Bea and her Business: ‘I would go to record label meetings alone aged 16’

Bea and Her Business takes her business very, very seriously. So seriously that as a 16-year-old, the popstar – real name Bea Wheeler – would represent herself in meetings with swarms of label executives after her singing videos went viral online. “It was just me with nine execs being like, ‘Hello!’” she tells me. “My parents probably wanted to come, but I was like, ‘No, leave this to me!’ When I tell industry people that I was doing that, they’re like, ‘Are you mad?’ But I was adamant I had to do this on my own.”

On the day Wheeler signed with Warner in 2023, aged 19, she hit one million TikTok followers – and has since wooed crowds in the form of two confessional, bolshy and radio-ready EPs, 2024’s Me vs. Me and 2023’s Introverted Extrovert, which sound as if Lily Allen’s brattish 2006 debut album Alright, Still was melded with Olivia Dean’s breezy chart-topping pop ballads. In her latest single, “Rich”, Wheeler sticks up a middle finger to the London economy, Allen-style, as she croons, “And London price can suck my tits/ Sorry, how much for a fancy spritz?”. In her orchestral belter “Me Against My Head”, a song about navigating body confidence issues, she sings: “I live by the rules of the b**** inside my mind/ I couldn’t impress her even if I tried.” Wheeler’s business, really, is in writing killer songs.

It’s no surprise, then, that the 21-year-old’s observational lyricism has earned her a Rising Star nomination at the prestigious songwriting ceremony, the Ivor Novello Awards (up against the already Brit-nominated Lola Young, Liang Lawrence, LULU, and Nia Smith). Wheeler has been acquainted with some of her fellow nominees: she’s friends with Lawrence, has spoken to Smith before and has since discovered afro-soul musician LULU. The biggest name in that category is Young – the Brit School alumna known for her feisty viral hit “Messy” – and Wheeler is keen to meet her at the ceremony. “Insane,” Wheeler says of Young. “She’s had such an amazing year, I don’t know her personally, but it would be cool to chat with her.”

Wheeler’s writing stands out in the current pop climate – which often feels saturated with chants about silly boys and situationships – since her lyrics can jump from the topic of self-love to fancying a slice of pizza in a matter of bars. Her most recent releases, like “Rich”, feel like a revival of the snarky sarcasm of British Noughties pop, of which Allen – Wheeler’s biggest influence – was leading the pack.

“Lily Allen was the first artist who made me see songwriting from a different perspective,” she says, leaning across a wobbly table in the Barbican café, her dark chestnut hair slicked back into a spiky bun. “[Pop] doesn’t just have to be about heartbreak. You can talk about your Friday night, or your nan being a window shopper,” she laughs, referring to Allen’s song called “Nan You’re a Window Shopper”. Being nominated for the most respected songwriting award, then, is a dream come true (or as Wheeler puts it: “insane”). “I didn’t even know that being nominated was a possibility in my mind,” she says. “The one thing I’ve said since the start is that if I die as a good songwriter, I'll die happy. That’s all I care about.”

Wheeler is as chatty and warm as her songs suggest. Our conversation ranges from star signs (she’s a Pisces) to her desire to party more (she just about manages one night out a month) and the expansiveness of pop (“It’s gonna be a Lorde summer!” she says at one point). The singer is wearing a baggy, oversized T-shirt, with layers of chains and trinkets dangling from her neck (I spy a tiny dinosaur hanging from one of them). Perched on the table is her Nineties-style handbag and a gargantuan water bottle.

Born in Buckinghamshire to retail industry parents Nick Wheeler, the founder of the shirt company Charles Tyrwhitt and Chrissie Rucker, who launched The White Company (yes, that business-minded spirit must run in the family), Wheeler decided very young that she must become a singer with the sole purpose of proving her two older sisters wrong. “My sisters would always be singing along to the radio, and I was that jealous younger sibling. They would say I was the worst singer in the family… they’d be like ‘It’s character building!’ And I’d be like… crying in the corner!” she laughs. “So I started telling people, ‘Oh, I’m gonna be a singer’. And they were like ‘OK, Bea... dream on!’”

With a stubborn sense of determination, Wheeler began posting covers of songs like Lukas Graham’s “7 Years” and Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness” online under the name “Beebs Music” before graduating to “Bea and her Bizness”. She would record herself practising nonstop, studying her mistakes, and trying again until it was perfect. In the meantime, she cleverly added her email address to her profile and watched as agents, session musicians and labels got in touch while her viewership grew rapidly. Naturally, “Bea and Her Bizness” evolved to Bea and Her Business.

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Two EPs and multiple singles later, with the seedlings of a debut album currently in the works, Wheeler has been spending most of her time working or alone, since her friends are all dotted across the country at university. “I've just become a bit of a hermit,” she says. “It happens in phases – two years ago when my friends went off, and it happened recently a bit.” That period of self-reflection allowed her to look inwards, on subjects including her relationship with her body image (the result was “Me Against My Head”). Another topic was her friendships. In “We’re Not the Same”, an anthem about a long-time bond that turned sour, Wheeler’s voice crescendos across an avant-garde Chappell Roan-style chorus: “I don’t wanna be your future maid of honour/ Cuz I'll bring you flowers and you'll hate the colour.” When Wheeler performs this song on tour, she asks the crowd if anyone has had a toxic friendship. “Literally, the whole room goes, meee!” she says, shooting her arm up in the air.

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There’s no doubt that Wheeler’s lyrics are incredibly relatable for her agemates and listeners – who doesn’t have an awful friend-breakup story or agree that £12 for an Aperol spritz is a massive rip-off? But she’s found it difficult to reclaim her voice within the 300-something songs she’s churned out since being signed. Creatively, it’s been exhausting. “There are certain times you can really feel like you’re being pulled in every direction and you’re like, ‘What do I even want to say any more?’” she says. “You get to the point where you go into a session and you’re like, let’s just write about this thing that I’ve written about 100 times before, because it’s probably relatable to other people. But actually, that’s not about necessarily what I feel like.”

Wheeler has found that her remedy for that cycle is actually “living life” and shaking off her hermit qualities. “When you actually give yourself the time and space to breathe and go out there, have a good time with your mates, go on that trip, the writing becomes so much more interesting.” She says that she tends to be a “serious grandma” most of the time. “No discrimination to grandmas, I freaking love grandmas,” she says. “I just go through these phases where I hide away and don’t see the light of day and I don’t go out with my mates. I’m like, come on, Bea, you’re 21 years old. This is the time for partying. It’s not about work, work, work the whole time.”

As if almost on cue, Wheeler, ironically, has a recording session to attend. As we’re leaving, Lily Allen’s “Smile” plays on the speakers in another moment of sheer coincidence. We look at each other. “Aaaaayyy!” says Wheeler, bopping her head. She may be a self-proclaimed grandma, but she’s certainly a hoot with it.

The Ivor Novello Awards will take place on 22 May