I met her last year, in a cold day of October. I was freezing, lost in front of Starbucks, when I saw a tall skinny girl, wearing a red turtle neck short sleeved top. In that mass of grey people, she was a spot of colour. That image got somehow stuck in my mind.

In the backstage, just minutes before the first concert, I saw her again. To be honest, I did introduce myself, but I did not understand her name. And then she got on the stage and with nothing but a violin (amazing Iain), a simple negative and her voice, she shattered an entire room. I still remember how people stopped talking and it was like an invisible thread drawn them to the stage. Everyone was quiet, the skin was crawling on the flesh and I was thinking “where was she before?”

She’s the hidden gem of London: Lily Oakes.

I’ve been to a few of her concerts. (OK, to be honest, I think I’ve been to almost all of them since I first heard her). She is one of the most complete artist I have ever had the pleasure to listen to. First of all, she is an Artist: she does not need a complex instrumental to cover her voice, she just needs words and the right mood.


The simplicity of what she creates transcends the linearity and marks a new milestone in music: the purity of the feelings does not need fireworks to be transmitted forward. The struggle, the pain (no one ever creates good stuff when they’re happy), the confusion and disillusionment achieved what others spent good money to get it: to make the soul believe it was discovered and scattered around the world, with the promise to always come home.

Her concerts are always an act: movements perfectly synchronized with the state of mind, the rhythm just flowing and the public is hers, but she’s not theirs. Somewhere, far away, there is a world where we don’t belong, but she’s happy.

Iain Wilson is responsible for that moment when you hear the first strike on the chord of a violin and your skin shivers. Definitely an amazing match with Lily’s music. She’s already filming a video for Sometimes, the album is on the way. I just hope the world is ready for her, because if I know something about her, is that she will definitely not change. How can you not love her?


The interview is an experiment, a casual conversation, in a familiar environment and the filming is emphasizing our choice. Thank you, Lily, for your patience and extraordinary human being you are!

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