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[title]In a vast, empty roller disco in west London, Mutya Buena is posing atop a wooden box, like a statue. Neon light catches constellations of facial piercings dotted across her cheeks. Tattoos run up her arms and down her chest. She looks powerful, serene, regal even. Then…
‘Slut drop!’ demands Siobhán Donaghy. ‘Sluuuut drop!’ yells Keisha Buchanan. And soon all three nearly-forty-year-olds are laughing big, throaty laughs and grinning big, toothy grins like they’re 13.
This is my introduction to the irresistible sisterhood of the original Sugababes – the cult noughties pop band shooting their Time Out cover today, and experiencing one hell of a comeback right now.
‘It’s so weird,’ says Donaghy, when I catch up with the trio over extremely functional Pret salads an hour later. ‘Quite a few times since last summer, we’ve been met with hysteria.’
Last June, the northwest Londoners – who broke through with garage-infused single ‘Overload’ in 2000 – played a Glastonbury gig that drew such a vast crowd, the Avalon stage had to be shut down. (‘I didn't even know there were people outside [the tent],’ laughs Buena.) This summer, they headlined Boiler Room’s most RSVPed set of all time, invited because their songs have so often been bootlegged by DJs at the livestreamed gigs. Last week the band released ‘When The Rain Comes’, their first single in a decade. And, by the time you read this, they’ll have convinced more than 15,000 people to air lasso along to ‘Round, Round’ at a triumphant, one-night-only homecoming show at the O2 arena.
Right now, though, they’re deep in rehearsals for the concert, using breaks on set to run through dance routines like it’s X Factor Boot Camp. ‘We really are grateful [to the fans],’ says Buchanan, telling me they’re determined to do them justice. ‘We often go: Wow, how amazing is this that they would turn up for us? We’re super excited about the whole thing.’
The year 2000
Maybe the cynics among you are thinking something along the lines of ‘Another noughties comeback? Who needs that?’. And, sure, Mighty Hoopla has a lot to answer for. But it genuinely feels like there’s something special about the Sugababes return.
Perhaps that’s because, as Amar Ediriwira, creative director of Boiler Room says, so many artists are still inspired by them: ‘They're completely iconic in the British club space’. Perhaps it’s helped by Gen Z’s current revival of all things Y2K. (‘Oh my God, the big belts!’ says Buena, her gold tooth glinting as she laughs.) Or maybe it’s just thanks to it becoming increasingly normal for female pop stars to – shock, horror! – make music beyond the age of 29. Whatever the case, the band’s return feels more like Jessie Ware finding her power in her thirties than Blue heading off on yet another glory lap.
And, of course, given the Sugababes’ past, each moment of success has extra significance.
‘Every [band] has their reasons as to why they get back together,’ says Buchanan, with a long, thoughtful pause. ‘Our one was – it was not financially motivated – it was about a story that we felt hadn’t been really told properly and we felt like it was taken away from us, that our opportunity was taken away.’
The turbulent history of the Sugababes has become pop legend over the years. Buena and Buchanan were best friends from primary school – bonded by a love of singing. When they were around 12, they ‘begged’ their manager Ron Tom to let them work with 13-year-old Donaghy, who he also managed. ‘He was like: “All right, you’re in a band”,’ says Donaghy. ‘We didn’t really know what that meant, to be fair, but everyone was like: “Oh my God, they sound so good together”,’ says Buchanan.
The result was a group making pop which reflected music that was big in London at the time: garage, R&B and 2-step. They laid down their first album ‘One Touch’ after school, winding down post-studio at kebab joints, Jamaican patty shops and King’s Cross McDonald’s. Then in 2001, pretty soon after the band became household names, Siobhán quit and was replaced with Heidi Range. ‘I always say I got my life back,’ she stresses, about the choice, today.
Over the next eight years the remaining Sugababes would experience the best and worst of being in a noughties pop band. They churned out 26 stone-cold bangers – ‘Hole in the Head’, ‘About You Now’, ‘Push the Button’ – but were overworked by management and hounded by tabloids, analysing group dynamics. (Even now articles introduce ‘certain narratives back in from when we were children,’ says Buchanan. ‘I find that a bit odd’.)
