How Gabriella Cilmi learned to trust her own songwriting

Whatever happened to Gabriella Cilmi? A quick search of the Australian-Italian pop singer yields this Google consensus. When Cilmi first broke into the music industry almost 20 years ago, she was on the cusp of adolescence. Cilmi was discovered at ten, signed at thirteen, and three years later released her hit song “Sweet About Me” from her 2008 debut album, Lessons to Be Learned. The track propelled her to international stardom, and she went on to release her albums Ten in 2010 and The Sting in 2013. After her third record, she went quiet, choosing to step out of the global spotlight that had rapidly changed her life in just a few years.“It definitely felt like a whirlwind,” Cilmi recalls. “I was given this amazing opportunity. I’d come from the ‘burbs in Australia, and all of a sudden I was travelling to the UK, travelling around the world, writing and making a record. I didn’t really tell anyone at the time because I was always conscious of the fact that this just might not happen. But it was a very adult world, and I think that if my kid were that young and wanted to get involved in the music industry, I would probably say no and wait. It was a bittersweet experience, being thr...