Griff has opened for some of pop's biggest stars. Now she has a debut album of her own to tour

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Griff has opened for some of pop's biggest stars. Now she has a debut album of her own to tour

2024-07-16 00:05 Last Updated At：00:11

British singer-songwriter Griff’s career has been an undeniable whirlwind. Less than two years after releasing her first single — and finishing her A-level exams — she won the Brit Award for Rising Star. Then she opened for Dua Lipa. Then Ed Sheeran. Then Coldplay. Then Taylor Swift.

In between those gigs, solo shows and music releases, she worked on the songs that make up her debut album, “Vertigo," out now.

“The usual steps that you take as a new artist have been a bit, like, upside-down,” the 23-year-old, whose full name is Sarah Faith Griffiths, told The Associated Press in an interview. “An album is such a step hitting the ground, and it’s such a milestone I’ve always wanted to get to.”

In that sense, this moment feels like a career beginning, she said. The immersive pop album tracks the emotions that come with that kind of whirlwind — alongside those that follow other destabilizing events, like growing up and experiencing heartache.

Griff said inspiration for the project came, “funnily enough,” from navigating a spiral staircase in one of the houses she wrote the album in — in this case, a cottage belonging to the musician and songwriter Imogen Heap. She said the physical reality of the experience easily lent itself to an emotional equivalent, and it's stuck with her ever since.

“That was just a very real, tangible feeling that I have had, and still have, at this stage in my life,” she said.

“Tears For Fun" and “Miss Me Too” explore that dizzying emotion through layered productions, informed by the large-scale spaces she's performed in already. “Astronaut” features piano by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who encouraged Griff to rework an initial draft of the song into a ballad. “You said you needed space, go on then, astronaut,” she concedes in her signature belt, the grounded approach adding weight to her accusations.

“It's almost like I'm bit greedy with emotions when it comes to songs,” she said, describing her desire to pair wrenching lyrics with catchy, upbeat productions. “For me, music is all about moving people and triggering emotion.”

The catharsis is shared, then, by the artist and her listeners, she said, an approach Martin has encouraged.

“He really believes that as creatives and writers, we’re just kind of vessels, and creativity will flow through us and ideas will find their way to the right people," she said. "And I think that kind of philosophy is really reassuring.”

Griff succeeds in her mission not only with her sound, but also the visuals she and her team produce. Since the release of the album's lead single, she’s consistently worn a spiral in her hair. Song visualizers see her dancing in billowing fabrics on the same spiral drawn in sand. She, like her pop mentors, knows an album “era” is a multimedia endeavor.

Perhaps even more revealing of her inner life, however, are the more casual glimpses of Griff the creator. In preparation for her gig opening for a night of Swift’s Eras Tour in London, she documented the process of turning blue and white fabric into a dress inspired by a lyric in Swift’s “But Daddy I Love Him."

“I was always draping bedsheets around myself," she said of her childhood. "I was the only girl — I've got two older brothers and a lot of foster siblings — so that was my way of entertaining myself, playing dress up. I think I just like making things."

As Swift said from the stage: “This girl, she is so creative on every single level.”

True to that spirit, Griff says she is ready to keep creating.

“To be totally honest, I feel excited to get back in the studio," she said. "I feel like I’ve got a lot more to give.”

Trump refuses to criticize Laura Loomer amid concerns from Republican allies about her influence

2024-09-14 05:38 Last Updated At：05:40

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. (AP) — Donald Trump refused on Friday to condemn recent racist and conspiratorial comments from right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer, who traveled with him earlier this week to Tuesday night's presidential debate and several 9/11 memorial events.

“Laura’s been a supporter of mine,” Trump told reporters at a press conference near Los Angeles, where he was pressed on concerns from Republican allies about his ongoing association with Loomer, who once declared herself a “proud Islamophobe” and has a long history of promoting ugly and extreme conspiracies.

Trump said Loomer has “strong opinions,” but insisted he was unaware of her recent comments, including a post on X in which she played on racist stereotypes by writing that “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” if his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins in November. Harris is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

“I don’t control Laura. Laura has to say what she wants,” Trump said. “I can’t tell Laura what to do.”

He later said Loomer “brings a spirit to us that a lot of people have," adding that, "in all fairness to her, she hates seeing what's happened to the country."

Loomer’s appearances on the campaign trail with Trump have alarmed some top supporters, who have taken the rare move of publicly airing their concerns that he is hurting his chances against Harris, who is driving up Democratic enthusiasm and repeatedly put Trump on the defensive in Tuesday’s debate. Harris was campaigning Friday across Pennsylvania.

Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Congresswoman known herself for spreading conspiracies, called the post about curry “appalling and extremely racist” and said it did not represent Trump’s “MAGA” movement.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called Loomer “a crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans," and said a Democratic party “plant couldn’t do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump’s chances of winning re-election.”

Trump has a history of association with extremists, including dining last year at his Mar-a-Lago club with Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist who had used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white nationalist rhetoric. Trump had said at the time that he “knew nothing about” Fuentes before his dinner with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

Harris has not commented publicly on Loomer's ties to Trump. But as has often been the case during his three White House runs, Trump has pulled the presidential campaign this week into a discussion of far-right conspiracies and unsubstantiated rumors with consequences.

He brought up a discredited claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, hunting and eating pets at Tuesday's presidential debate watched by more than 67 million people, as Harris repeatedly put him on the defensive about the economy and abortion. The claims — which he has also amplified in social media posts — have driven millions of online conversations, and resulted in serious repercussions for the town.

Bomb threats directed at the homes of Springfield’s mayor and other city officials, as well as Springfield City Hall and schools. prompted the evacuation of schools and government buildings there for a second day on Friday.

Yet Trump's allies, notably his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have repeatedly raised the claims about pets — even as Vance acknowledged they may be false. In recent days, some Republicans have suggested Haitians are targeting ducks and geese in the city. Officials in Springfield have said those claims are unsubstantiated after employees investigated them, and advocates for Haitians warn promoting those claims puts people in danger.

Trump, who has promised if elected again to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, on Friday dismissed concerns from city officials and said his operation would target Springfield.

“The real threat is what’s happening at our border,” he said.

President Joe Biden on Friday said the Haitian community was “under attack” and that the false claims had to stop.

Speaking at a news conference at his Los Angeles-area golf club, Trump unleashed a litany of attacks against Harris and California, as he stood on a cliff overlooking the rugged Pacific Ocean.

“She destroyed San Francisco and she destroyed the state,” Trump said of Harris, who represented California in the Senate and also served as the state’s attorney general and the district attorney of San Francisco before becoming vice president. He accused her of having been soft on crime in her previous positions — something aides had suggested he would focus on during the debate.

Trump, who said he wanted to be known as “the border president,” also continued to rail against the dangers of illegal immigration, claiming that the country has had “thousands of people being killed by illegal migrants.”

In fact, there has been no spike in violent crime nationally or in the major cities where many migrants have settled, and national statistics show violent crime is on the way down.

Harris, meanwhile, was campaigning in Pennsylvania Friday, with stops in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, — two counties Trump won in 2016 and 2020 — as she tries to capitalize on her momentum after Tuesday night’s debate.

In Johnstown, she dropped in to meet with owners and supporters at Classic Elements, a bookstore and cafe, to discuss her plans to support small businesses if elected.

“Small businesses are so much part of the fabric of a community,” she told the shop owners. Harris said she would be in the state a lot and that “we got to earn every vote.”

It was her second day of back-to-back rallies after holding two events in North Carolina, another swing state, on Thursday. Her campaign is aiming to hit every market in every battleground state over four days, with stops by Harris, her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and other surrogates in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.

While speaking in Charlotte, Harris took a victory lap for her debate performance in which she needled Trump and kept him on the defensive. Recounting one moment while campaigning in North Carolina, she mocked Trump for saying he had “concepts of a plan” for replacing the Affordable Care Act.

“Concepts. Concepts. No actual plan. Concepts,” she said as the crowd roared with laughter.

Her campaign said she raised $47 million from 600,000 donors in the 24 hours after her debate with Trump.

After appearing at his golf club in upscale Rancho Palos Verdes, Trump was planning to attend a fundraiser in the afternoon in the Bay Area town of Woodside that is being hosted by billionaire software developer Tom Siebel and his wife, Stacey Siebel. Tom Siebel is the second cousin once removed of Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and surrogate for Harris.

He then heads to Las Vegas, where he’ll have a rally in the city’s downtown area. Trump was in the city last month for a brief stop to promote his proposal to end federal taxes on workers’ tips, something that’s expected to especially resonate in the tourist city, where much of the service-based economy includes workers who rely on tips. He announced a new proposal Thursday to end taxes on overtime pay.

Madhani reported from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Colvin from New York. Associated Press writers Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles, Chris Megerian in Washington, Melissa Goldin in New York and Tom Verdin in Sacramento contributed to this report.