This leads me onto my next point and in fact the main point of this article. Often, Ora is dismissed as being a wannabe “dance-pop diva” who has been relegated to an early retirement programme that consists of annual appearances on TV singing competitions and stale red carpet’s. But I say this couldn’t be further from the truth!
Yes, Ora hasn’t arguably had a commercial ‘hit’ record since 2017 (her 2023 album You & I deserved better) and she has done her fair share of Judging reality television, starring on everything from The X Factor to The Voice and The Masked Singer both here in the UK and overseas.
However, her work in the early days of her career goes unnoticed and it really shouldn’t! She was more than a rip-off Rihanna, it was her Urban-Brit Pop/Rap fusion in the early 2010’s that set a precedent for many that came after her, one person especially, that person, being Charli XCX.
Ora rapped and sang songs about drink, drugs and sex experimentation. Of course, she is not the first Popstar to do that (let’s not kid ourselves) but she was a young woman, in the contemporary moment singing all about a man’s world of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
She sang openly about how she liked to kiss Girls after drinking copious amounts of red wine at late night raves (in a collab with XCX funnily enough) and also sang in a way that meant we could hear her British/Cockney dialect, something many hadn’t heard since the early days of Lily Allen and Kate Nash. All the above tropes that can be seen shining brightly in XCX’s work too- particularly BRAT and CRASH.
It was not only through just her discography that Ora was outrageous and somewhat trailblazing in the early days of her career.
Ora collabs with XCX introduced Charli to many for the first time too. Back in 2015, the pair teamed up together to record, Doing It. This peaked at Number 8 in the UK Charts and gave XCX her fourth Top ten hit, thus becoming Ora’s seventh.
It was not only through just her discography that Ora was outrageous and somewhat trailblazing in the early days of her career. She carved out a strong sense o//f identity and an independent brand through her wild fashion sense. She wore a bathrobe to the MTV Awards, regularly mixed feathers and rhinestones and was never afraid to shake up her hair styles. Again, ring any bells?
So, what made Rita Ora so special in the early days of her career? Well, she was the hottest new thing around, she had 6 Consecutive Top Ten it’s in the space of 18 months, including 2 consecutive number one’s when she broke out onto the music scene in 2012. She reintroduced urban dance pop/rap to the UK along with the likes of Tinie Tempah and was loud, brash (not brat) and bohemian. In other words, Rita Ora ran so the likes of Charli XCX could walk behind her…