Loreen: The Awakening

The first and only female artist to win the Eurovision twice, Loreen returned in March with her third studio album Wildfire and an upcoming tour. Through this introspective album Loreen gives us a spiritual awakening, in which she rises from the ashes. A rebirth where the artist strolls between love and hate, strength and weakness and chaos and freedom. From ‘Where do we go from here’ to ‘Coming close’ and ‘TrueLove’, Wildfire shares 13 masterpieces that allow us to embark on an emotional journey. Thanks to her distinctive identity and her universal language of love, Loreen succeeded in gathering a very diverse fan base. In addition to the thousands of albums sales and racking up billions of streams, the singer has also collaborated with artists such as David Guetta, Sia and Sofiane Pamart. Her inspiration, she draws it from the powerful woman who raised her, her nomadic Berber heritage and all the natural elements that surround us. In anticipation of her upcoming tour, L’Officiel United Kingdom met her for an exclusive interview.

Rita Houfani: When did you discover that your voice is a natural gift? What were your first go-to karaoke songs?

Loreen: I honestly don’t remember a time when sound wasn’t a part of me. Some of my earliest memories, when I was three or four, are of being mesmerised by acoustics. Later during childhood I would seek out bathrooms, churches, under bridges, any space where sound could expand, and I would just sing or chant for hours. Music was never separate from daily life in my family or in my nomadic cultural heritage. People sing together for celebrations, but also in clearing sorrow. There are chants, calls, and responses, rhythms that belong to everyone. So singing never began as performance for me, it was more communal. Although for me it was personal, private, almost like a secret fascination with what sound could do. I was an extremely shy child, not someone who wanted to be on display. I was at one with myself exploring resonance, feeling how sound lived in my body and changed the atmosphere within the room. I never really discovered my voice as a ‘gift’, it simply felt like an extension of who I already was. As for karaoke, I’ve never really had a karaoke song. I was too shy for that. But some of my earliest musical revelations came when I first heard Enya and later Björk. They opened a completely different world for me. Very different artists, but both holding an ancient strength and fragility in the same voice. I could listen for hours. They made me curious about what a human voice could communicate beyond words, about music not as songs, but as textures, spaces, emotional landscapes.

You were raised in Sweden in a Moroccan Berber household. How does this cultural mix inspire you in your career?

Growing up between Sweden and a Moroccan Amazigh (Berber) household has profoundly shaped me, both as a person and as an artist. If there’s one thing my nomadic heritage has given me, it’s a deep respect for sound. Not just as music, but as a universal language. From a very young age I understood, almost instinctively, that sound carries something beyond words. In my culture, sound accompanies every moment of life – celebration, grief, ritual, healing. Certain rhythms invite movement, certain chants bring stillness. Some sounds allow emotion to surface. Only later did I realise how much knowledge about the emotional and even physical impact of sound is carried within that tradition. Today, science is beginning to explore these connections more formally, but for generations this wisdom was lived and felt. That way of listening shapes everything I create. Even though my work exists within contemporary pop, I’m never thinking only about melody or production. I’m thinking about emotional architecture. What does a certain sound open up inside of you? How does a shift in dynamics change the body? How can vulnerability and strength coexist in the same moment? For me, music has never been about entertainment alone. At its deepest, it’s about release. We carry so much - joy, grief, fear, longing - and I believe we instinctively search for ways to move that energy. Just as nature seeks balance, human beings seek emotional renewal. So when I create, my hope isn’t simply that people hear a song, but that something inside them softens or shifts, and that they reconnect with themselves. That philosophy is probably the most profound influence my background has had on my artistry.

You are the first and only female artist to win the Eurovision twice. How does it feel to be such an icon?

Being called an icon is something I receive with deep gratitude, but it’s never been the destination. Different artists are driven by different things. For me, the greatest joy has always been the creative process itself. It’s a very intimate space, almost sacred, where I try to listen to something deeper than myself. Because music is one of the few truly universal languages we have. It allows us to speak beneath words, beneath culture, beneath identity. It speaks directly to something fundamentally human. So, if being called an icon means that my work has helped someone recognise their own strength, their sensitivity, or their potential, then I accept that word with humility and gratitude because that’s become central to my purpose. Not for people to admire me, but for them to reconnect with something within themselves. If my own courage allows someone else to discover theirs, then I’ve accomplished something far more meaningful. Winning Eurovision twice was, of course, an extraordinary honour. But what moved me most wasn’t the achievement itself, but what it seemed to represent. Eurovision is, at heart, a collective community. And in that moment, it felt as though people weren’t simply responding to a song, but to a desire to reconnect: with ourselves, with each other, with nature, to remember that beneath our differences, we belong to something greater. I believe that the source of all life and creation is love. We come from it, and we return to it. Everything else, success, recognition, possessions, can fall away, but love remains. That’s why that collective embrace meant so much to me. It gave me hope that perhaps we’re moving, however slowly, toward greater awareness, authenticity, and connection.

You released your latest album Wildfire on March 27. Can you tell us more about the storytelling behind it?

Wildfire is, in many ways, a reflection of what I believe we are moving towards collectively. At its heart, it represents the return of the feminine energy. And when I speak about the feminine, I don’t mean women exclusively, although women have a natural connection to this, nor do I mean gender. I mean a universal quality of consciousness, one that values intuition as much as intellect, the heart as much as the mind, collaboration over separation and a deeper sense of interconnectedness. I feel that humanity is entering a time where those qualities are becoming not only desirable, but necessary. Whether we are aware of it or not, there is a growing collective desire to make choices from authenticity and compassion, rather than from fear. The central figure throughout the album is almost like a modern-day Joan of Arc. She isn’t a woman in the literal sense; she’s an archetype. She represents a kind of consciousness that has tried to emerge throughout history, often before the world was ready to receive it. Fire, in this story, isn’t about destruction; it’s about transformation. That’s why one of the core ideas of the album is: do not burn to disappear. Burn to become. It’s about choosing growth rather than erasure, to allow challenges to refine you, not diminish you. The armour she wears isn’t there to shut the world out, but to protect her open heart within it. Every song on the album explores a different emotional landscape, because awakening isn’t a single moment, it’s constant movement. Light and darkness aren’t opposites; they’re partners in transformation. Ultimately, Wildfire is an invitation to remember our own potential and who we really are.

You always bring unique visual aesthetics to all your work, from your album covers to your music videos. What is your creative process?

My creative process begins with purpose. Before anything else, I need to understand the narrative. Why does this need to exist? What is it meant to set in motion emotionally? Energetically? If that foundation isn’t clear, nothing really starts. Once that purpose lands, everything else arrives intuitively. Fragments of sound, images, textures, just appear. Almost like a calling. The moment itself is instant, then I spend time assembling what I’ve received into something coherent. By the end, I’m often surprised by how much meaning is there, how it sometimes speaks to parts of my own life before I’ve even fully understood them. There’s a practical side to it, of course. I move from story to sound to visuals, but there’s also a dimension I can only describe as spiritual. At times it feels less like inventing, and more like revealing. Something that was already there waiting to be expressed. My job is simply to stay open and honest enough to receive it, and to trust that the people who are meant to find the work will find it.