Despite having started her career over a decade ago, 2024 has been the year Charli xcx hit a whole new level of mainstream success. But before she was a neon green Brat, she was Charlotte Emma Aitchison – a young girl from Start Hill, Essex who was active on Myspace and started performing at raves in London when she was just 14 years old. Even pre-True Romance and “Boom Clap”, as a teenager she had her music in Versace shows and was on set with some of the biggest photographers in fashion.

In a video from 2009, which has recently resurfaced, a 17 or 18-year-old Charli is seen on a photoshoot with Dazed co-founder photographer Rankin. Released in 2009, Destroy by Rankin, was a book in honour of the tenth anniversary of Youth Music – a British charity which invests in “music-making projects for children and young people experiencing challenging circumstances”.

Bringing together over 70 visual artists and musicians, the project saw Rankin photograph each talent before they ‘destroyed’ the portraits by reinterpreting them to create original collages. Joining the likes of Goldie, Florence and the Machine, Andre 3000, The Enemy and Ian Brown of the Stone Roses, teenage Charli was one of the youngest rising stars on the set.

Three years ago, on a panel with Red Bull, a screenshot from the singer’s Myspace page was recovered using Wayback Machine showed her collage from the shoot as her profile picture. Pictured in an electric blue wig, the portrait shows her wearing a black body suit and yellow and black polka dot tights. “[It] was the first professional photoshoot I ever did,” she explained on the panel, discussing the picture. “Because he is quite a big deal photographer, he said ‘obviously hair, make-up, and styling will totally come down to us, don’t worry we’ve got you covered’ and I was like ‘no, I’ve got it! I’m going to do my own styling and my own hair and make-up’. It’s a nightmare.”

Recently, she was on the Tape Notes podcast with producer A.G. Cook and her fiancé, producer and drummer George Daniel. When discussing how her song “Club Classics” first came about George mentioned he used samples of her saying ‘it’s like’ and ‘right now’ from an old, mystery interview.

Despite both Charli and George remaining tight-lipped about where the samples come from, since the podcast came out fans have been undergoing investigative journalism trying to figure out which interview it is. Many have concluded that the sample is *allegedly* from the video of the Rankin shoot in question.

In the video, when she was asked what her end goal would be with her career she said: “I suppose just to get my stuff heard and [while] being me and not changing what I’m doing. I want to be successful, but I want to do it on my own terms.” If the last six months in the Charli xcx world is anything to go by, manifestation works!

Watch the video above.