Biography
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Born
9 August 2000 (age 23)
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Born In
London, England, United Kingdom
Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho (born 9 August 2000), known professionally as Arlo Parks, is a British singer-songwriter and poet from West London. Parks chose her stage name as a distinctive personal pseudonym. Her music blends touches of indie pop, R&B, folk and bedroom pop and she has named Sylvia Plath, Radiohead and Joni Mitchell as some of her influences.
In 2018, she began uploading demos to BBC Music Introducing. This caught the attention of radio presenters across the UK who distributed these demos to Ali Raymond of Beatnik Creative, who soon began managing Parks. She made her solo debut when she released the song Cola through Beatnik Records in November 2018, by November 2019, the song had amassed over three million streams on Spotify.
Following the release of Cola, Parks signed to Transgressive Records, where she release the four-track EP Super Sad Generation in early April 2019. The EP was recorded in her home in South West London and an Airbnb in the Angel district of London with producer and co-writer Gianluca Buccellati.
Throughout the last half of 2019 Parks released the songs George, Second Guessing, Sophie and Angel's Song ahead of her second EP, Sophie, which was released in November 2019. Sean Kerwick told DIY that the five-track EP "oozes with the hang-ups of heartbreak and mortality; a topic that seems to overshadow many gen-Z musicians."
Parks embarked on her first headlining tour of Europe in February and March 2020, but could not complete it due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2020, Parks released the singles Eugene and Black Dog, which were well received during the COVID-19 lockdown, the latter of which became BBC Radio 1's Tune of the Week. She won the AIM Independent Music Award for One to Watch in 2020 in August 2020.
Parks released her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, on 29 January 2021. The album received widespread acclaim, with many music critics praising Parks' versatility and vulnerability. The record was supported by seven singles including Black Dog and Hurt. The album won the 2021 Mercury Prize and was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. Parks told NME in October 2020 that the album is "a series of vignettes and intimate portraits surrounding adolescence and the people that shaped it. It is rooted in storytelling and nostalgia – I want it to feel both universal and hyper specific."
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