NME meets Syd inside the lobby of Aethos Hotel in Shoreditch on a warm Monday afternoon in London. Wearing a charcoal two piece outfit with grey Air Jordan IVs, she is cheerful and laughs about her longtime barber back home suggesting she purchase her own clippers during her stay in the city. Attention soon turns to the concerts she played with Billie Eilish on the 2025 Hit Me Hard And Soft Tour. Syd jokes that she “didn’t tell my fans about” the dates because tickets disappeared almost immediately.
The conversation highlights the many creative roles Syd, now 34, has taken on throughout a career approaching two decades. Born Sydney Bennett in Los Angeles, she first gained attention with influential 2010s rap collective Odd Future, alongside artists including Earl Sweatshirt, Frank Ocean and Tyler, The Creator. She later formed The Internet with producer Matt Martians. Patrick Paige II, Chris Smith, Jameel Bruner and Tay Walker joined the group, with Steve Lacy eventually completing the lineup. What began as an Odd Future side project developed into one of alternative R&B’s most important acts, reaching a major breakthrough with the Grammy nominated 2015 album ‘Ego Death’.
Few artists from the newer generation of R&B have achieved the broad cultural influence of The Internet. Their four albums have received admiration from listeners and critics, with Syd’s smooth voice forming the foundation of their identity. Yet despite moving from cult favourite to Grammy winner, she describes her third solo record, ‘Beard’, as a romantic comedy about growing into adulthood.
Songs such as the bright and affectionate ‘Jasmin 17’ and the gentle rock inspired James Fauntleroy collaboration ‘Any Time’ reveal Syd enjoying creative freedom and embracing carefully chosen experiments without abandoning her soulful foundation. “For the most part, it’s just feeling grown up,” Syd tells NME. “It’s this newfound confidence and contentment with where I’m at and the skin that I’m in.”
That creative freedom is also reflected in the guests appearing across the 11 song album. Syd invited a wide variety of musicians into the project, including R&B icon Raphael Saadiq, Big Sean, Jordan Ward and Cube, while personally handling most of the production.
“The title is probably deeper than most people would guess,” she explains. “Growing up as a girl, there are standards we’re supposed to meet, and I’ve always fallen short of those standards. At some point, I just stopped trying. When I was making the album, I started letting my facial hair grow. My wife liked it. I shaved it, and she was like, ‘Ew, put it back.’”
When NME previously spoke with Syd in spring 2022, she was entering the emotional world of ‘Broken Hearts Club’, a soulful declaration of love built around ballads and deeply affectionate thoughts. It felt like the perfect record to keep ready in a boombox beneath the window of someone you adore. Away from the music, Syd’s own romance moved towards diamond rings and permanent promises, matching the devoted atmosphere she had created on the album.
Syd publicly introduced her longtime partner during a Boston concert in June 2022, although another major personal goal took much longer to achieve. Purchasing a home required “an extra 10 years” beyond what she had imagined. “My mom bought her first house when she was 23. I expected to be able to do the same,” she says. “Until I did it, I felt like I was failing at those dreams. Back in the day, a crazy album placement with a superstar could set you up for life, but it’s not like that anymore.”
“Growing up as a girl, there are standards we’re supposed to meet, and I’ve always fallen short of those”
The changing emotions and unpredictable events within Syd’s life naturally entered ‘Beard’, bringing fresh confidence and emotional depth to the record. Beyond her solo work, she has quietly become one of modern R&B’s most dependable creative partners, contributing writing, production and guest vocals to musicians such as Giveon, Disclosure, Kilo Kish and Zayn. Although Syd regularly helps other artists express their ideas, lead single ‘Callin’ found her handing its narrative responsibilities to Grammy winning production duo Nova Wav, whose previous credits include Rihanna, Ariana Grande and Jay-Z.
“When their name came up, I was like, ‘Hell yeah. I’d love to work with them,’” Syd states. “They’re awesome. We connected after both being part of [Beyoncé’s] ‘Renaissance’ a few years back.” They first worked together during a three day writing camp arranged by Syd’s new label. ‘Callin’ was the first track they created and ultimately became the only song from those sessions to reach the record. “Initially, I didn’t even send it to the label,” she admits. Blu June, one half of Nova Wav, performs the sugary R&B hook because Syd initially believed singing it herself “felt like a parody of myself”.
