Why Alesha Dixon ‘just wants to rave like it’s the 2000s’
From UK garage behemoth to judging on one of the world’s biggest talent shows, Alesha Dixon’s 28 years in the spotlight are a masterclass in career longevity. From discovering the joy of movement on noughties dance floors, to strength training with her mental health in mind and teaching her daughters to show up as themselves, she reveals what healthy means to her.
When did you last feel alive? Perhaps you were lifting a heavy barbell, cackling around the kitchen table of a friend or throwing yourself around the dance floor of a sweaty club to a beat you felt full-body. Alesha Dixon was performing on Britain’s Got Talent, the juggernaut of a reality show on which she’s starred as a judge since 2012 – when she felt the kind of alchemical reaction that reminds you you’re human.
‘It was like my two worlds met and I felt so alive,’ she recalls, of her performance of Ransom, an earworm of a dance-hall-and- reggae track, and Alesha’s first in nine years. ‘I felt at home, surrounded by everybody that I know and love. And then I got to perform, which is my first love, and it was just such a beautiful moment for me.’ It was a moment that stayed with her long after the show’s credits rolled. ‘I just thought, “Oh my God, I’ve missed performing so much.” And I did say to myself after that performance… “Girl, you need to get back on stage more because that’s what makes you feel alive.”’
When I sit down with the 46-year-old singer, songwriter, MC, dancer, TV personality and children’s author in a dimly lit side room of the north London studio, it's on a particularly brutal week. Days earlier, Alesha’s personal life had been all over the papers when it was reported that her relationship with Azuka Ononye – her partner of 14 years and the father of her two children, Azura Sienna, 11, and Anaya Safiya, five – has ended; questions about which are off limits. But to judge from her MC-ing in the make-up chair, breaking out dance moves on the short walk between the dressing room and the camera, and filling the studio with a laugh so infectious it should carry a warning, it seems her spirits are high.
Prioritising performance aside, I’m curious to know what else is on the 2025 vision board for a woman who’s turned the career pivot into an art form. Twenty-four years have passed since the garage anthem Why? was released, reshaping the sound of the UK scene and hard-launching a band that would sell 12m records. After Mis-Teeq split in 2005 came that performance in NERD’s 'She Wants To Move' video; the precision of her pinball hips atop a podium inspiring a million dance-offs (and not just among my own friends in the sticky-floored student bars of Nottingham). A successful solo career followed, with Alesha earning a BRIT nomination for Breathe Slow – a banger of a break-up track that cuts as deep today as it did back then.
But it was landing the judging gig on Britain’s Got Talent – and later, sister shows in the US and Australia – that would introduce Alesha to a whole new audience. And if she was a household name among grown-ups, she’s now a hit with pre-teen girls, too; a desire for her daughters to feel represented in what they were reading led Alesha to write 12 books, the most successful of which – Lightning Girl, a series telling the story of 10-year-old Aurora Beam and her superpowers – has sold 200,000 copies.
Be Sincere
‘I’m a bit of a chameleon,’ she reflects when, ever the raised-on-the-internet-millennial, I enquire after her success formula. ‘You could put me in a room with Max Martin [esteemed songwriter who’s written or co-written 27 number one hits for the likes of Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Pink] and I would happily write a classic pop song, or pair me with a dance or garage artist, and I’ll feel completely at home there, too. I’m quite lucky that I can do a song like 'The Boy Does Nothing' in 2009 or one that resonates with my Jamaican culture [like Ransom],’ she adds. ‘I can do mainstream television, or I can go to a club, get on the mic and feel quite at home there.’ Of course, there’s another word for chameleon: talented.
On the off-chance you’re unfamiliar with what Alesha feeling at home on the mic sounds like, clips doing the rounds on socials are currently racking up views in the millions. But while Alesha isn’t in the business of being self-deprecating, she credits her career’s longevity with a bone-deep understanding of that other wellness buzzword: authenticity. ‘I never had a game plan. The only thing I would ever say to myself is, “Don’t try to be something you’re not.” I try to authentically show up to anything that I’m doing.’
