Nobody expects the name of their finsta account to blow up. Of course, when Beatrice Kristi Laus first decided to name her stage persona after her fake Instagram account, what occurred was the exact opposite of what she expected. Now well on her way to becoming a household name, Bea Kristi is most commonly recognized as the international superstar Beabadoobee.
On stage, Beabadoobee can be found shredding her guitar and singing some perfectly sappy love songs. As a formative figure in the explosion of bedroom pop, the singer-songwriter began her journey to stardom wielding only a lone guitar. The very first song Beabadoobee ever wrote, is also the song that propelled her to the front of the DIY scene. The single “Coffee” racked up over 300,000 views. Seemingly overnight, the intuitive instrumentalist was signed for a record deal with Dirty Hit.
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As an independent record label, Dirty Hit offered Beabadoobee more creative freedom than if she had signed with a bigger label like Sony, Universal, or Warner. At a time in which little sapphic representation was found in music, Beabadoobee took the freedom she was granted from her label and used it to release “She Plays Bass“ (2019) as the first single off her EP Space Cadet.
Where most love songs written by women used masculine pronouns, “She Plays Bass” presented a narrative through which one woman could romantically desire another. Pushed forward by the lively ramble of her guitar, Beabadoobee specifically uses feminine pronouns to sing about longing for a chick who plays bass: “She plays bass, she plays bass / Nothing matters ’cause we’re both in space / How I wish we could just date.” Released in 2019, “She Plays Bass” stood at the precipice of the sapphic boom as a trend of self-identification that is carried on into queer pop music today.
In addition to adding some much-needed sapphic representation to the scene, Beabadoobee also unapologetically infiltrated indie rock, a genre typically dominated by straight white men. Speaking with Billboard, Beabadoobee touched on how she finds the power to pursue her own vision in a predominantly white industry, stating: “It almost inspires me knowing that there’s not a lot of us out there. If I’m the person that gets all of us noticed, then let me be that person, you know? What makes me happiest is getting messages from girls who are like me. They say stuff like, ‘I’m Filipino. I moved to London, and I’ve always wanted to play.’ That inspires me to keep creating.”
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On July 15th, 2022, Beabadoobee will be releasing her sophomore album, Beatopia. Amidst promo for her upcoming release, Bea Kristi told Rolling Stone that music is most definitely a hobby when compared to her main goal, which is:“to be that person I really needed when I was growing up, for girls that look like me, that feel like me.”
She also states that in the future, she hopes to release a song written in Tagalog.♦
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