Playing TRNSMT (or T in the Park before it) is a rite of passage for most Scottish artists. “The moment it was real for me, and it gave me a fuzzy belly and a tear in my eye, was walking in Edinburgh one day,” says Nati Dreddd, the singer-songwriter from Kirkcaldy and viral TikTok sensation who kicks off a summer of festivals with her first-ever appearance at TRNSMT next week.

“I saw a huge Guns ‘N’ Roses poster, then right next to it a big TRNSMT poster with my name on it. I was like, ‘Oh my god, if the wee lassie who used to sing songs in her bedroom could see me now…’ Yeah, it’s a rite of passage. You get that imposter syndrome, ‘how’s my name on the same poster as all these other folk?’ Then I'm like, ‘just accept it, enjoy it, don’t think about it.’”

Nati Dreddd, you might have guessed, isn’t her real name. “My parents called me Natalie, after the Bob Marley song Natty Dread, so wee Natty Dread was my childhood nickname,” she says. “I was brought up around music – your parents give you a flavour of their personality, and for me it was a love of music, mostly Motown and soul. I've been writing my own songs and singing for as long as I can remember.”

Lockdown was the making of her: “Everybody was either buying a hot tub or going on TikTok. I thought, ‘Maybe I'll join up? I’ve nothing better to do.’ I sang some tunes, then sang something in Gaelic, and people saw that, saw the big red hair and the Scottishness and the fact the song was from Brave, and went, ‘Oh, this is nice.’ A lot of people from America really took to me, and I gained a following overnight.”

She began doing requests, then tried out some of her own songs, which were well received. She covered the Scottish band Tide Lines, who she’s a big fan of, and was duetted by them (when one TikTok creator posts their own video in split-screen with yours). “Newton Faulkner was the person who inspired me to pick up a guitar all those years ago,” she explains. “I did his song Dream Catch Me, then I was sitting in my old nine-to-five a month later, and I got a notification saying ‘Newton Faulkner has duetted you’. I go through the back, watch the first 15 seconds of it and immediately start crying.”

Faulkner’s manager invited her to play an online concert. “She saw what I did, saw the platform I’d built just by myself in my room, and said, ‘Do you want to do this full time?’ I've wanted to my whole life. So she picked me up, and Newton Faulkner’s manager is now my manager.”

The 30-year-old Dreddd’s Scotsman Session is her single Older. “It’s a middle finger to 30,” she explains. “As a woman, when 30 approaches there's this societal pressure to have your life together, to have a career, to be settled. Then everyone's like, ‘Oh, your biological clock!’ I just said, ‘You know what? No. I don't care.’ The song is an anthem, a celebration, a birthday party.”

Nati Dreddd plays TRNSMT, Glasgow, 7 July; EDF Festival, Benbecula, 28 July; Belladrum Festival, near Inverness, 29 July; Fresh Ayr Folk Fest, Ayr, 11 August, https://natidreddd.store/

The Scotsman Sessions #370: Nati Dreddd