Early life

Laura Chuala Hinrichs^[1] was born in Stade to a German mother and a Cameroonian father,^[2] and spent her childhood traversing Germany due to her mother's profession.^[3] She never met her father; having returned to Cameroon due to family reasons, he was refused reentry upon his return due to maintenance debts.^[4] Growing up, she listened to a range of genres, and took up playing the French horn and trombone for the purposes of playing in orchestras, ensembles and jazz bands; she wrote her first song when she was eight.^[5]

She signed to the German subsidiary of Warner Records when she was fourteen after being spotted at a hip-hop club;^[3] in an interview with Culted, she noted that this happened after she met a man who had a studio, recorded three tracks, and sent them to "a couple of A&Rs" whose email addresses she had found on the internet.^[5] Warner initially wanted to make a jazz singer of her, a decision she later attributed to racism, and two years later, she signed to Universal Music Publishing Group as a songwriter. She later recorded several singles for a solo project; lockdown meant that they were unable to shoot videos for her works, and the delay made her realise she wanted to do more with them.^[4]

Early releases

Her first EP, 2 My Dead Father, was released under the name "Chu", and consisted of five tracks, and lasted seven minutes and fifteen seconds; the EP was her way of processing her father's death, and she told the German magazine Kaput that his death came shortly after he had attempted to contact her when she was "15 or 16 years old" and that his arrogance in demanding that she forgive him on the grounds that the Bible demanded it had made her unwilling to engage.^[4] The EP did not receive playlist support; in an interview with Asbo, she attributed this to its subject matter,^[3] though the German radio station Sputnik attributed it to "Chu" being difficult to search for.^[2]

In June 2021, she released "Wake Up!", her take on workaholism, alongside a video containing flashing images,^[6] and the following month, she released "FMR",^[7] short for "fuck me right";^[2] both songs appeared on her album Me and Chu,^[8] also released in July.^[9] In early 2022, she released the singles "House Nr. 19" and "2High", the first a track about her memories, the second a track about unexplored chemistry between punters in a club.^[10]

Horsegiirl

In 2022, she released "Farm Fantasies" in character as Horsegiirl,^[11] a mixed-species DJ of equine descent^[12] who uses the real name "Stella Stallion" and grew up on "Sunshine Farms";^[13] she told i-D in September 2023 that she went from "making up my own melodies in my head when I was a young foal" to being "discovered by Whitney Horston at a harvest fest" as a teenager.^[14] In December 2022, she released "Pegasus", a futurepop song written about the day she first met her collaborator.^[15] In February 2023, she released "Praise the Farm",^[16] and then the three-track "Farm Fatale", which included "Praise the Farm" and contained songs about her leaving her farm and moving to a city.^[17]

She and MCR-T then released "My Barn My Rules", which Charlie Hedges played during her 30 July 2023 episode of BBC Radio 1's Dance Anthems Ibiza; the episode attracted attention after Arielle Free, who was guesting on the programme, expressed her disapproval of the song on air, prompting Hedges to deactivate her microphone in annoyance, and for which Free was suspended from the station for a week.^[18] The song later appeared on Dazed's "20 best tracks of 2023" list.^[19] Hinrichs released a video for the single in September 2023.^[20] In October 2023, she released "F0rbiidden L0ve$tory", which interpolated Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi",^[21] and then the following December, she released "Wish ✮⋆˙", a Christmas song accompanied by a video.^[22]

Extended plays

Singles