Arlo Parks

Arlo Parks (born Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho on August 9, 2000) is a poet, singer, and songwriter from Hammersmith, West London. Of half Nigerian, quarter Chadian, and quarter French heritage, she grew up in a multilingual household and learned French before English.^[1] She was one of only three Black children at her school, and the resulting sense of isolation drove her to writing and storytelling as emotional outlets from an early age. Her father introduced her to jazz (Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Aretha Franklin) while her mother played Prince, 80s French pop, and Diana Ross. She also absorbed Fela Kuti, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, and Daft Punk along the way. The collision of those influences shaped a musical sensibility that has always been harder to categorise than it first appears.

A pivotal moment came around age thirteen, when she discovered King Krule's music and felt, for the first time, that guitar-driven songwriting could carry the kind of emotional weight she associated with poetry. She began writing poems around this age, then started setting them to music at fourteen or fifteen. She has cited Elliott Smith, Radiohead, Joni Mitchell, and Sylvia Plath as formative influences, alongside poets Nayyirah Waheed and Hanif Abdurraqib.^[1] She completed her A-Levels at Ashbourne College in 2019.

Her debut album Collapsed in Sunbeams (2021) won the Mercury Prize, with judges praising her singular voice and her capacity to connect deeply with her generation.^[2] She was 20 years old at the time, one of the youngest recipients in the prize's history. The record was characterised by intimate acoustic arrangements and confessional lyrical detail, establishing Parks as a voice for the particular loneliness of early adulthood.

Parks is openly queer, and has been described as blazing a trail for Black queer musicians in British mainstream pop.^[3] Her second album My Soft Machine (2023) deepened the confessional approach of her debut, earning sustained critical recognition.

In September 2023, Parks published her debut poetry collection, The Magic Border, extending her literary practice beyond music.^[1] In March 2024, she received a co-writing credit on Beyonce's "Ya Ya" from the album Cowboy Carter, one of the most high-profile writing credits of her career.^[1]

Her third album Ambiguous Desire (Transgressive Records, April 3, 2026) marks a significant evolution in her sound. Following the end of her relationship with singer Ashnikko in 2024, Parks relocated to Los Angeles and immersed herself in club culture across LA, New York, and London, frequenting spaces including Nowadays, Bossa Nova Civic, and Basement in Brooklyn, where, as she has described it, she could be whoever she wanted to be on that particular night.^[4][5] The record was built primarily in producer Baird’s downtown Manhattan loft using modular synths and samplers, with additional production from Paul Epworth, Buddy Ross, and Andrew Sarlo; it features a guest appearance by Sampha on the track “Senses.”^[6][7] The result is a body of work that grafts her poetic, emotionally intimate songwriting onto breakbeat rhythms and club-oriented production, retaining her lyrical voice while expanding the spaces it occupies.