Charlotte Emma Aitchison (born 2 August 1992), known professionally as Charli XCX, is an English singer and songwriter. Born in Cambridge and raised in Start Hill, Essex, she began posting songs on Myspace in 2008, which led to her discovery by a promoter who invited her to perform at warehouse raves. In 2010, she signed a recording contract with Asylum Records, releasing a series of singles and mixtapes throughout 2011 and 2012.

In 2012, Charli XCX rose to prominence with the Icona Pop collaboration “I Love It”, which became an international success, reaching top 10 in North America and Europe. Her debut studio album, True Romance (2013), was released to critical acclaim but failed to meet commercial expectations. In 2014, she contributed the hook and bridge to “Fancy” by rapper Iggy Azalea, which finished the year as one of the best-selling singles worldwide and was nominated for two Grammy Awards. The same year, Charli XCX released “Boom Clap”, which became her first solo top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100. Her second studio album, the punk-influenced Sucker (2014) was released at the end of the year, and spawned the successful singles “Break the Rules” and “Doing It”.

In 2015, Charli XCX began working alongside producers associated with the UK collective PC Music, developing a more experimental sound and image. While working on her third album, she released the Vroom Vroom EP (2016) and the mixtapes Number 1 Angel and Pop 2 (both 2017), as well as a series of singles including the BPI-certified “After the Afterparty”, “Boys”, and “1999”. Her third and fourth studio albums, Charli (2019) and How I’m Feeling Now (2020), received widespread acclaim; the latter was created within a span of six weeks during the COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2021, Charli XCX co-wrote and provided vocals on the Jax Jones and Joel Corry single “Out Out”. The following year, she released her fifth album, Crash, which became her biggest commercial success to date.

In addition to her solo work, Charli XCX has co-written songs for other artists, including Iggy Azalea’s “Beg for It” (2014), Selena Gomez’s “Same Old Love” (2015), Blondie’s “Tonight” (2017), the Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello collaboration “Señorita” (2019), and the Sigala and Rita Ora collaboration “You for Me” (2021).

Charlotte Emma Aitchison was born on 2 August 1992, in Cambridge, England. Her father, Jon Aitchison, is a Scottish entrepreneur and former show-booker, and her mother, Shameera, is a former nurse and flight attendant who was born and raised in Uganda to a Gujarati Indian family. Charli was raised in Start Hill, Essex, and attended Bishop’s Stortford College in nearby Bishop’s Stortford. While her parents were not very musical, she demonstrated an affinity for music from an early age, being interested in pop acts such as the Spice Girls and Britney Spears. She began writing songs at the age of 14, writing a song called “Fish and Chips Shop”.

At 14, she persuaded her parents to grant her a loan to record her first album, 14, and in early 2008, began posting songs from the album, as well as numerous other demos, on her official Myspace page. This caught the attention of a promoter running numerous illegal warehouse raves and parties in east London, who invited her to perform. She was billed on flyers under the stage name Charli XCX, which was her MSN Messenger display name when she was younger.

Despite the illicit nature of the gigs, her parents were supportive of her career and attended several raves with her. In late 2008, while 14 was never commercially released, she released the two singles “!Franchesckaar!” and double A-side “Emelline”/”Art Bitch”, under Orgy Music. She has since frequently expressed her distaste for her music of the time, going as far to call it “gimmicky dance tracks” and “fucking terrible Myspace music”. At the age of 18, Charli moved to London to study for a fine art degree at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art but dropped out in her second year.

In 2010, Charli XCX was signed to Asylum Records. She later described herself as being “lost”. In an interview with The Guardian, Charli XCX said: “I was still in school, I’d just come out of this weird rave scene, and I wasn’t really sure what to make of that. And when I got signed I hated pop music; I wanted to make bad rap music. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know what I liked. Even though I was signed, I was still figuring it out.” She eventually flew out to Los Angeles to meet producers, and found it “wasn’t working out for me” until she met with American producer Ariel Rechtshaid. They had a two-hour session and wrote the song “Stay Away”. She stated that’s “when things started to come together”. Early in 2011, she was featured on the Alex Metric single “End of the World”. She left during the second year of her degree course at the Slade School of Fine Art to focus on her music career, and in May and November 2011, she released the singles “Stay Away” and “Nuclear Seasons” respectively, and gained attention from music website Pitchfork, where she earned “Best New Track” accolades for both; the former was eventually named to the site’s “Best Tracks of 2011” list.

In addition to Rechtshaid, she began working with Swedish producer Patrik Berger. He sent her two beats, and she quickly wrote songs for each, one of which became “I Love It” and the other of which became “You’re the One”. She stated she didn’t end up releasing “I Love It” herself as she could not reconcile it with her sound, but in 2012, Swedish duo Icona Pop re-recorded the song and released it as a single featuring her vocals. The song became an international hit, hitting number 1 in Charli’s home country and climbing to number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013.