Crystal Murray

Born and raised in Paris, Crystal was exposed to the arts young. Her father was a saxophonist and her mother worked in music production, so she was often accompanying them to jazz clubs and her father’s tours. She grew up listening to Rihanna, Macy Gray, and John Coltrane; it’s her family’s free jazz lineage that she holds closest. “It is such a punk part of African American culture,” she says; “I’m a child of that movement, and I’ve come to understand how that makes me so natural with music.”

Culture caught on: she appeared in Vogue, Dazed and Office, and campaigns for Paco Rabanne and Diesel. She founded her own label, Spin Desire, giving a platform to up-and-coming artist, and kickstarted a residency and club night at Paris mainstay club, Silencio. But with teenage years intertwined with the industry, Crystal felt stifled. “I got pushed in the ‘neo soul’ direction,” she says. “I was contending with this cliche of the ‘neo-soul woman’ – she’s a Black girl with an afro, she’s clean and nice. I loved it, but it scared me too. At 16, I was trying to fit a box that wasn’t mine – I wanted to rock shit out too.”

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