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Maisi
Maisi performing in London, 2024
Background information
Birth name	Maisie Harriet Brand Bourke
Born	South-east London
Occupations	Singer songwriter social media personality
Member of	Loud LDN

Maisie Harriet Brand Bourke, known professionally as Maisi, is a British musician and social media personality from south-east London. She co-founded Loud LDN, a collective of women and non-binary musicians, has released several singles, and appeared on TikTok with her attempts to address her boyfriend's restrictive eating. Her mother is Jo Brand.

Life and career

Early life

Maisie Harriet Brand Bourke was born in King's College Hospital to comedian Jo Brand and Bernie Bourke, both former psychiatric nurses. She grew up in south-east London and has one sister, Eliza. She initially wanted to be a songwriter, and started writing songs when she was eleven. She underwent a goth phase as a teenager after listening to Lorde's Pure Heroine, and attended the London branch of British and Irish Modern Music Institute, where she found herself surrounded by others interested in performing, and realised she also wanted to perform. In the first week of the course in 2019, she met Alfie Richer, who she later started dating.

Music career

On 11 June 2021, Bourke released "Guess I'm In Love", for which a music video was released; Kent and Sussex Courier reported in May 2022 that the song had been streamed "nearly 60,000 times". On 25 February 2022, she released "Yellow Line", a reference to road markings, and explores the regret Bourke felt after only saying a quick goodbye to Richer at a train platform on 23 March 2020 on the grounds the pair were meeting in London the next day; at the time, Bourke lived in London and Richer in Essex, and the pair were prohibited from seeing each other by the territory's Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020. The song's sound was inspired by Baby Queen's EP Medicine, which she had discovered shortly before recording the track, as well as several Charli XCX tracks. As of May 2022, the song has been streamed "over 50,000" times.

In May 2022, she met fellow musician Coupdekat for brunch, having discovered her via TikTok. There, they discussed the loneliness of being a woman in the music industry and how they were often pitted against each other. This prompted the pair to set up a group chat on WhatsApp called Ladies Making Noise in London for the women and non-binary musicians they knew at that time. Initially starting with ten musicians including Piri and Matilda Cole, the adding of other members caused the member list to grow to forty people, prompting them to set up an Instagram page, Loud LDN. Coupdekat used a June 2023 interview to note that the chat had "120 members", and that it had moved to Discord.

In June 2022, she released the single "Quick Fixes", a song about cosmetic adverts she had seen online for expensive skin care, diets, health food, and facial fillers, and was her attempt at conveying their superfluity. On 8 November 2022, she supported Piri & Tommy on the Scala leg of their Froge.tour, and two days afterwards, she released "123", which saw use in over 3,000 TikTok videos. In August 2023, she and Piri released "Head", a drum and bass song written about their feelings about success going to artists' heads, and which was promoted with a video directed, produced, and edited by Maisi. That November, she supported Piri on her "Extra Hot" tour.

Personal life

Bourke maintains a TikTok account, "yoitsmaisi", on which Brand sometimes features. She went viral in January 2023 after a video from her "Teaching My BF to Eat" TikTok series, in which she attempted to diversify Richer's meals beyond chicken nuggets and chips, was viewed over 1,000,000 times; the series attracted coverage from the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Daily Mirror. As of August 2023, she has over 145,000 followers, and her restrictive eating series has been viewed over 20,000,000 times.

In a February 2022 interview with Fred Perry, Bourke named Amy Winehouse as a "massive songwriting and artistic inspiration", specifically how candid her lyrics were, and how she was as a person. She has also cited lyrical inspiration from Lily Allen and Baby Queen, and musical inspiration from Charli XCX, Baby Queen, Dylan, and Mimi Webb.

In 2022, she and Richer ran that year's Maldon mud race for Macmillan Cancer Support, following the deaths from cancer of her uncle Bill and Sean Lock; Maldon Nub noted in May 2023 that they had raised "more than £2,200". The pair came last after Richer wore a thick tracksuit; they were even overtaken by Joel Hicks, who ran the race naked, and who the organisers had made start after everyone else. The pair ran the race again in 2023; on both occasions, the race was started by Bourke's mother Jo Brand, who had attempted to run the race with Lock in 2010, and had ended up having to be dragged out of the mud.

Discography

EPs

Singles

As lead artist

As featured artist

References

1. "YELLOW LINE". ASCAP. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
2. ^ "Jo hates jazz". This Is Local London. 10 March 2005.
3. Wilkinson, Sylvie (5 October 2021). "Jo Brand's adorable 24-year marriage and social media star daughter". MyLondon.
4. ^ "_shift talks: Where are the women?". Shift London. 30 January 2023. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
5. ^ Honey, Sam (18 May 2022). "Jo Brand joins her TikTok famous daughter for some surprise cameos". KentLive.
6. ^ "Maisi | Fred Perry UK". www.fredperry.com.
7. ^ "Maisi - Yellow Line". BIMM Blog. 28 March 2022.
8. Black, Leo; Blackburne, Elaine (20 January 2023). "Musician's bid to change 'chicken nugget and fries' diet of boyfriend". HullLive.
9. ^ "Spotify – Mobile Web Player". Spotify.
10. ^ ""We're taking over the scene": meet Loud LDN, dance music's most vibrant new collective". NME. 19 December 2022. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
11. "Caity Baser: 'I want to become the most successful singer in the world'". Rolling Stone. 29 March 2023. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
12. "Loud LDN X Spotify: The collaboration to tune to". Shift London. 11 May 2023. Retrieved 6 June 2023.
13. "Q&A: Coupdekat Talks London Music Scene, New EP & Collective Loud LDN". THE LUNA COLLECTIVE. 24 March 2023. Retrieved 3 July 2023.
14. "Musician Maisi on her new single, her mum Jo Brand, and her plans to take on the Maldon Mud Race again in 2023". Maldon Nub News. 27 June 2022.
15. Holden, Finlay (21 September 2022). "piri & tommy have announced their debut project, 'froge.mp3'". Dork. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
16. ^ "Piri shares new collaboration with Maisi • WithGuitars". www.withguitars.com. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
17. Taylor, Sam (25 August 2023). "Maisi and piri have teamed up for a new single, 'head'". Dork. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
18. Blissett, Ben (8 November 2023). "Gig Review: Piri at Rescue Rooms - Leftlion - Nottingham Culture". LeftLion. Archived from the original on 9 November 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
19. ^ "Musician's bid to change 'chicken nugget and fries' diet of boyfriend". Hulllive. 20 January 2023 – via www.derbytelegraph.co.uk.
20. "Artist | Maisi". Latitude Festival. 25 July 2023. Retrieved 27 July 2023.
21. ^ "Jo Brand's daughter Maisie Bourke on her Maldon Mud Race experience: "I absolutely loved it - I'm going to apply again next year!"". Maldon Nub News. 26 April 2022.
22. ^ "Maldon Mud Race 2023: Comedian Jo Brand to return as daughter Maisie takes on challenge once again". Maldon Nub News. 9 May 2023.
23. "Sonia Watson - The Maldon Mud Race returns for 2023 - BBC Sounds". www.bbc.co.uk.

• Musicians from the London Borough of Southwark
• Living people
• People from Camberwell