Remember Robyn?

Five years ago the singersongwriter was barely seventeen, but that didn’t stop her crashing into our collective consciousness with a bang - or rather, with a stream of gorgeously soulful pop songs that belied her tender years. Robyn quickly dominated the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic with huge hits like Show Me Love and Do You Know (What It Takes), and her sparkling, soul-drenched debut album, Robyn Is Here, which effortlessly went platinum across the globe.

Now - older, wiser and back with a vengeance - Robyn returns with her third, stunning album, Don't Stop The Music. Co-written by Robyn, alongside producers including Guy Sigsworth (Bjork, Madonna) and long-time collaborators, GHOST, Robyn delivers a dazzling collection of tunes which will cement her as one of pop's hottest talents.

Hearing the maturity in her songs, it’s hard to believe Robyn is still just 24. But then, with so much success so young, she had to grow up pretty quickly. Being away from home so much was great and tough at the same time, she says, before adding with a giggle, though at least I didn’t have a professional pop-star mom on the phone every five minutes checking I’d taken my vitamins.

No, pushy parenting was never on the agenda for Robyn. Yet, thanks to her bohemian background, the singer has always had a wise beyond her years. And her upbringing has everything to do with it Robyn junior had not just two parents, but a whole commune of them, as her formative years were spent on the road with her mum and dad’s touring theatre company. It was like having a huge, extended family, she reminisces fondly. Until I was older, I just assumed it was all totally normal - and that all parents performed! No wonder she’d already written her first song by the age of eleven.

Being reared on a diet of Shakespeare, Chekov and continent hopping, Robyn had a historical, social and cultural crash course before even hitting the classroom which, she admits, could have been a recipe for a precocious brat. But thankfully Robyn, disarmingly down-to-earth, matter-of-fact and charming to a tee, confesses sweetly that, like any respectable teenager, she rebelled at 15 - deciding she hated all actors.

Besides, she had a secret weapon - a huge, satin-like voice. So, instead she focussed on her biggest passion soul music. But, she explains, that crosses every genre, I grew up listening to everything from Peter Gabriel to Miles Davis to Aretha Franklin, The Police, Cyndi Lauper and even Edith Piaf. To me, soul music isn’t just black music but, simply, music that has a soul - and whatever I sing, I sing it in a soulful way.

And it is her ability to do just that, together with her in-the-blood instinct for touching an audience, that impressed Meja, solo singer and former vocalist with dance act, Legacy of Sound, who first discovered Robyn. The singer was performing at Robyn’s school and, afterwards, invited pupils to show what they could do. It wasn’t just the teenager’s outstanding acapella performance that blew Meja away, but the whole package; Robyn’s warmth and unaffected charm also shone through. A year later, having just turned 16, Robyn’s debut album - its title announcing to the world that Robyn Is Here - was released.

Robyn Is Here exploded internationally. Stateside the singer was embraced by the notoriously hard-to-crack US radio – gathering two Billboard top tens and a platinum album en route. She was also invited to perform on Soul Train - a huge accolade for a previously unknown teenager - and garnered lofty praise wherever she went, including Billboard Magazine’s late editor-in-chief Timothy White claiming, I’m Robyn’s biggest fan.

Following the subsequent success of her second album, My Truth, Robyn took some well-earned time out. Not, of course, that she was idle - Robyn has been busy in her role as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. The singer’s positivity, sunny disposition and dedication to whatever cause she puts her mind to stood her in good stead to represent the charity. And it’s a two-way street One of the most amazing experiences of my life, is how Robyn describes a recent UNICEF trip to a Kenyan shanty town. Out there you see the bad and the good right next to each other and yet you meet so many beautiful and inspiring people. It was extremely humbling.

All of which brings us up to the present. Of Don’t Stop The Music, Robyn says I want people to know that I’m hungry,” she says, that I believe in this album and I’m really proud of it. And so she should be. The result is a full-bodied creation to compete with the likes of everyone from Destiny’s Child, to Pink to Robyn’s own teen-idol, Brandy. Songs ranges from the delicious, up-tempo soul of first single, Keep The Fire Burning, to the spiky, no-messing slink of Psycho, (in which she hisses, Get your tongue out of my mouthit’s more than slightly disturbing). In between, there’s some sexy bump ‘n grind (check Ain’t No Thing), some honeyed, hard-done-by laments (in Big City, she begs, take me out of this citywhere the men are too old and the girls are too pretty) and, finally, the unadulterated, grown-up pop of title-track, Don’t Stop The Music - a joyous celebration of individuality which urges, in inimitable Robyn style, You can do it, baby c’mon.

What are you waiting for?