At the start of this year, 21-year-old singer Lamb set herself the challenge of posting her music on social media every day. Her life at the time is captured in a series of numbers that she rattles off with ease: waitressing for $18 an hour (in LA, no less), 600 followers on Instagram and 21 monthly listeners on Spotify. By the end of February, she’d received co-signs from Drake, Russ and SZA, and was breaching 100,000 dedicated listeners. “It’s been a crazy month,” Lamb says, laughing in disbelief. She has now quit her job to work on music full-time.

Lamb’s diligence in posting on social media no doubt played a part, but it was viral single “Overkill” that truly changed her career, a Jersey club-indie crossover that casts the Venice Beach-born singer as a hopelessly obsessed ex-girlfriend who will do anything to get close to her lover. “Sure, it might be overkill at least I get to spend the night,” Lamb sings in a verse that describes “sleeping in a mini-skirt inside the lobby”, “pushing all the buttons in the elevator” and, altogether, doing “the most outrageous shit so you would want me”. 

The particular draw here is the unlikely union between a thumping Jersey club beat and Lamb’s distinctively dulcet vocal tones. It’s a sound she describes as “electronic lyrical”, a pendulum swing between organic human composition and futuristic digital soundscapes that she loosely likens to James Blake. “[My music] has aspects of ballads and lyrical music with structured movement, but it’s still electronic with all these new wave sounds,” Lamb explains. “I like that juxtaposition. You can have a really cool acoustic track and then kind of ham it up with some drum chops, and it’s fucking amazing.”

The clarity with which Lamb describes her music betrays a career that started long before “Overkill”’s virality.  “People think I had one viral song and blew up overnight – very not true,” Lamb tells Dazed. “I had a lot of music out in the ether; it’s just that only 21 people knew it existed. The second I released ‘Overkill’, I knew I was going for such a new sound that I unreleased everything else. It’s just the tip of the iceberg of something so much bigger.”

Below, Lamb unpacks the origins of her viral success.

There’s a unique intersection between indie vocals and Jersey club production on “Overkill”. How would you describe that? 

Lamb: I have this theory that beats aren’t made for any specific [sound]. What’s so cool about music is that it’s interpretive. When I hear a jersey club beat, I don’t only hear a hard-ass drill rapper over it, I hear really intricate melodies that fall into a specific meter. I'm just trying to create room for a lot of different genres to coexist. Whenever people ask me what I make, I say ‘electronic lyrical’ or ‘some weird third thing’. 

Were you making music from a young age?

Lamb: I was in choir my whole life. I dropped out of high school relatively young, when I was 15, but before then, I was always in the school choir and theatre and things of that nature. I was president of the school rap club – I created the school rap club – from sixth grade to eighth grade. We would freestyle during the extended lunch periods on Wednesdays in front of the whole school. It was definitely that which started my love for meter coexisting with writing. I knew I didn’t have the voice for rap, but I just couldn’t get over how fun it was to fall into pockets.

What sort of artists did you grow up listening to?

Lamb: I think most of my influences come from classical composition. I was really, really interested in Miles Davis; the Miles Runs the Voodoo Down album really shaped my perspective on how structure could look – or that it didn't have to look a certain way. Also, an album that invokes everything that I want to do musically, even though it doesn't make a lot of sense in the exact genre, is Songs In The Key of Life by Stevie Wonder. It shaped the way I wanted to go about [my upcoming] project. 

In middle school, though, I was really into old school rap – A Tribe Called Quest, Cypress Hill, Nas… Then, in seventh grade, I found Isaiah Rashad and that ruled my world.

Where did the name Lamb come from? 

Lamb: I’ve been Lamb since I was five years old. My mother is from Brazil, and she calls me ‘lambinia’. The reason is because, when I was about five years old, I had a very awful tantrum in a Sit and Sleep mattress store. There were these stuffed lambs all along the mattresses, like display animals which you couldn’t buy. I was throwing a tantrum because I wanted one so bad. My mum was offering astonishing amounts of money just to get me to shut up. They wouldn’t give me the lamb. We bought this comforter and, after we got home from the store, my mum looked in the bag and she realised this person at the cashier desk, this sweet teenager, had actually put one in there for me. It’s been around 15 years and I still have it. It’s my profile picture now.

The lyrics to “Overkill” are pretty vivid. How true are they?

Lamb: ‘Overkill’ is like, half true and half not. It’s an exaggeration of a way that I have acted previously in relationships. The elevator and all of those visuals are more metaphorical but I’ve done similar things. That song paints a picture of a girl who is simply interested in the validation of knowing someone, at least, will keep her around, and I think that resonates with a lot of people. That song does anything except paint me in a good light! I think it’s good, though.

It’s been really obvious to everyone that I don’t wear miniskirts, but I have absolutely waited up in someone’s apartment for them to come down when I was, like, 16 or 17 – because ‘we really need to talk about it’ or whatever. I was a crazy ex-girlfriend. But, in terms of the other things, it’s like Lamb is a persona, right? I definitely think Lamb is the kind of girl to do that but Jules – me, personally – wouldn’t.

“I like to consider myself a jack-of-all-trades; I don’t really have one style. I have three wolves inside of me at all times arguing for the spotlight”

How would you describe your fashion sense?

Lamb: I sew a lot of my own clothes, so handmade and tailored, probably. It used to be hard to find clothes that made me feel confident in myself, in the way they fit me, so it was important that I started tailoring my clothes and making them a little bit more me. 

But I like to consider myself a jack-of-all-trades; I don’t really have one style. I have three wolves inside of me at all times arguing for the spotlight. One of them dresses like a little man, the other dresses like a pretty princess, and the third is a funny mix of the two that, for some reason, needs a ripped shirt that’s totally destroyed.

Earlier, you mentioned that you don’t think you have a voice for rap music, but your vocal timbre is very unique. How would you describe it? 

Lamb: Yeah, my timbre is interesting. I think that it lends well to singing, but I probably understand rhythm better than I understand melody, even, which is crazy to me. I just don’t think I’ve found the cadence for rap music. I just don’t think I grew up in an area that supplied me with enough bite in my voice. I grew up in Venice Beach, you know? My accent was shaped to be the most LA beach woman shit in the world! I say ‘stoked city’ and shit like that. I do think there’s room for rap in my music, though. Maybe one day I’ll get a rap record out. 

You mentioned you were working on a new project. Any hints of what direction you’ll be taking?

Lamb: There are a couple of songs that are sadder than people are expecting. It’s still very electronic and empty but, lyrically, we’re going a little more sombre. Shit, dude, I’m actually really excited for it. I don’t think any of the songs sound the same, but they all exist in the same world. There’s something for everybody but I am definitely not making 50 more ‘Overkills’, I’m sorry!

Who would your dream collab be? 

Lamb: D’Angelo. And, if I were born in a different time, I would have loved to be on one of Sly Stone’s works.

Lamb’s latest single, “Fort” is out now.