It’s fun proving people wrong. Even with our music, early on when we were even much younger, people sometimes said our music should be more simple, more digestible, but my sister and I, we just pushed through together and we’re like, “Bam. We’re gonna do what we want to do.” — Chloe Bailey
Chloe and Halle Bailey—currently better known as musical duo Chloe x Halle—have always seemed to possess maturity far beyond their years (currently 19 and 18 years old, respectively). In the past several years, the sisters have been blazing a trail for themselves, evolving from YouTube upstarts to primetime television standouts (on Grown-ish) with a critically-acclaimed debut album (The Kids Are Alright) on no less than Beyoncé’s independent label—and they’re doing it on their own terms.
This week, the sisters were featured on the second of seven covers of Teen Vogue’s Music Issue, “Pass the Mic,” dropping gems of wisdom and music alike as they discuss finding their voices, the power in vulnerability and how they hope to inspire other young women in the era of the #MeToo movement.
Chloe
The fact of the matter is women are strong, but we’re vulnerable at the same time. Getting that perspective and allowing us to get out and share our voices, it’s powerful. ... Finding our voices as young women, not only in music but as young women in this world. Finding ourselves and speaking up about what’s right and what’s wrong and talking about our insecurities and learning to love them.
Halle
[The album is] a moment of being vulnerable but at the same time you’re OK with it because you realize that you’re human and others are human, too, At the end of the day, it’s going to help girls like us. We all feel insecurities. We’re all going through the same things.
On Gender Parity & #MeToo
We’re trying to raise awareness for what we can be and prove to others that we don’t need to stay in this cookie-cutter image of what a woman should be. We can be so much more. — Halle
People are actually listening. It’s not that we haven’t been speaking out: We have been for so many years. It’s just people are now paying attention. — Chloe
But perhaps out favorite part of the sisters’ interview was a brief Teen Vogue-produced video in which the two run down “The Playlist of Our Lives.” Who knew two girls barely out of their teens would have tastes that so closely paralleled our own?
Musical influences of the duo include Jill Scott’s “Golden,” Billie Holiday’s “I’m a Fool to Want You” (which I also fell in love with in my teen years—apparently Halle was only five when she discovered it), “Me, Myself & I” by mentor Beyoncé, “Summertime” by Nina Simone, “Too Young” by Nat King Cole, and, in a shameless but well-deserved bit of self-promotion, “Happy Without Me” by—you guessed it—Chloe x Halle.
But while their musical tastes may be advanced, Chloe x Halle remain as adorable as ever, with a lot of life left to live. Can’t wait to hear what their playlists—and music—sound like in 20 years.