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"  When R&amp;amp;amp;B singer/songwriter Estelle brought her brand of girly hip-hop to the states last summer via her Kanye West collab, &amp;quot;American Boy,&amp;quot; she earned herself a heavy-rotation radio spot--and a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The Brit import chats with ELLE on her potty-mouth, Kanye&amp;#039;s ego, and, ah, love. ELLE: What sort of misconceptions do Americans have about you being a British hip-hop artist? Estelle:  People think, Oh, she&amp;#039;s from London, she shouldn&amp;#039;t swear! They think we should walk around drinking cups of tea with our fingers out. They think I should have a bowler hat. Meanwhile, I&amp;#039;m more like Grace Jones than Audrey Hepburn. And I&amp;#039;m like, Come to my fuckin&amp;#039; shows! Come see how much I swear at my show. And then they get turned off, and it&amp;#039;s like, Well, it&amp;#039;s real life, man. This is how I feel today. And I feel like swearing 10 times more than I did yesterday. ELLE:  Kanye West helped launch your career. What do you think of his outspoken approach toward the industry? E:  Kanye has a healthy ego. I don&amp;#039;t think badly of him for believing the way he believes. At home, it&amp;#039;s hard to be successful unless you&amp;#039;re doing it on the approved system&amp;#039;s terms. Here it&amp;#039;s like, if you&amp;#039;ve done well, you&amp;#039;ve done well. Fuck it, celebrate. [So] why is everyone mad at Kanye for it? Isn&amp;#039;t this the country where you&amp;#039;re supposed to do it? Be happy, toot your own horn, and mow the lawn every week. ELLE:  What was your best performance?  E:  My best performance was at the Grammys. Literally two minutes before walking onstage, I had gum on my shoe, I bumped my head, and this lady was talking at me incessantly, like, Oh, you have gum on your shoe! Oh, you hit your head! Like giving me a play-by-play of everything that was going wrong as it was going wrong. Clive Davis was sitting to my left, and it was just a moment of pure, sheer terror. And then I get up and I was like, Well, shit can&amp;#039;t go wrong now because I think it all went wrong like two minutes [ago]. I think it was one of my most perfect performances. ELLE: You&amp;#039;ve written several songs about relationships gone wrong and admitted it&amp;#039;s all from your own life. Care to comment? E:  Mostly it&amp;#039;s from the succession of crazy men I dated, four different crazy guys in a row\u2014special beings\u2014in the space of four years. I was just like, Come on! Something&amp;#039;s gotta give! And then I started to think, like, is it me? You know, you fall into a pattern and you kind of have to break out of it and stop going for the guy who&amp;#039;s needy, stop going for the guy who needs bringing up, stop going for the guy who&amp;#039;s broke\u2014because that&amp;#039;s the kind of man who&amp;#039;s been around your life the whole time. It was [about] breaking that pattern and seeing where I was going wrong and why I was picking these guys. ELLE: So would you say you&amp;#039;re jaded about love? E:  No, I&amp;#039;m the eternal optimist. There are some great men out there. I think I&amp;#039;ve met one! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/music/interviews/a10090/women-in-music-estelle-326475/?src=global_footer>