From contortions to infectious bass lines, shingai shoniwa of noisettes refuses to be restricted in her ascent. By Graeme Green

SHINGAI Shoniwa knows how to arrive. The Noisettes' singer emerges from a crowd lining the Thames, flanked by a four-piece entourage: the band's manager, a record company representative, her make-up artist and her personal stylist.

Not that the 28-year-old needs other people to help her stand out - she doesn't exactly blend in anyway. She's wearing a dazzling pink jacket, a short black designer dress and a chunky pair of futuristic black and gold heels. Her black hair stands tall with a split down the middle, a style familiar from the cover of the band's latest album, Wild Young Hearts. She has naturally striking features (I'm told later that she has a modelling contract, although Shoniwa won't elaborate). During Shoniwa's photo-shoot it's clear she can work a camera the same way she works a microphone.

The singer and bassist has been awake since five this morning for a television appearance but looks immaculate. She is already accustomed to the early starts and long days of work brought on by the massive success of the band's single Don't Upset The Rhythm, which reached number two in the British charts in March, lingering in the Top 10 for five weeks and helping shift 75,000 copies of the album. "Yeah, it's busy-busy at the moment," says Shoniwa. We are sitting in sunlight in the Southbank Centre's open air cafe, next to the London Eye. "It's a bit like the weather, being in a band," she says. "When it rains it pours, but when the sun comes out it's so bright and beautiful. I still feel like this is the beginning."

It is only the beginning. Coming up next is a slew of European festivals (including T in the Park at Balado next Saturday), live dates, television appearances, a rumoured American tour with Lady Gaga and a possible collaboration with US producer and recording artist Pharrell Williams.

Today, though, the London-born singer has other news occupying her mind. "My mum just went into remission from breast cancer," she says. "She's been fighting it for the last year. She's just been given the all-clear. Celebrating? Absolutely, big-style." Shoniwa credits her mother, a social worker originally from Zimbabwe, for the work ethic which has helped make her a star. "She works with people with learning difficulties," says Shoniwa, visibly proud. "She came here in the early 80s and worked her fingers to the bone. I can't imagine sitting on my arse and waiting for things to fall into my lap because I never grew up with that. I grew up with my mum working nights, but us all having the most amazing weekends even if we didn't have much. I love her to pieces."

Shoniwa is one half of twin sisters, but is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to specifics about her family. She refuses to be drawn on the nitty-gritty, but with generalities she's fine. "I lost my dad, who's also from Rhodesia Zimbabwe, when I was 11, so I was brought up in this really supportive family of strong women," she says. "Everyone in my family sings. I don't want to sound big-headed, but because singing was something that was happening every day, I didn't think it would be enough to challenge me. But everyone in my family always said, This is your calling, to sing. Every time you open your mouth, people are so enchanted and you really love making people happy'."

They didn't mind her venturing into the risky entertainment industry, then? "My mum just said, Whatever you do, just do it to the best of your ability, be yourself and excel at it.' Because life's fleeting, you know. Most of the people on my mum's side are musicians anyway. My father's side is very academic."

Shoniwa's father was an economist, who she has also referred to as a "politician" in the past. "He always wanted me to be a lawyer, but when I got to 10 or 11 we narrowed it down to being a diplomat, someone who brings peace and harmony and brings people together, and that's what I'm doing now as a performer."

I quickly learn grand statements like these are characteristic. Shoniwa's confidence can grate at times when it veers to self-importance. She talks of having a mission to bring "music to the people", or claims to be a step above other female singer-songwriters by not singing about relationships ending (despite the fact several of her songs seem to be about break-ups, and other female songwriters are not as limited in their subject matter as she suggests). But she's clearly enthusiastic about what she does.

She has always loved the idea of showbusiness. "I used to have these dreams of travelling and performing. Me and my sisters used to put on little plays in the living room. I was always that little girl who was in La La Land, but also knew exactly what I wanted to do."

Growing up, she sang in Diana Ross tribute bands, jazz bands, blues bands and gospel choirs. She went to circus school, where she trained as a contortionist ("I've always liked being a Bendy-Wendy"); she worked in a burlesque troupe, and paid her way through acting classes.

"I guess it was all working towards something like this," she says, referring to her current pop incarnation. "All the theatrical training I've had has paid off. I don't just feel like a singer - I feel I'm more of an entertainer. And I guess I'm a storyteller as well. I like to be able to pack as much emotion as possible into a great song that loads of people can just really get down to."

Noisettes' story started in 1997 when Shoniwa met the band's guitarist Dan Smith, below left, at the Brit School in London, famous for producing the likes of Leona Lewis, Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash and Adele (a close friend of Shoniwa's). Smith, three years older, was in the music department; Shoniwa was studying theatre. Drummer Jamie Morrison, below right, completed the line-up in 2003 and, after much gigging in London and the US, the band signed with Universal Motown in 2006.

