Music

Timeless and yet indisputably fashionable, Hope Winter has the kind of voice – honeyed low, velvety rich in texture – that places her comfortably within a storied legion of female soul singers, from Cleo Sol, to Aretha Franklin and Amy Winehouse. The strength and feminine steel of her voice is applaudable enough. But when coupled with her London girl coolness, and her talent for exquisite storytelling, Hope Winter has deservedly earned the accolade of one of the most exciting breakout artists to watch.

Perhaps her greatest gift is her necessarily individual flair: in today’s over-crowded pop scene, a zealously polished sound can neutralise intimacy and authenticity. In both her sound and personality, Winter brims with both. “I’m a college drop out,” she tells me with a grin. “Self-taught YouTube tutorials, gigging around my home town...” Winter, raised in St. Albans by psychotherapist parents, describes her musical upbringing as “passionately GCSE music state education”. She dropped out of music college in Kilburn, London and continued to learn her craft through the city’s gig scene before Small Talk, her first single, almost instantly became a sleeper hit across the internet.

And yet her sense of humour, particularly evident in person and on stage, is wholly 2026. “If you’ve been f****d over by some nauseous guy, you’ll relate,” the 26-year-old singer-songwriter says merrily of her recent fourth single, If You Ever Loved Me. She is sitting across from me in a sunlit office room, delicately – but by no means, preciously – trying to explain what her rapidly growing fanbase can expect from the track. “It’s like strings, pop... kind of break-up bop...” she muses. “Transitioning us into autumn.”

Despite having only four singles available to hear, Hope Winter has built a bricks-and-mortar fanbase that speaks to the quiet contradictions that bind her sound. Her most recent single, If You Ever Loved Me, showcases Winter’s jazzy – even cinematic – soul sound, with soft piano lines and soaring strings. On Missing You, her previous single, Winter manages to sing about her experience with grief in a way that is bittersweet, rather than melancholic: the smooth, jazzy pulse of the record perfectly compliments her crystal clear vocals. “There's been a lot of stuff that's happened in my life, and writing has always been the way that I've processed it,” Winter explains. “So I feel really happy that the music that's out at the moment reflects experiences that I've been through, and other people relate to that. Especially my last single, which was about losing a parent.” Her voice is powerful, and yet restrained; her lyrics vulnerable, but steely. There’s an edge to Winter that is more jaded than jagged.

Hope’s understated genre-fusion freely combines sounds of pop, jazz and soul for a unique, even cinematic, update on the singer-songwriter beat, a sound she describes as “soulful, human, and honest.” The music influences she was raised with provide insight into just how effortless this sound comes, pulling in odes of motifs from the likes of Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway & Stevie Wonder, with more current inspirations including Cleo Sol to Remi Wolf. “My mum and dad’s taste was kind of folky,” she says. “Sheryl Crow. Suzanne Vega. Tori Amos.” As Winter got older, she explains, her stepdad introduced her to the likes of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Neil Young. Recently, Olivia Dean personally invited Winter to perform in London’s most iconic jazz venue, Ronnie Scott’s. Spotlighted by British Vogue, Winter was joined by fellow artist – and close friend– Nectar Woode in supporting Dean in this utterly elegant celebration of the future of soul pop. Already garnering stellar industry co-signs and a rapidly growing fanbase, Hope is carving out her ever distinguishable and unwavering sonic DNA.