KAMILLE has held the UK pop scene in the palm of her hand since 2013, establishing herself as a bona fide hitmaker straight out of the gate when her first cut, The Saturdays’ “What About Us” featuring Sean Paul, became one of the biggest songs of that year. “I walked out of my job as a stockbroker,” she tells Apple Music. “My parents were like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ That hit was definitely what I needed to let them know I can do this as a career.” It would be easy to chalk up the songwriter and producer’s first taste of success to beginner’s luck, had the ensuing decade not definitively proven otherwise. There have been countless more hits since then, plus a BRIT, a Grammy and an Ivor Novello Award for her troubles. With an uncanny knack for drawing out the juiciest melodic earworms from any beat she puts her mind to, KAMILLE (real name Camille Purcell) has applied her versatile talents to everything from EDM floor-fillers to R&B heartbreak anthems. Her own output as an artist fizzes with the musical influences of her youth—Motown, soul, disco—catching the attention of the legendary Nile Rodgers, who laid down guitar on “Muscle Memory”, the first single from 2023’s K1, her self-written and produced, independently released debut album. Diverse though her output may be, there is a unifying theme of sparky, empowered self-worth to KAMILLE’s work that’s helped to supercharge the careers of acts such as Mabel and Little Mix, whose rise from talent-show winners to one the biggest girl groups in the world is owed in part to KAMILLE’s creative vision. “I just love women. I’m in awe of women and the things that we do—things we have to do, things we’re born to do, things we strive to do. I’ve always known that being a woman is something that needs to be celebrated,” says KAMILLE. “I’m also driven by pain. I think women experience a lot of undue pain in life, so if I’m in the studio with a woman, I want to know what she’s been through. Then we’ll write a song about it and help a million other women through music. That’s why I do this. When I’m in certain moods, I reach for music to help me, and I think it’s partly my job to help others to do the same.” Here, KAMILLE takes us through some of her most dazzling career highlights, from replacing herself at the top of the charts and getting under the hood of a dance-pop banger to holding her own in a room of rap heavyweights and working with one of her biggest idols. The Saturdays, “What About Us” (feat. Sean Paul) “Trying to enter the music industry is not an easy thing. It’s so daunting. ‘What About Us’ is a special song to me, because I got to prove to everyone that I belonged here. My favourite part is actually when Sean Paul drops in for his verse. He was huge back then and I was in awe of him.” Little Mix, “Black Magic” “We made a whole album [with Little Mix] that was scrapped by their label and we had to start again. ‘Black Magic’ was the first song to come out of the new sessions, and I just felt we should do something completely different to what everyone else [was] doing—something super-American and throwback. [The success of that song] meant they weren’t going to get dropped from the label and they could really go for it.” Little Mix, “Shout Out to My Ex” “A song that came from a lot of pain and sadness. I definitely wanted to have a vengeful, retribution moment and let girls know that, even though someone might have f****d you over, there’s always going to be moment for you to shine. I always treasure this song in my heart, and I love that people always remember how they felt when they heard it.” Clean Bandit, “Solo” (feat. Demi Lovato) “I remember being in a studio with Fred [again..] and feeling like that chorus came out of nowhere. We were like, ‘This is ridiculous.’ It was one of the catchiest things I’ve ever been part of.” Jess Glynne, “I’ll Be There” “I wrote ‘I’ll Be There’ about my best friend. She was going through depression and I just had to write it, because it was on my brain. Jess really felt at the time that she was experiencing things she could connect with in that song. It was just beautiful to have a sad moment turn into something so big for her.” Mabel, “Don’t Call Me Up” “We wrote that song in about an hour—me, Steve [Mac] and Mabel, creating something, again, from a place of pain. Steve was having a massive moment with [Ed Sheeran hit] ‘Shape of You’ and we wanted to do something that was Mabel’s version of that style. Mabel had just gone through a really s****y breakup, so we had all the material because she’d just experienced it all. We were just like, ‘Fuck you. Literally do not call my phone.’ Even now she feels so strongly about ‘Don’t Call Me Up’, because she knows how it made other women feel.” Dua Lipa, “Cool” “Dua Lipa is absolutely incredible, I’m just astounded by her. We already had the song, but Dua came in and kind of tweaked it and made it her own, which I think is really important for artists to do when they have a song pitched to them. She transformed it into something that feels really fitting for her. Being a part of Future Nostalgia, a Grammy-winning album that we all love so much, and watching her go on tour and sing ‘Cool’ every night, was a beautiful moment for me.” Headie One, “Ain’t It Different” (feat. AJ Tracey & Stormzy) “Another moment with Fred [again..]. Me and Fred in the studio with Headie One and all his boys. AJ Tracey was next door and he came in and put his thing down. It was crazy. I was the only girl in a room full of about 20 guys and I was super nervous to get on the mic—I knew I needed to come up with something sick. I started singing Lady Saw’s ‘No Long Talking’, just to see if it worked with the [Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Pretty Little Ditty’] sample, and it did. I was so proud of myself. Fred and I worked on it from there, but that day will always have a place in my heart because I impressed a bunch of rappers.” Joel Corry & Jax Jones, “OUT OUT” (feat. Charli XCX & Saweetie) “So many people tried to write that song, but they couldn’t quite nail it. Jax called me in to try and figure out the puzzle. Going into it, I knew who had tried ideas and I wanted to keep the integrity of that and come up with something fresh as well. Dance songs need very direct melodies. There’s more of a formula to it, which makes it a lot easier to write. We had so many different iterations of that song it was painful, but we got there in the end.” David Guetta & Bebe Rexha, “I’m Good” “We made ‘I’m Good’ probably five years before David Guetta posted it on his TikTok account and it started blowing up out of nowhere. Before we knew it, it was at the top of the charts. It’s incredible that songs from the vault can suddenly become something you never expected. I have a lot of songs sitting on my hard drive and now I feel like maybe something could happen with those too.” Kylie Minogue, “Tension” “Working with someone as legendary as Kylie was a high-pressure situation for me—it was one of those days when I had to kill it—but I love her so much that I knew what I would want to hear from her, as a fan. When I heard the chords, I sang some of those verse melodies instantly. I was thinking it needed to be so braggadocious. I wanted her to say, ‘Call me Kylie’, to have her ‘It’s Britney, bitch’ moment, and I love that she was up for it. That’s why she’s always going to win, because she’s open-minded as fuck and not stuck in a box. She always wants to grow, even now she’s still trying to grow as an artist. I was so overwhelmed by how carefree she is, and how much of an incredible writer she is.”