Ones to watch in 2024: Brooke Combe

Once a reluctant singer, Brooke Combe is getting ready to record her debut album after a string of acclaimed live shows, writes Fiona Shepherd

When ask for the highlights of her career so far, Bonnyrigg singer/songwriter Brooke Combe does not opt for going viral with her lockdown acoustic performances of Joel Corry’s Sorry and Baccara’s Yes Sir I Can Boogie. Neither does she choose signing the major record label deal that resulted from all the online attention – unsurprisingly now, given that she extricated herself from that relationship when she twigged she was being steered in a mainstream pop direction which did little to showcase her mighty soul pipes.

Instead, she demonstrates her desire to play the long game by naming her first ever solo gig as a landmark – this sold out 2021 show at Glasgow’s esteemed King Tut’s venue just so happened to coincide with the lifting of lockdown. Like so many young artists during the pandemic, Combe had no choice but to wait for her live debut. When it came, she was ready. “When I watch clips of that show, I think ‘who was that?’ I’ll never tell anyone before a gig that I’m nervous, I’ll never even speak those words, I’ll just go out there and think ‘it’s game time’.”

Lockdown was a blessing and a curse for Combe. She had just graduated with a degree in music but no experience of gigging in the real world and no prospect of launching a live career. Instead, she used the time to develop her songwriting. “It was a mad headspace for me but I looked at it as a silver lining,” she says. “A lot of us had to because it was such a depressing time. There were a lot of feelings and emotions for everybody and I wanted to be a voice of that.”

Combe’s other personal highpoint was establishing working relationships with her management, mentors and co-writers – The Coral frontman James Skelly, his brother Alfie and Blossoms bassist Charlie Salt – with whom she records at Liverpool’s legendary Parr Street Studios. For Combe, this was a revelation. “Whenever I’m working with a new person I don’t like to research anything about them, I’ll just go blank canvas, naïve mind,” she says.

Driving home from Liverpool after recording her first demos, she decided to check out Skelly’s music and alighted on sublime Coral hit In The Morning. “It was such an out-of-body experience,” she says. “I remember hearing the song so significantly in my childhood and I’ve just spent four days in the studio with him. It’s so inspiring being surrounded by the best musicians I’ve ever seen in front of my eyes.”

With further, bigger sold out shows and a 2023 Scottish Album of the Year Award nomination for her debut mixtape Black Is the New Gold, Combe has the grounding and experience to produce a head-turning debut album in 2024. But her path to this point has been paved with shyness and uncertainty. As unlikely as it seems given her natural talent, Combe was not a willing singer. Thankfully, her parents and teachers persisted in encouraging her as she picked up and discarded a succession of instruments – starting at the age of five with her first drumkit.

“Looking back on it, I was just a kid wanting to make noise,” she says. “I didn’t look at my singing as anything special at all. The more light that was getting shone on my voice, the more I’d backtrack and go into myself and not want to show it. I’m quite lazy to be honest, I need a proper boot up the bum.”

Brooke Combe

Combe eventually gravitated to piano and guitar, going on to study at Edinburgh College and gain a music degree through Kingston University. “For the first year and a half, I didn’t tell the rest of my class I was a singer, so I used to get up onstage for live performance and hide at the back. We did songwriting classes and even then I was giving my songs to other singers in my class to sing.”

It’s hard to reconcile this reluctant vocalist with the commanding young woman rocking the bluesy Are You With Me? or celebrating her mixed race heritage on Black Is the New Gold. Combe is no longer hiding at the back but openly embracing the opportunity to speak out on race issues.

“I didn’t really feel different growing up – I don’t see in colours,” she says, “but the older I was getting the more I was starting to notice that I was the only mixed race person in my class. I started having more conversations with my mum about her heritage. My gran’s from Sierra Leone so these are direct links, we’re not going back hundreds of years. I was getting a lot of mixed opinions on writing the song but I felt I needed to make a statement – this is who I am, this is how I feel. I knew I’d made a lot of people uncomfortable with that but I’m not going to pretend racism doesn’t exist. I’ve been subjected to it so I’ll tell you that.”

Combe sounds bolder than ever on recent standalone single Praise – could this be an indicator of musical direction as she heads into the studio to record her debut album? “No, I think we’re going to totally throw people off the scent,” she says. “I think it will be soul retro, that’s the vibe I’m aiming for. I’m who I am now. It feels good.”