‘Callin’ celebrates dreamy brunch dates and the desire to spend time with a romantic partner. Another ‘Beard’ highlight, ‘My Love’, initially appears to explore similar emotions, although Syd describes it as being “on some R&B gangsta shit”. She playfully explains that the track grew from an unpleasant situation in her personal life.
The song was recorded during two weeks at Raphael Saadiq’s studio and developed mainly through improvisation after a colleague made a poorly judged advance towards Syd’s wife. What emerged was a gentle love song protected by a subtle emotional shield, offering Syd’s affectionate but humorous answer to the incident through relaxed percussion and polished synths. “That whole beat was recorded in one take,” she explains. “I wrote the melody in one take as well.”
The artists working beside Syd bring plenty of personality, but her personal reflections provide some of the strongest moments on ‘Beard’. The soulful and slow moving closing track ‘2 Many Days’, originally developed during sessions for her previous album, balances quiet contemplation with deserved confidence. Syd briefly looks back at the time when she performed as “Syd tha Kyd”, reminding everyone she has “been on it since MySpace”, before moving into an intense examination of her own thoughts. “Early in my Odd Future days, and sort of recently too, I think I looked like I knew what I was doing, but I really didn’t,” she reflects before directing her attention towards a more hopeful place. “The anxiety was crippling, but it got better over time.”
Asked when her thinking truly began to change, Syd identifies one defining achievement: co writing ‘Plastic Off the Sofa’ for Beyoncé’s Grammy winning album ‘Renaissance’. “To this day, it’s probably one of my biggest accomplishments,” she says. “Honestly, I didn’t feel super secure before that. I guess I didn’t feel validated because it had to come from within, not through external factors.”
That realisation eventually shaped the direct confidence running through her new album. “I’ve never tried to make a hit,” she says. “Career-wise, the difference between this album and even the past two [albums] is that I really had one foot in and one foot out of being an artist – maybe not musically, but definitely career-wise. I feel like ‘Beard’ is me in complete control.”
As Syd prepares to celebrate the album, performing remains her main focus, particularly with familiar company waiting ahead. She will reunite with longtime friend Tyler, The Creator at London’s All Points East Festival. “What are the odds that we’d all be somewhere else, separate, but still together and as a family more so than a collective now?” she expresses.
“The Internet is bigger than all of us; it’s super special to me”
As the conversation approaches its end, Syd considers how far she has travelled from Odd Future’s quietly reserved DJ and singer to an established solo artist, producer and Grammy winning songwriter. “In less than two years from now, it’ll be like 20 years since Odd Future, and I kind of blew up,” she says, surprised by how quickly time has moved while remaining grateful for everything she has accomplished. Her creative development has not been completely smooth. During The Internet’s 2018 ‘Hive Mind’ period, she was still struggling with the performance anxiety that had followed her from the group’s beginning, using push ups before shows to calm her nerves.
With one chapter ending, another appears ready to begin. Syd reveals that The Internet have quietly returned to the studio and are close to completing a new project. “Me and Steve [Lacy] releasing our albums on the same day is very much intentional,” she says, before discussing the listeners still searching for reunion clues on the group’s inactive Instagram account. Comments have continued to collect beneath a studio post shared in 2024.
“You could probably find my mom in those comments talking about, ‘They’re not lying. It’s happening,’” she laughs, explaining that the group spent the past year finding recording time whenever Matt Martians returned to Los Angeles. “We’ll spend a week, a week and a half in the studio just vibing. It’s been almost five years of recording, but we’re almost done now. The Internet is bigger than all of us; it’s super special to me. The great thing about it is we all have flexibility and our own solo thing, and that’s dope. It allows things like ‘Beard’ to be all that they can be.”
Since The Internet last released music together, Syd has developed considerably and measures that independent growth through her production credits. “On ‘Fin’ [Syd’s debut], I think I only produced three songs,” she reasons. “For ‘Broken Hearts Club’, I did five. For this new one, it’s 10. I’m doubling up; it’s crazy.”
Syd’s ‘Beard’ is available now through Warner Records.
