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<h1 class=""><span style="color:#570d0d;"><strong>In infant school &#8220;<em>Kids used to say: I won’t hold her hand, the brown might rub off&#8221;</em></strong></span></h1>
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<p>Laura Mvula says she grew up feeling that there was “something not quite right” about the colour of her skin after facing racism as a child.</p>
<h6><strong><img class="alignnone wp-image-21926" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/lauramvulamimjydswatpm.jpg" alt="lauramvulamimjydswatpm" width="689" height="459" />The singer grew up in Birmingham, where she says children in her school saw her as different</strong></h6>
<p>The singer, 30, was born in Birmingham and says her classmates there saw her as different. In People, a track on forthcoming second album The Dreaming Room, she sings: “Her skin was a terrible thing to live in.”She told ES Magazine: “When I sing that line I always think about the experience I had when I was young, where kids in infant school wouldn’t hold my hand.</p>
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<h6><img class="alignnone wp-image-21927" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/lauramvulapm_poj3a-jam.jpg" alt="lauramvulapm_poj3a-jam" width="758" height="505" /><br />
Laura Mvula, tour review: Turning personal misery into musical magic</h6>
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<p>“You know when they line up the kids and say, ‘Get a partner, hold hands’? They would say, ‘No, I’m not holding her hand because I’m scared the brown’s going to rub off’.<br />
“At that point in my life, as a five- or six-year-old, being taught subconsciously that there’s something not quite right with my skin led me on a very difficult and distorted path in terms of my identity, self-worth and self-esteem.”<br />
Mvula, who rose to prominence in 2013 with her debut album Sing To The Moon, did not attend this year’s Brit awards ceremony in London because of a lack of diversity among the nominees.<br />
She described the paucity of black women in the arts as “abominable”, adding: “The problem for me is knowing there are young black kids growing up feeling they’re not acknowledged in society, in media and in mainstream music.</p>
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<p>“It’s like when black women come up to me and go, ‘Sister, your natural hair, man, I love that, it’s amazing’.<br />
&#8220;And I’m like, ‘It’s just my natural hair — why is that revolutionary in 2016?’ There’s a huge alarm bell there. We have so far to go.”<br />
Mvula was among many artists left devastated by the recent death of Prince, whom she met three years ago and became friends with.<br />
“He was one of the biggest champions of my work,” she said. “He spent time putting my name out — I can’t tell you the amount of times I’d go places in the world and people would say, ‘I know your music because of Prince’.</p>
<h6 class="dnd-widget-wrapper context-sdl_editor_representation type-gallery"><strong><img class="alignnone wp-image-21928" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/lauramvulaunj2p_w56rbm.jpg" alt="lauramvulaunj2p_w56rbm" width="609" height="406" /></strong><br />
<strong>Laura Mvula &#8211; London Live</strong></h6>
<p>&#8220;There was no one like him. And I just remember he smelt so divine, that’s the thing. Kind of like vanilla, kind of like heaven.<br />
“We’re obsessed with what’s not real and so sometimes it’s easier for people to play up to things. He did not. And he was fearless.<br />
&#8220;If you’re going to succeed in the truest sense of the word, and let your music have as far a reach as possible without diluting it, without compromising, you have to be fearless. And that’s hard as hell.”The singer was one of a lucky few invited to party with Prince after the 2014 Brit awards, when she was nominated but did not win.<br />
She recalled: “He sat down and he just said, ‘How do you feel?’ And I was like, ‘You know what? I’m disappointed that I’m disappointed’.<br />
“And he said, ‘I understand’. He laughed, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I made Prince laugh!’ And he talked with me for 40 minutes about how he’d tirelessly worked to create and own his music. He was the most relaxed, angelic presence.”</p>

Singer Laura Mvula speaks on diversity and growing up in ‘racist’ Birmingham