Mutya left in 2005, while experiencing postnatal depression after the birth of her daughter Tahlia-Maya. ‘We were still recording while I had just given birth,’ she says of the exit. ‘I was literally breastfeeding at 5am in the studio.’ Four years later Buchanan was also replaced.
Every [band] has their reasons why they get back together – we felt like our story hadn’t been told properly
You’d imagine that a version of the Sugababes containing no original Sugababes wouldn’t be able to call themselves the ‘Sugababes’, but you’d be wrong. Stand-in members Range, Amelle Berrabah and Jade Ewen released a final album ‘Sweet 7’ in 2010. Meanwhile the OGs attempted a comeback – with a new album and now-cult, Dev Hynes-produced single ‘Flatline’ – under the monika MKS in 2013. It felt like it should have been their big renaissance. Then the album leaked.
It must have been so frustrating, I say.
‘A tad,’ says Buchanan, with a knowing look.
‘It was a year and a half of writing. It was pretty savage. We asked to be let go [from label Polydor],’ says Donaghy.
‘We got our masters back and had a celebration dinner at Siobhán’s,’ says Buchanan. ‘Once the dessert was digested, it was like, ‘Right, what to do now?’’
Reclaiming their crowns
There’s a familial closeness to the Sugababes: a constant sense that they’ve got each other's backs. It’s always been that way for Buena and Buchanan, even after Buena left the band. Buchanan tells me that her friend stood by her, coming with her to work to support her in the new line-up. ‘I was very, very down after she left,’ she says. ‘I’d been with her every day since I was eight. I just needed her there.’
These days Donaghy is ‘the mum’ of the group, using the Type A organisation she relied on in a post-Sugababes career as a model booker – ‘I liked working with new faces because they were often travelling away from their parents for the first time and I felt like I instinctively knew how they felt and what they needed’ – to look after the other members. ‘I don’t lift a finger,’ laughs Buchanan.
The artists’ tight-knit relationships mean that hanging out with the band has the joyfully chaotic energy of getting ready for a night out with the girlies. Our chat is broken up with giddy laughter about shared memories, like Simon Amstell describing Buena’s hair as a ‘judge’s wig’ on Popworld – ‘I was literally pissing my pants,’ roars Buchanan. During the shoot, they constantly trade accessories and fix each other’s outfits. And there’s a well-trodden rhythm to the way they answer questions.
Keisha is most careful, always taking time to think before speaking. Palace-clad Mutya plays class clown. (When I ask what they liked to do as teenagers, she lets the others share surprisingly earnest stories about the Morgan de Toi at St George’s Shopping Centre in Harrow before adding: ‘I was chilling on Kingsbury High Roads, next to the phone box, waiting for friends to call.’) Meanwhile, it’s Siobhán – straight-talking with Stoke Newington power mum energy – who always answers first.
How does she feel about the way the music industry has treated women over the years? ‘I’ve decided that I’m happy to not be liked. I’m just not there for us being bossed around. If that’s going to upset some people, then it’s fine.’ Is she glad to see young artists like Raye, who was also signed to Polydor, standing up for themselves too? ‘I hope that there are many people that will follow in her footsteps because of watching how brave she's been.’
There was so much manipulation: it would’ve been so easy for us to have thrown our hands up, but we really, really fought
There’s one topic, though, that makes even Siobhán take a breath before speaking: the obstacles the band have had to overcome to get from MKS to reclaiming the name ‘Sugababes’.
There are mystery figures, the band tells me with Tony Soprano flare, who they believe ‘sabotaged’ their career. It is one of them, they say, who leaked their 2013 album. It is another one of them who ‘illegally trademarked’ the name Sugababes, ‘obstructing’ them from using it. ‘That was the reason for the delay. A few people from our past didn’t want it to happen unless we were under their wing. And we would rather burn our bras and run down the street naked on fire [than do that],’ says Buchanan.
She tells me that’s why it meant so much to finally release their leaked album, now known as ‘The Lost Tapes’, in 2022, before continuing: ‘There was so much manipulation. It would’ve been so easy for us to have thrown our hands up. But we invested our own money for the last 11 years and really, really fought for it. I’m so proud of us, that we stuck together. It was incredibly difficult – and we were getting to know each other again at the same time – but it was the making of us as a band.’
