Laura Mvula's Green Garden: A Love Letter to Kings Heath

In 2013, a young woman from Kings Heath performed a song on The Graham Norton Show that would earn her a Mercury Prize nomination, two MOBO Awards, and comparisons to Nina Simone. The song was called Green Garden, and it was a direct love letter to this neighbourhood.

Laura Mvula grew up in Kings Heath after her family moved from Selly Park. For her as a child, the move was transformative. Where their Selly Park garden had been mostly concrete, the Kings Heath house had trees, grass, and space. She later told the Birmingham Post: "When we moved to our new house, for us kids it was a huge huge big deal to have trees in the back garden. Some of my happiest memories are of endless summer holidays where it seems like we spent most of the time in the garden, making up dance routines or having mammoth waterfights."

Those memories became the foundation of her career. Classically trained at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire — where she graduated with a degree in composition — Mvula spent years working as a supply teacher while writing songs on her laptop in the evenings. She was working as a receptionist when she sent out two demos to the music industry. Producer Steve Brown heard them and became her champion.

Green Garden was the lead single from her debut album Sing to the Moon, released in 2013. The Guardian described her musical style as "gospeldelia" — a new genre coined specifically for Mvula's extraordinary blend of gospel, soul, classical arrangement and electronic texture. The song, an elegy to her Kings Heath childhood, entered the UK Singles Chart and has since surpassed 20 million streams on Spotify. It remains her highest-selling single.

Mvula has gone on to receive two Mercury Prize nominations, won the Ivor Novello Award for her second album, and performed at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. Her 2013 song Green Garden has become something of an anthem for the neighbourhood — a reminder that the gardens and streets of Kings Heath were, for one remarkable musician, the whole world.