Charli XCX

Charli's birth name is Charlotte Aitchison. Regarding the 'XCX' part of her stage moniker, XCX was her screen name when she used the MSN chat service, and it stuck.

She began writing songs when she was 14, with her debut offering about going on a date to a fish and chip shop. "I just wanted to do something. The only thing prior to that, that I'd done and really enjoyed, was home chemistry sets. And I'd kind of outgrown them," she told Cosmopolitan. "It was getting to the point of, if you want to do chemistry, you've got to actually do it and be really good at it. And I was like, 'Eh, pass. Maybe I'll just try music.'"

A&R executive Ed Howard spotted Charli in 2008, during an impromptu performance in a pub at three in the morning. "She gets up on a chair in the middle of this crowded bar, wearing a crazy wig," he recalled to Billboard magazine. "Her look was incredible, but mental."