One night, desperate for the loo, I stepped on a giant slug and it squelched between my toes in long green tubes. I think that’s the night I became a soprano. After that, I made myself a salt path every night to dispose of them. As young, first time tenants, we had no idea that we could complain – we had to pay the whole term’s rent up front, so we had no leverage at all. God, it was awful, but we loved having our independence.

After my crisis, everyone became more supportive and realised I was vulnerable. I learnt how to cope better by expressing myself when I felt too much pressure instead of pretending I was invincible. For me, it was the beginning of the realisation that I don’t have to sound like Aretha or anyone else. I just have to sound like me.

Back then, a shaven-headed black girl was seen as quite radical and made some people uncomfortable, but I also realised the thing I’d been trying to run away from was what people liked about me the most – that I was uncompromising with my look. If you try to conform, I concluded, you’re taking away your own power, putting your best asset away in a box, so instead I decided to accentuate and love my differences.

So, after all the positive things that I had come to believe about myself, like being open and political about my sexuality, I suddenly found myself having to be guarded about my life. I tried to get round it by convincing myself I was just being economical with the truth, but you get yourself into trouble pretending to be single when you’re not.

In Mama Wild I learnt to step back and take a good harsh look at our songs, building up a mental database of what worked and what didn’t. If something shined I needed to know how and why, and if it blew chunks I needed to know the size and flavour of them. I’d think about the audience, and try to imagine what the girl in the third row was thinking. Being objective is hard, but sometimes you get close enough to weed out and reject your worst ideas, leaving room for better ones to grow. There is no quick way to being good – it’s a long road.

No matter how excited I am about a new song, the best test is to play it in a room to other people and feel their reactions. Unless they’re in the music business, it’s difficult for them to put into words what they think. I read people’s body language, like when they look up and smile and start tapping a toe or, conversely, when they fiddle with an arm-rest or look around the room for help. If they pick up their phone mid-chorus, I know I’ve lost them, it’s over – throw that song away! In the very early days, when people didn’t know my voice, I’d play tracks in the background with friends in the room to see if anyone started nodding along. I did that when I was living in the housing co-op in Brixton, and when I was DJing at parties – a cute, sneaky way to see if I was on track.