"You can fake a lot of things in this industry," says East London R&B singer KWN.

"You can fake streams, followers, likes... all of that stuff. But selling out a venue and having real people come to see you is different."

She should know. Ever since breaking out with her Worst Behaviour last year, the 26-year-old has been packing fans into concert halls worldwide.

Last month, she steamed up the windows of the Sydney Opera House, with a sultry, sensual set of bedroom jams like Touch Myself, Do What I Say, and a cover of Ginuwine's Pony.

"That was just a crazy moment for me," she says. "I don't think the Sydney Opera House has ever had anybody come in there singing a bunch of sex songs before.

"Everyone was standing up and dancing after 30 seconds, and afterwards, the people at the venue were just like, 'We've never seen it like that before'. It was insane."

At the end of 2024, KWN uploaded clips of Worst Behaviour to her social media accounts. It was only a demo, but the response was unlike anything she'd experienced.

The only problem? They didn't have enough money to complete the song and put it on streaming platforms.

Then Calder came up with a plan. How about building a website and selling the demo directly to fans?

"I was like, 'I don't know, that might make us look a little bit desperate'," KWN remembers.

"She was like, 'No, trust me. If we sell it to 500 people for £1.99, that's £1,000 in our pocket and we can release it [properly]'."

"So I said, 'I'm cool, I trust you, let's just do it'."

In two weeks, they sold 5,500 copies. Record labels who'd shunned the singer suddenly clamoured for her signature, but KWN signed instead to RCA Records (home to R&B legends D'Angelo, SZA and Miguel) just before Christmas.

Meanwhile, Worst Behaviour kept accumulating fans.

Among them was US R&B star Kehlani, who jumped on a remix, fanning the song's smouldering groove into a full-blown inferno.

Released on Valentine's Day 2025, it shot up the charts, fuelled by a video where the two performers circle one another with barely constrained desire, before sealing the deal with a passionate kiss.

But looks can be deceiving... Both KWN and Kehlani were rotten with the cold during the video shoot.

"It was crazy. We were both mad sick," KWN laughs.

"Kehlani almost cancelled because she couldn't speak at all. I had to get a doctor to come and give me an IV... But we pushed through."

Amidst the sniffles, the sparks were real. KWN and Kehlani dated last year. And while their relationship is off-limits for our interview, the couple's visibility, combined with KWN's lyrics, made a bold statement about queer relationships in a musical space that's traditionally been hostile to same-sex love.

That's why, when KWN performs Stand On It, her LGBTQ fans holler back the line: "I'm not embarrassed/ ain't gonna love you in private".

Built around a stuttering, jazzy chord progression, Stand On It was one of the standouts on KWN's debut EP, With All Due Respect, released last June.

The project opens with the defiant statement, "I don't want to be humble no more", a message to the people who doubted her star power.

"I just wanted people to put respect on me," she says. "I was never going to give up or let it push me into the ground."

The rest of the EP echoed the late-night raunch of Worst Behaviour, inspired by classic bedroom jams like Jodeci's Freak'n Me and D'Angelo's Untitled (How Does It Feel).

"Stuff like that's easy to write," KWN told me last December, when she was nominated for the BBC's Sound of 2026 prize.

"Writing emotional and vulnerable music is a lot harder for me."

Six months later, however, her new EP And All Pride Aside, thrums with emotional vulnerability.

On the heart-wrenching Rather Never Love Again, she desperately pines for her ex, singing: "Even if I get you back I don't know if it's going to be the same/ But I will sure as hell spend a lifetime taking all the blame."

The closing track, Heaven's In Your Hands, finds her mourning her grandfather, who died last autumn.

"I think I've just done a little bit of growing up, to be honest," she says of the transformation.

"And I've met people along the way who've taught me it's okay to feel, and to open up to the people around me.

"Before, I was writing stuff that didn't make me think too deeply. This time it's like a one-on-one therapy session with myself."

Musically, she's more confident, too.

Rather Never Love Again features 150 layers of backing vocals that took two days "and a lot of cigarettes" to perfect; while the single Hopeless Romantic explodes with clattering flourishes of drums.

"I was like, I really want to make a wedding love song, but I don't want it to be R&B, I don't want it to feel classic," she recalls.

"And when we put all those rock drum fills in there, I was like, 'This is fun'.

"At the end of the day, I'm very much within my right to be able to experiment, to try new things, and do whatever makes me feel good."

Fans of her earthier material won't be disappointed, though.

KWN's playful, seductive approach to sex is still present on tracks like 'Til The Bedroom Stinks and Risk It All - which contains a sly sample of Nelly's Hot In Herrre.

"I made that on tour in my hotel room, just before we had to get on the bus to drive overnight to the next show," she says.

"The next day when I woke up, I was like, 'Oh no, it's going to be so tough to clear this sample. Why have I done this? The song's so good, like, I can't not put it out'."

In the end, it was sorted without any fuss – a sign of the respect KWN's already gained from her peers, even in the notoriously closed-off world of US R&B.

Next week, she's up for best new artist at the prestigious BET (Black Entertainment Television) Awards in Los Angeles, where she'll also perform.

She's just hoping the catering is better than the UK's Mobo Awards.

"The Mobos was a crazy little experience. I was so grateful to be nominated, but I hated the food," she laughs.

"It was too small. Just tiny little bite-sized pieces. I was like, 'I'm starving, can I get another plate?' but they said no!"

On her current trajectory, though, those requests won't be ignored much longer.