After her label dropped her previous group, Isobel Beardshaw changed her aspirations from performing on stage to writing music for others.

The London resident enrolled in college, where she began singing in bands, wrote her own songs that she performed at open mic nights and found a new following. After self-releasing an EP in 2013, Beardshaw, better known as Izzy Bizu, signed with Sony. Her songs grew buzz in the U.K., and she was shortlisted for numerous honors.

The success of the EP was the sign that she was not done singing her own songs. Her career has been snowballing ever since.

“That was the moment when I was, like, ‘that’s it.’ This is what I’m doing,” Bizu said.

The Ethiopian-born Izzy Bizu’s first brush with success came with vocal group SoundGirl, a manufactured trio (though Beardshaw was friends with one of the other singers) that at one point opened for Justin Bieber when he was in his pre-teen years.

“It was a very interesting experience. I’d never written a song before being in this band,” she said. “We were really in the deep end. We were figuring it all out. We got to play really big gigs. … It was really a schooling. It wasn’t necessarily something I wanted to do, but I really did like going on tour, writing songs and having to deal with people.”

It didn’t pan out. While Bizu wasn’t sure what she would do next, she knew she enjoyed writing songs, something she’d already been doing in her spare time on the road with SoundGirl. That’s what pulled her toward college, where she met her one-time boyfriend and current music partner, guitarist Mika Barroux.

“I ended up playing in loads of cool bands, because you have to make bands in college for exams,” she said. “It’s, like, the best exam ever, because you have to write a song and play it, which is so great. The [songwriting] happened really naturally. I discovered it very slowly.”

Bizu grew up listening to the music played at home, which varied from Ella Fitzgerald and James Brown to funk, jazz, Ethiopian music and even opera; her father was a fan of Luciano Pavarotti.

She blended those influences, as well as U.K. retro pop artists like Amy Winehouse and Adele, R&B and electronic pop into her own songs.

Bizu still frequently gets comparisons to Winehouse.

“I think it’s just the way we project a note or something; I think that’s all it is,” the 23-year-old said. “I’m flattered. I really do love her. I did listen to her album nonstop when I was 17. I guess it was bound to happen.”

Writing is one thing, but you need more than talent to make for a successful music career. You need opportunity. In early 2013, Bizu discovered she had a cousin who ran an open mic showcase in London that had been well-attended by the city’s better known singers, some of whom got their start there. Her cousin finally convinced her to sing in a competition. She won the competition and the approval of the judges, which included Emeli Sande.

Later that year she released her aforementioned EP, which included “White Tiger,” a giddy-in-love song that would climb the charts in the U.K. and later be featured on her debut LP, 2016’s A Moment of Madness.

“When I was writing the [songs], I was very much in love,” she said. “I was on a cloud. Everything was so new. I wasn’t even thinking ‘career.’”

Many of the songs deal with emotions like first-time love, wonder, insecurity and Bizu coming out of her shell.

Since then, she’s toured with the likes of Rudimental and Sam Smith, and more recently, she opened for Coldplay on the U.K. band’s U.S. stadium tour. Chris Martin performed on stage at one of her own shows in Miami. While touring, she fell in love with Harlem in New York.

“It’s a lot bigger here than I thought,” she said. “It was a lot of traveling. I felt younger there. The culture is quite different. Everyone is quite loud, actually.”

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