“It’s all about being proud of what we deliver,” Rita Ora says, taking a deep breath. “Thinking we killed it.” When Ora refers to “we,” it’s not because she’s British and speaking in the royal sense; it’s because everything she does is a team effort. Most often, the team is Rita and her sister, Elena, who is two years older and one of Rita’s managers. Elena is the one who, on-set for Rita’s SELF cover shoot, keeps the star’s energy up with enthusiastic shouts of “You’re hot!” She’s also Rita’s daily touchstone—especially when Team Ora is jetting from New York City to London, then rushing from X Factor tapings at Wembley arena to fittings with Karl Lagerfeld in Paris. (When it comes to working long hours, Rita says her sister is even more driven than she is: “She’s worse than me!”)
And drive is something the 25-year-old “Body on Me” singer has plenty of. She considers herself a singer first (her next album, as yet untitled, will be released in early 2016), but Ora also designs Adidas Originals by Rita Ora, a sporty-cool fashion line that’s currently rolling out its third season. That’s in addition to appearing in a couple of blockbuster movie franchises (The Fast and the Furious, Fifty Shades of Grey) and starring in ads for everyone from Calvin Klein to Roberto Cavalli.
“This year has been eventful, that’s for sure,” she says. “I finished my album and I’m so proud of it. And this was the first time I’ve done a show like X Factor UK, where it’s all live. I’ve just expanded as an artist.”
Still, music is the thing that really drives Ora. The caramel-voiced Londoner was only 19 when she was signed to Jay Z’s Roc Nation label, attracting attention from critics who saw a major talent in the making. But though Ora was released internationally in 2012 and went platinum in the U.K., Ora the pop star has never had an album come out in the U.S.
The post Rita Ora Is Rewriting The Pop-Star Playbook appeared first on SELF.
No comments:
Post a Comment