In 1998, the UK music charts were dominated by pop bands. Spice Girls mania was in full swing. Upbeat acts like B’witched, Steps and Boyzone took turns vying for number one. Auto-Tune had just been invented, and Cher’s “Believe” was the biggest song of the year. But Sugababes – Keisha, Mutya and Siobhán – who formed that year, weren’t really about all that. They were just some schoolgirl mates from Northwest London who hung out at a local music studio after school, writing tracks. “I think we were probably about 13,” remembers Keisha. “For me, it was like a form of poetry. I didn’t know it was songwriting at the time.”
The rest has become common lore at this point. Producer Cameron McVey (Massive Attack, Portishead, Neneh Cherry) helped the then-teenagers hone their sound – all honied harmonies and moody minor-chord UK R&B – and before long, they were signed to London Records, with debut album being nominated for a Brit Award, and nonchalant, earworm-y single “Overload” leading the charge. “It wasn’t glossy, it was very rough around the edges,” Keisha says of their style back then. “We weren’t these grinning Cheshire cats… We were very much ‘the girl band that you were allowed to like’.” Still, it wasn’t a moniker they related to. “Even to this day, I don’t see us as a girl band at all,” she adds.
The good times didn’t last. There was in-fighting. Growing tensions. Siobhán left in 2002 and was replaced by former Atomic Kitten member Heidi Range. Mutya left in 2005, later citing struggles with postnatal depression, and was replaced by Amelle Berrabah. Keisha, the final original member, left in 2009, pointing to a “breakdown in communication,” and was replaced by UK Eurovision Song Contest entrant Jade Ewen. By this point, Sugababes arguably weren’t even Sugababes anymore, and – after the original members reunited around 2011 under the name MKS – it would take another handful of years and plenty of legal bills for them to wrestle back their name. But more on that later.
Now, nearly three decades after forming, in an exclusive revealed to British , Sugababes are releasing a self-titled album, due to drop early next year – their second since 2000’s under their original name and line-up. “It felt meant to be,” says Siobhán, her trademark auburn hair cascading down both shoulders, who describes the album as a “full circle moment”. The band are speaking over Zoom, each beaming in from their respective homes (after this, Siobhán tells me, she has to bolt to her son’s rugby game). Mutya, the quietest of the three, is wearing a T-shirt adorned with ’90s album covers – Lauryn Hill, Tupac, Erykah Badu – meanwhile Keisha, who often leads the conversation, looks clear-eyed and put-together, as if she’s never had a bad night’s sleep in her life.
I wonder if they still see their teen selves when they look at each other. Whether they feel as though any time has passed. “I do feel like we are just elevated versions of our teen selves,” says Keisha, her eyes flicking to the others through the camera lens. “A lot of things are the same as they were, but a lot of things have changed... Our personal lives have been very, very different from each other. That’s great for our writing because when we’re able to come together, it is from different perspectives.” Mutya agrees. “I mean, I still look at myself as quite young,” she says. “It doesn’t feel like as many years as it’s been. I find it quite refreshing to always keep going out with new material and performing with the girls.”
The album has been a long time coming. While the trio released under MKS in 2022 – with many of the tracks having been recorded in the early 2010s – feels like a classic Sugababes record. At 12 tracks long – and with cover art that looks throwback in its simplicity, almost like something you’d see in the window at HMV back in the day – there’s a timeless feel to the music. They flit between genres – a smattering of UK garage (“Modern Love”); syrupy harmonies spread over trip-hop production (“Weeds”); distortion-heavy dance-pop (“Ghost”) – with lyrics that speak to break-ups and make-ups and grief and lust. There’s a London sound to their music that still sets them apart from other pop acts; a British DNA to everything they do.
Lead single “Ghost”, out today, is a collective favourite. “It came from something that happened to me with my first love,” explains Siobhán. “He essentially ghosted me before we even had the terminology for it. I remember joking at the time that in some ways it would have been easier if he’d died – which is obviously incredibly dramatic, but there’s something strange about grieving someone who’s still out there.” Musically, they wanted it to feel scuzzy and imperfect, “rather than over-produced. There’s something about that looseness that gives the song its character. We weren’t consciously trying to make something that sounded like an old Sugababes record, but once the three voices are on something with that slightly raw, soulful quality, I think it naturally starts to feel like us”.
It took a while to get to a place where everything felt smooth sailing. “Where do we start?” Keisha laughs when I ask how she got their name back. “I had the rights to the name from old contracts, and there was a lot of tricky things going on behind the scenes and, pretty much, I had to take on a few giants in order for that to happen… It wasn’t easy. There were a lot of things that went on financially.”
What Keisha is most proud of, she says, is how they did it at a time in which there wasn’t much going on for them as a band. “What I really admire about our journey is that we were doing things when there was no support, even by the industry. There was no management. No one saying ‘Girls, you’ve got to do this’, you know?” I ask whether they’ve had any encouragement from former Sugababes members, and there’s an awkward pause. Keisha breaks the ice. “It’s all love,” she smiles, diplomatically. “We just wish everyone the best.”
When they first started touring again as MKS, the band went wild. “Oh, we were having a ball of a time,” laughs Keisha, describing how they’d start on the rum punch in the afternoon while getting their make-up done. “We had to slow it down a little bit because you could forget your lyrics sometimes.” Mutya cackles: “I was wasted.” These days, they take things a bit slower, though they love to soak up all the fun – local lakes, cuisine, nightlife spots (the latter is Mutya’s responsibility to scope out) – while on the road. “It doesn’t go over our heads that we are very blessed to be in this position,” says Keisha. “Our gratitude is definitely high, because we know what it takes.”
I bring up their famous Glastonbury performances. In both 2022 and 2024, the band drew such mammoth crowds that security had to shut down certain sections of the festival, lest there was a stampede. I personally remember having to crawl through a bush on my hands and knees during that first year, just to escape the mania. “It was insane. It was very overwhelming. I think we all came off kind of in shock,” remembers Siobhán, who couldn’t hear her own voice over the screams. “I just remember being in a really big leather jacket, and feeling like I was gonna faint because of the heat,” adds Mutya. “I came off literally feeling like I had lost my hearing.”
It wasn’t just millennials who remember the band’s early days who were storming their way through to barricade. Sugababes resonate with younger listeners, too. I wonder what they make of that. Siobhán takes a moment to think about it. “I don’t think the three of us have ever had the easiest time, whether in our lives or in this industry,” she says. “Even just looking at what happened to our band, and how we’ve been able to come back together is a triumph. I like to think that some people have that person in their life who’s maybe not in their life anymore. And they could maybe look at the three of us and go… anything’s possible. You can turn it around, you can make things better. And that’s quite hopeful. It’s quite an uplifting, joyful experience to come to a Sugababes show.”
“I think sometimes, in the industry, they can cap you at a certain point – but we are living proof that dreams still come true,” adds Keisha. “We are essentially showing people that, at any age, at any point, you can restart, you can look fabulous – because, honey, nothing’s cracking, you know? You can bounce back from any situation, so don’t limit yourself. I love that about the messaging. I hope that people look at us and feel empowered by our story.”
