Listening to Flohio plunges you into a multi-choice game world where, if one chooses their path wisely, new levels of future-rap are unlocked. The south London and Lagos-raised artist is adventurous with her sound, reflective of her upbringing with influences spanning as wide as Stevie Wonder to Kano, Childish Gambino to King Sunny Ade, Ghetts to Angelique Kidjo. Through her previous EPs, dating back to 2018’s ‘Wild Yout’, we have incrementally gained access to her 808-fuelled solar system, made of airtight beats and a mouthful of bravado. Yet, the longer we stayed the sooner we arrived at the personal pages of her notepad with lyrics exploring themes of loss, re-birth, vulnerability, self-discovery and love.

It’s a world she’s been building since her introverted childhood days, she tells me. “I’ve always been a homebody. A lot of my hobbies kept me intrigued through writing and discovering new worlds.” Bouncing from friends’ houses to after school clubs, wherever creativity beckoned Flohio arrived readied with a mic and a speaker. This paved the way for her high-voltage sound mixing elements of rock, drill, grime and trap through her intergalactic lens which draws listeners in from far and wide. Her immersive tracks have travelled with her across festival stages including Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds as well some notable ColorsxStudios outings.

These accolades have been a springboard and now, with the arrival of her debut album ‘Out Of Heart’, all eyes are on the rap extraordinaire. Featuring the sonic mastery of producers God Colony and Speech, the release has achieved the perfect game-boy aesthetic that matches her masterful lyrical performances. While her previous works were capturing specific moments in time, here she’s gone for a bigger picture. “The other projects just had one window that we were looking through whereas with the album it's more three dimensional with different aspects to it, you can step inside and look around.”

As such, Flohio has placed her song-writing under the microscope. We’re accustomed to her commanding flows and ego-boosting lyrics but this time listeners gain a better idea of who she truly is. Recorded during the global pandemic while dealing with crumbling friendships and relationships, her recording sessions became essential to maintaining her sanity. “I was asking questions into the void and hoping that, the more I stayed in tune with myself and listened, an answer would drop down on my forehead.” In hindsight, everything Flohio was in search of arrived by the end of this two-year process, leaving her with “a sense of knowing that regardless of what’s going on, I still have a support system that I shouldn’t forget because I’m constantly in my own world trying to figure things out.”

Over the course of 12 tracks, we fall for Flohio’s balancing act of vulnerability and appreciation for life’s inescapable beauty. Tracks such as ‘Grace’, ‘Yellow Diamond Interlude’, ‘L.M.P.M’ and ‘Against The Grain’ capture these moments alongside her incredible mic control. It’s a confidence that’s taken time to nurture, especially when stepping out of her comfort zone to introduce melodies. “It was something I always wanted to do. I love melodies but it was just about doing it nicely. I’m still learning and I’m gonna smash it even more,” she affirms.

On the topic of confidence, she tells me, “Some people wear it so easily and when you walk in your stride it looks so good on you. If you’re not in that state of mind, you could be your own barrier. I had to work on it or else I would just feel like damn, I’m missing out on things because I’ve made excuses. Nah you’ve got to put all that to the side, it’s not something that comes overnight, not for me anyway, but the commitment I had to the music grew my confidence.”

This burgeoning self-belief is expressed through Flohio’s visual world, too. The video for the 80s-style ‘SPF’ - a Clara Amfo Hottest Record on BBC Radio 1 this summer – shows Flohio and some friends zooming around in a vintage Bentley with wads of cash on show, clearly up to no good. As the album’s opener she intended for this one to remain playful. “I was just like, nah, for ‘SPF’ I want to get loose with this one.” Inversely, the eerie ‘Cuddy Buddy’ finds our protagonist all alone in a deserted house. Over crunchy guitars and melodic chords, we come to realise that she needed this time to rest and recharge, unreachable to energy-vampires. She reflects, “At a certain point it gets too much but people are still trying to get a piece of you and it’s like damn, man, I have no more to give. It’s a 'leave me alone for a bit’ kind of song, which was hard to convey visually.”

As she finishes up a sold-out European tour bringing ‘Out Of Heart’ to the main stage, we revisit the conversation on accolades, and how she sees the next few months unfolding. “I’m asking myself that question, what else? I know the world is my oyster and everything so I’m super open. Everything else, I’ll let the album speak for itself.”

‘Out of Heart’ by Flohio is out now. Discover it here.