At Work: Britti
“I’ve always been a fan of Auntie Dolly, as I call her,” Britti says with a smirk, mentioning the name that connects the title of her debut set, Hello, I’m Britti, to The Iron Butterfly’s first release. “Anytime I love an artist, I always put a little Auntie on top of that— they’re family at this point if they made me feel what I feel. I want to embody that energy.”
With Hello, I’m Britti, the Louisiana native has crafted a sound of her own, one well-suited for producer Dan Auerbach’s wide-ranging skill set. “I inadvertently created my own genre. It’s really hard to box it because, when people ask me what it is, I’m like, ‘I don’t know—if John Prine had a baby with Otis Redding.’ It’s a gumbo pie,” she says of the LP, which offers a mix of soul-laden grooves and country-tinged ballads while still maintaining The Bayou State’s essence.
Categories aside, Hello, I’m Britti introduces the singer’s ability to adapt when faced with adversity —and respond with the organic capability of her husky vocals. In tracing the album’s songs back to her self-work, she ties the human element to the totality of the project. “I just keep evolving to where I feel like I have to reintroduce myself, and so I was like, ‘Let me let the world know who I am. Let me let the world see who I am because I went through heartbreak.’ And, a lot of times, when you have heartbreak, you have to relearn yourself and relearn how your life looks and feels without that person in the equation,” she says. “I would say that sometimes it does something to the ego to have heartbreak. It does something to the spirit. So I had to rebuild, and I had to rebuild stronger. I had to uproot the soil and plant some new seeds. It feels so beautiful to watch these flowers blossom.”
Britti expands on this metaphor as she reflects, “There’s this beautiful song by Dolly Parton on Trio—the album that has Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt—called ‘Wildflowers.’ It sounds like a beautiful, light song, but the more you listen, the more you’re like, ‘This is deep AF; this is amazing.’ She’s just talking about wildflowers growing wherever you land. You adapt, you grow, you are worthy of being who you want to be. I feel like this is me stepping into my own, these shoes that have always been mine. But I’m just growing into them and saying, ‘Hello, world; I’m Britti. Let me introduce you to who I am.’ This is just the beginning, and we’re going to make magic.”