They were flown out to LA in May 2005 to record their guitar-heavy debut album What's The Time Mr Wolf? It sounds like the rock 'n' roll dream, but things went awry. "We were supposed to be there for three weeks but ended up being there for four months," Shoniwa recalls. "We all got homesick. We all came back homeless. We all got dumped unceremoniously by our boyfriends and girlfriends."

Did she feel torn between her relationships at home and pursuing her dream? "Love can't always wait for you and it's hard," she says. "Everyone feels sorry for the one that's left behind, but actually it's just as hard for the people who have to leave. You think, The dream is over.' You try to make it all work, but the reality is you end up not seeing each other. It's heartbreaking."

The band's debut album, released in the UK in 2007 on Vertigo records, performed poorly, although, on the plus side, "it took us around the world two-and-a-half times".

Now signed to Mercury in the UK, Shoniwa says the band is more experienced and focused. In the past, they toured with Muse, Bloc Party and Pete Doherty. On the morning we meet, our interview is sandwiched between appearances on GMTV and Loose Women. It's an indication of how the band's direction and audience has changed. Shoniwa describes the new songs as "crazy" and "eccentric" but they're not nearly as unconventional as she suggests. Gone are the screaming vocals and loud guitars; in their place are chart-friendly pop songs with retro touches of jazz, soul and 60s pop, not a million miles away from Duffy, Amy et al.

Shoniwa seems defensive when people suggest the change of sound was calculated. "Of course it's something new," she says, a bit tetchily. "A lot of bands only know one style of music. Maybe they shot their loads on their first albums. We're still the same people, but we've got more stories, more crazy stuff.

"Every song I make is there for as many people as possible. I'm not a middle class girl trying to slum it and sound poor, because that's not my shit. There's a lot of art school upper-middle class kids who make music to try to sound as indie and as excruciating as possible. There's so much musicality in this band and that's never going to stop pouring out of us."

Without question, Shoniwa is the star of the band, which surely brings added pressure. "I'd definitely say I have more unwritten responsibility," she admits. "When it goes right, everyone's going to be patting you on the back. But when it goes wrong, you'll be the first person to get the blame."

Smith, the guitarist, arrives. He is here, ostensibly, for the band's next TV slot, but is heading to the bar for a lunchtime cider. Shoniwa declines his offer of alcohol. "It's not wine o'clock' yet," she tells him. She's keeping her "work head" on for the day. A glass of water arrives. "See? Very rock 'n' roll," she says. "You have to be good to yourself. The voice is not eternal. There's a beauty in how it changes and grows with time. Maybe a voice is like good wine: it gets better. You grow into your woman voice' and that's a really beautiful thing to discover."

Being the front woman inevitably involves dressing well, but Shoniwa is not comfortable with increasingly being referred to as a style icon. "When I read in magazines about women who say they're style icons, I think ..." She breaks off. "Maybe once you start believing your own hype, there's no more fun to it. The fun is actually waking up and not knowing what the bloody hell you're going to wear in the morning. I guess a lot of style icons' have a stylist with them all the time but I just have a really amazing friend who helps me keep track of everything in my wardrobe. I don't think of the practicalities sometimes. Anything that prohibits your ability to perform and take the music to the people is a problem, so I do have someone who helps me. If it wasn't for them, I'd probably go on-stage wearing a gold-plated hot air balloon."

She was inspired, she says, by the bold individual styles of musicians in her mother's music collection, from Fela Kuti to The Supremes. Later, she got into "really eccentric incredible songwriters, people like Kate Bush, Nina Simone and Jimi Hendrix - people who had a story and had something to say."

Does Shoniwa believe she too has something to say? "Absolutely. A lot of our songs are about experiences that happened to me, and a lot of people haven't heard that in a long time from a female songwriter, maybe not since the late 80s or early 90s. Since then, there's been a culture of females in pop singing you shattered me, now I'm crawling on the kitchen floor ...'"

Shoniwa has big plans. She hopes there will be many interesting collaborations, not just in music, but in film and theatre, if she can just get through the band's relentless schedule. "I'm just taking every day as it comes," she says. "As much as I should be thinking of plugging away, I'm just really happy about what's gone on with my mum."

Success feels pretty good, though, after the time and effort it's taken to get here. "Only now can I say I deserve it, I've really earned it," she says. "I've spent a lot of time singing for my supper, so it would be nice to be able to sit down and eat it before it gets cold."

Wild Young Hearts is out now on Mercury records. Noisettes play T in the Park on Saturday, July 11.