If you’ve opened TikTok even for the briefest of moments this year, you’ll likely have heard ‘If We Ever Broke Up’, the funky, attitude-filled alt-pop bop sweeping the app. Its creator,19-year-old Kettering musician Mae Stephens, has been bombarded with messages to release the song in full and, now, the alt-pop hit of 2023 is here.

In Mae Stephens, Gen Z has found a new champion – an artist ready to use her voice to help others and provide the same kind of sanctuary in her music that it gave her while making it. “A lot of kids are probably going through stuff that’s a lot worse than what I went through and it’s not highlighted as much as it should be,” she says. “To watch kids go through that and not have someone to look up to is something I’m really trying to stop. I want to be the champion of the underdogs – Mae’s misfits.”