Imani Williams Talks Juggling Her GCSEs With All That Sigala Stardom

Think studying for your GCSEs this year was hard? Try being Imani Williams. Not only did she have to swat up on all her subjects, she also found the time to feature on Sigala's smash single 'Say You Do' earlier this year, hit the road with the producer for all his live shows AND crank out her own debut single 'Don't Need No Money'.

The young pop star in the making recently swung by MTV to talk how she managed it all, studio time with Sigala and hailing from the same school as Amy Winehouse...

Back to the GCSE thing. In May, Imani played our own MTV Crashes Coventry gig having just sat her English GCSE earlier that day (!): "Yes I did my English GCSE before I went to MTV Crashes Coventry," she recalled, "and I [recently] got my results and I did quite well, I got a B in English so that wasn't too bad so finger crossed that there's no more exams to come 'cause I am ready to get out and do more music.

"To be honest it was quite hard having all of the things going on at the same time but I had some really cool people around me and my team are amazing and helped me out. I just kept my head down and focused and I think the hard work paid off, and it's time to write music and do more performing and I have more free time now."

With all her friends now thinking about further education, we asked whether it was weird for her going in such a separate direction.

"It's really weird," she said, "me and my friends are going such different ways. I mean just a year ago I wasn't even signed and I was just in BRIT School with my friends but they're definitely really supportive and it's cool for them to come to my shows and stuff.

"I've just got a really small group of friends, like my best friends, so they're all really supportive of what I'm doing and every time they see me on the TV they Snapchat me 'oh it's you' and I'm like 'I know!' So yeah it's really, really fun."

Speaking of the BRIT School, which seen the likes of  Adele, Jessie J, Amy Winehouse, Katy B and more walk down its corridors, with just two official releases to her name, Imani's already made it onto their Wall Of Fame...

"There were no famous people when I was at BRIT School but they have a wall when you walk into the doors of the school and it shows all of the famous people that have been there and it's literally amazing how many people have come from the BRIT School, it's crazy. They actually put me on the wall now which is really cool.

"My ultimate idol on the wall of fame in BRIT School - that is so hard 'cause there's so many people … probably Amy Winehouse, I mean she's amazing."

As for new music, we had to ask whether after he returned the favour on her current single 'Don't Need No Money', whether she and Sigala are cooking up another banger any time soon.

"I haven't been in the studio with Sigala lately," she revealed, "just 'cause we're both so so busy but we've been doing a lot of shows together, I've been doing a lot of his headline shows...so it's really cool to keep contact with him and like just sing our songs live together."

And how does he come up with those infectiously feel good vibes? "It's really funny, the vibe in Sigala's studio is really tropical themed, like he has like palm trees - it's really crazy, I think that inspires his music a lot. But yeah it's really chilled, we just vibe off each other, we have a really good creative connection in the studio and yeah we work really well together."

Imani Williams' 'Don't Need No Money' is out now.