Willow speaks candidly about panic attacks and pressure Black women face in pop-rock music

Pop-punk star Willow has spoken candidly about her mental health and the pressure of being a Black woman in the music genre.

Appearing on a BBC podcast hosted by English singer Yungblud, the 20-year-old artist said she had experienced a lot of fear for a long time in the industry.

"I felt extremely unsafe in my music career in the past and that feeling of insecurity or unsafety like I didn't feel protected which went really deep," she said.

Willow, who released her fourth album titled lately I feel EVERYTHING in July, went on to discuss experiencing flashbacks from her earlier music career — Willow was 11 years old when her chart-topping debut single "Whip My Hair" was released — and how memories have resurfaced of her having panic attacks on set as a child.

"I was doing the Jimmy Fallon performance and I had a flashback of being like 10 or nine and having an anxiety attack on set and basically feeling like everyone around me was like 'You’re just a brat.' 'Why aren’t you grateful?'" she says. "They didn’t see it as an anxiety attack, they saw it as a tantrum and now I look back and know it was an anxiety attack."

Willow added that when she's in these situations and experiencing flashbacks, she takes a bit of time, does a meditation to separate herself from the situation.

"And [I] tell myself that, 'You’re not nine, you’re a grown ass woman.' I have to retrain my mind," she said. "My mental health is in a very fragile state, but I think it's in a state where it’s about to grow in a really awesome way."

"Remind yourself that you are a beautiful human being, that just needs to take a moment. Don’t like crash down on yourself so hard," Willow added.

She also spoke about the pressure of being a Black woman in the pop-rock music scene. Recently, Little Mix star Leigh-Anne Pinnock has also spoken out about this in her BBC Three documentary about racism in the music industry, reflecting on her experiences as a Black woman in pop.

"I have seen for so many years, the hate that not just Black women [get] but people of different colours, that aren’t white, that want to come into rock music and into this space," Willow said.

She went on to say that she hopes she can show young Black girls that "despite the fact that people are telling us 'We shouldn’t listen to this music, we shouldn’t dress this way, we shouldn’t sing this way', we do it! And do it to the fullest! And it's kinda the best that it’s ever been done."

BBC Radio 1's The YUNGBLUD Podcast is now streaming on BBC Sounds.