She had an album of love songs all set to go – until a breakup made her think again. The star of Odd Future and the Internet tells how she drew inspiration from heartache and hope
Interviewing Syd starts the way most interviews do these days: I apologise for inevitable Zoom issues, and Syd, relaxed in loose pyjamas and a cap in her neat apartment, graciously waves this off. Then a wildcard element enters the chat: the singer-songwriter is accosted by a furry bundle on her couch. Said bundle is Rocky, a tiny, “anxious” yorkshire terrier. “He absolutely loves me. He doesn’t like many people,” she says, and this is clearly a point of genuine pride.
Born Sydney Loren Bennett, the 29-year-old made her name as part of the hip-hop collective Odd Future. Subsequently she fronted the neo-funk outfit the Internet, and now she is recording as a solo artist in her own right. Rocky is new to her life, as is his owner, Syd’s girlfriend. While making her upcoming second album, Broken Hearts Club, Syd was processing the bitter end of a two-year-long relationship and the minor matter of a global pandemic. As lockdowns swept the world, the relationship began to crumble; her ex revealed that she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with a woman. Syd, for the first time in her life, was heartbroken. “I thought it was going to last for ever,” she says. “We had talked about it lasting for ever. We talked about getting married and having kids and all of that.”