Naomi Scott: F.I.G

Naomi Scott grew up in a church environment where she practiced vocal runs and learned harmonies through performances. She was discovered by Kéllé Bryan, which led to her first acting role on Disney Channel UK and a career shaped by auditions and casting calls. At 27, she experienced a quarter-life crisis despite having a stable, successful life. She later returned to music, revisiting atmospheric 1980s and 1990s sounds from her father’s Windows Media Player. She connected with Dev Hynes of Blood Orange and worked in a studio in Norway with producer Lido. Her debut alt-pop project, F.I.G., blends blue-lit soul, sophisticated R&B, and warm syncopated rhythms, drawing on early 1980s pop influences without becoming pastiche.

"At Bridge Church, she was discovered by British singer Kéllé Bryan, who ushered Scott into her first acting role at Disney Channel UK. From there, Scott's life filled with casting calls and auditions, and the piano she once played with childlike abandon spun farther and farther out of view. When Scott hit a quarter-life crisis at 27, it wasn't because her life was in disarray; married and enjoying a prosperous acting career, she instead had too much stability-the kind that makes people grieve for another life still unlived."

"In the late 2010s, she dusted off her piano and began to reminisce about the atmospheric '80s and '90s music that lived in her father's Windows Media Player. She called up her lodestar, Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, and hunkered down in a studio in Norway with producer Lido, known for his work with Halsey and Aminé. She was just beginning to pen the log lines of her exemplary alt-pop debut, F.I.G."

"What she ultimately dreamed up smoothly stirred blue-lit soul, sophisticated R&B, and warm, syncopated rhythms à la Quincy Jones. It's an homage to early '80s pop that fans of Hynes will gleefully rinse: heavy on new wave and masterful, soul-baring soft ballads without creeping into pastiche. Banking on the public's enduring Y2K obsession might have been a safer bet, but it's a delight to listen to Scott coo over some funky basslines from the MTV decade."

"She safely skirts the tackier references, cherry-picking from the suave, timeless hits of the early '80s. "Losing You" and "Rhythm" are clear Lionel Richie studies, with the fuzzy guitar licks, cascading harmonies, and Carribean-influenced percussive details that made his songs anthems. If you close y"

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