On the road
It’s all of the above that makes ‘When The Rain Comes’ such a heartfelt first single for the Sugababes to return with. Influenced by a roster of their current favourite artists – SZA, Caroline Polachek, Lucky Daye, Victoria Monét – it’s an uplifting anthem of a track that celebrates ‘relationships standing the test of time, weathering the storm and coming out stronger the other side,’ they tell me.
Continuing to grow musically is hugely important for the band. They tell me they took inspiration from their ‘clubby’ Boiler Room for their O2 show, reworking their old hits to make them fresh. Still, it must be weird for Donaghy to perform the songs the group released after she left, right?
‘The fact I’m even singing “Red Dress” live cracks me all the way up,’ she says, fiddling with an orange sling bag she’s wearing across her body. ‘I said I’d give it a go. And then the band reworked it and it became one of my favourite songs.’ When it comes to touring, they’ve changed the way they do things behind-the-scenes too.
‘We’ve spent most of our careers sitting in hotel rooms,’ says Buena. ‘Not seeing anywhere. And now it's like, 'Oh my gosh, let's get out and let's see things’.’
After recent gigs the trio have headed out to swim in rock pools in Bondi and party at Mr Percival’s on the waterfront in Brisbane. (Even the tour bus has become a place of fun, says Donaghy, who now has two children, aged three and six. ‘We had a particularly long drive over to Ireland over the summer holidays, my eldest said it was the best day of his life.’)
It’s London that the trio love exploring the most. Even if each of them did move away from the city after the pandemic: Buena to Hertfordshire, Donaghy to Buckinghamshire with her family and Buchanan to Canada, where she’s taking acting lessons.
For Buchanan, coming back home gives her opportunities to explore the city in ways she couldn’t at the height of the Sugababes’ fame, like popping to Brixton Market for good Caribbean vegan food. Meanwhile, Siobhán, who lived in east London for 15 years before leaving the city, is equally food-focused. ‘I can’t go past The Pavilion Café without stopping,’ she says. ‘The other day we were working east and I was like: look, we’re going to be late but we have to pull up and get the Sri Lankan breakfast.’
The whole group have mixed feelings about how London has changed since they were kids. It’s largely for the better, they say, but there’s so much less for young people to do now, especially after government cuts to youth services. (‘If you can’t say anything good don’t say anything at all,’ are Donaghy’s thoughts on the [current] Conservatives.)
Does it still feel like home here?
Buchanan pauses.
‘There’s this thing, where people feel like, when you move away from the UK, you’re not one of us anymore,’ she says. ‘But no, no, no, I’m a Londoner.’
Coming back around
The band has to rush off. Donaghy is very late to pick up her kids. She dashes out of the roller disco, a wheelie suitcase wobbling behind her. It’ll be four days before I see the group again. This time on stage at the O2.
Watching them, I’m more emotional than I expected to be. Especially when a grainy video of the band in dance practice as kids comes up on the big screen. They look so happy, their moves a little wobbly. On stage, Donaghy, Buena and Buchanan begin to dance alongside their younger selves, moving in synchronicity with the shonky two-steps and hand motions. It makes me remember what Buchanan said about what it means to be a Londoner. That leaving doesn’t mean the end of that part of your life. I think to myself that, in many ways, it’s similar to being a Sugababe. Donaghy, Buena and Buchanan might have left the band for a while, but it will always be a place to come home for them. As Buena says: ‘It’s a real full circle moment for us.’
‘When The Rain Comes’ by the Sugababes is out now.
Photographer: Jess Hand @jesshandphotography
Design Director: Bryan Mayes @bryanmayesdotcom
Senior Designer: Jamie Inglis @818FPV
Photo Editor: Laura Gallant @lauramgallant
Hair: Devon Maxwell-Whyte @devonmaxwell95 using WELLA, Paul Mitchell & COLOR WOW dreamcoat & COLOR WOW One minute transformation
Make-Up: Roisin Donaghy @rosielovestilly, using Illamasqua
Styling: Kiera Liberati @kieraliberati, Collene Weekes @colleneweekes, Jen Electro @jenelectro
Location: Flippers Roller Boogie Palace, London @flippers.ldn @flippers.world
Keisha is wearing @ksubi and @kaicollective, @juicycouture and @hotfutures
Mutya is wearing @ksubi and @prettylittlething, and @diesel
Siobhán is wearing @stellamccartney, @balenciaga, @amiri and @isabelmarant. Jewellery: @byanisasojka