Grimes has revealed that she named herself after British grime music. The Canadian electronic musician said that she started calling herself “Grimes” before she even knew what grime music sounded like.
The artist, whose real name is Claire Boucher, decided on the moniker for her solo musical project when she created her first MySpace page. “On myspace ur genre could be grime and u could have 3 genres so i was plural grime, b4 knowing what grime was,” she tweeted on Friday. “i was originally too embarassed [sic] of this story so i told journalists i was named after frank grimes ... [or] someone else named grimes.”
Grime is arguably the most important musical genre of the past 15 years in the UK. But it’s not as widely known in Canada, or at least it wasn’t for twentysomethings in Montreal. “I was very pleased to discover that i actually loved grime music,” Grimes admitted. “Dizzee is one of my all time favorite musicians, discovered him whilst googling ‘grime’.”
It’s true that Grimes has traditionally avoided answering questions about her name. “I don’t know really where it came from,” she claimed in 2010. Then, in 2012, she called its origins “a secret”. “Everyone asks that, probably because I’ve never said where [‘Grimes’ is] from,” she told a Savannah, Georgia newspaper. “But I just don’t say where it’s from. It’s a dissociative word, you know?”
The “Frank Grimes” alluded to above is a character from The Simpsons. A co-worker and enemy of Homer Simpson, this character was the star of “possibly [the] best simpsons ep[isode] [ever],” the singer declared.
Grimes’ new album, her first signing with Jay Z’s Roc Nation management company, is expected in 2015.
