DellaXOZ - THE DELLA VARIANT (2022) Hi-Re

18-year-old DellaXOZ captures the sentiment of gen-z post-lockdown life through her glitchy, alternative pop.

“When you're not an artist yet, and you don't have connections, you don't know where you can get beats from. So I was like, well, I'm just gonna do it myself.” Daniella Lubasu shrugs, casually outlining the DIY ethos that’s anchored her music since her first experiments in production at 12–years–old.

Released under the pseudonym DellaXOZ, Lubasu’s debut EP THE DELLA VARIANT was written entirely from her childhood bedroom in Bolton, a former industrial town on the fringes of Manchester. It’s where she sits now, dangling her phone in her hand and anticipating the EP release that, coincidentally, coincides with her eighteenth birthday. “I feel good,” she says in a distinctively monotone Mancunian drawl, exuding pure composure amid the chaos: “I’ve been sitting on these for such a long time.”

Lubasu is representative of a new breed of inherently Gen–Z artists, born from a cataclysm of 00s pop culture and Spotify algorithms, with the misfortune of the majority of their adolescence being mired in restriction. For Lubasu, this means despite living on the cusp of one of Britain’s historical hubs for live music, it was constantly just beyond her grasp.

Yet, she’s insistent that THE DELLA VARIANT exists as a product of its vicinity to Manchester, if only in spirit: “It’s the energy of that Britpop Manchester era. My music embodies that,” she says. It’s an energy that was built on collaboration and community, something lacking in Della’s formative years of making music which thus far, have been devoid of any opportunity to perform live.

But the circumstances fail to permeate her irremovable confidence. “I’m really excited,” she grins, unfazed by a lack of experience. “I think about performing all the time. I'm always in my room with a hairbrush or a water bottle, pretending to perform.” The setlist? An all-female lineup that spans from Lorde to Nicki Minaj, though she admits “Still Into You” by Paramore remains her solo–karaoke go–to.