociability from her mother (“She’s like the Pied Piper, she’ll walk down the street and know everyone”).

Our hour has flown by. We’re done, I say. “Aw!” she says, sounding disappointed. But, another hug later, she’s bouncing off down the road, doubtless picking up a few more new friends as she goes.

Is Your Love Big Enough? is released by Warner Bros on July 9.

Live dates: liannelahavas.com