Riffling through Alesha’s career archives, I’m met with countless examples of our cover star bringing her whole self to work. It’s there in her decision to wear a necklace spelling ‘BLM’ in the 2020 series of Britain’s Got Talent in solidarity with the dance group Diversity, whose performance inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement sparked more than 20,000 complaints to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom. And it’s there is the three documentaries she’s made: Look But Don’t Touch (about the digital age), Who’s Your Daddy? (about absent fathers) and Don’t Hit My Mum (children witnessing domestic violence). Alesha credits the ‘come as you are’ approach to her mother, Beverley. ‘My mum was like, “When you wake up in the morning, it’s really important that you love what you do and that you’re happy, because then you’re not going to feel like you’re working.”’
Garage Girls
It was with her mum’s advice ringing in her ears that, in 1997, 18-year-old Alesha started street dance classes at Dance Attic studios in Fulham. It was here she met Sabrina Washington and formed the unsigned group Face2Face with third member, Tina Barrett, who left to join S Club 7. The girls were later joined by Su-Elise Nash and Zena McNally (the latter left the group in 2001) and Mis-Teeq was born.
‘We felt like we won the lottery because we were an unknown band just grafting and still so young,’ she tells me, when I ask about her memories of that time. ‘In our day, you had to put in more graft. Now an artist can do one interview and seed it out to the world. Back then, you’d have to go to every single radio station, you’d have to do every TV show, which is why we never had a life… But some of my favourite times were when we were in and out of clubs and DJs were playing our records. Why? was a massive club hit and we’d be in the middle of the dance floor raving to our own song and no one knew who we were.’
The anonymity wasn’t to last. The band enjoyed wild commercial success – releasing two top 10 albums and seven consecutive top 10 singles. But they were also seen by many in the industry as being instrumental in the first wave of UK garage – the band won a MOBO award for Best Garage Act in 2002. Such success has been pored over in the wake of the UK garage renaissance; dubbed ‘NUKG’, the second wave has seen the likes of Disclosure and AJ Tracey bring the genre back to a mainstream audience.
Does Alesha feel proud of the band’s cultural cachet? ‘I feel like [as] time goes on, the more people respect what we’ve achieved because they realise it’s like lightning in a bottle. We feel very lucky we were a part of something that the UK can say, “This is ours.” The US was untouchable when it came to R’n’B but the UK garage scene is British,’ she says, before dropping the kind of anecdote that makes you wish you were mates with a Dixon. ‘My brother threw a party a few weeks ago, and his friend PSG – a big MC from that time – was there. We ended up going back-to-back on the mic and I was in my element. I love that people are still celebrating the genre.’
Body Grove
For all the joy the garage renaissance is delivering, club culture is at a curious crossroads. Between 2020 and 2024, 480 nightclubs closed in the UK, with falling numbers of punters cited among the reasons. As someone for whom club culture has been so foundational, does Alesha think going out dancing with mates gets overlooked as a health habit?
‘That’s such an interesting question because there’s the social aspect, the joy, the letting go, the community. It’s almost like, when you go out, you’re like one heartbeat.’ What’s her relationship like with clubbing now? ‘If the music’s playing and I love the music, there’s no shutting me up or sitting me down. Even at the age that I am now, I can out-dance and out-party a lot of people. But I don’t need a packed club to have fun, it could be in a friend’s house, it could be at home. Dancing has always played a major part in my joy.’
And yet, the way Alesha sees it, club closures aren’t the only thing diluting the vibe. ‘I always call myself an original raver because I’ve always been somebody who loves going out. That’s how I started MC-ing in the first place; I was in these dances or clubs or raves where that energy was just so infectious… Sometimes I just want to go and rave like it’s 2000.’ She tells me about a nightclub she went to a couple of months ago with some cousins. ‘I knew Matt White, the DJ, and I could feel myself getting closer and closer. I always say to my friends when I go out, if you can’t find me, go to the DJ booth. I’ll be right there. I’m like a magnet towards the microphone and before I know it, I’m on the mic. And then you wake up the next day and it’s all over Instagram and you go, “Oh God.” And it’s fine, but you just want to be in the moment – and then it’s on Instagram Stories.’
And when she isn’t dancing towards the DJ booth? ‘I look at exercise as like dusting off the cobwebs,’ she tells me, of a workout week made up of two to three weight and strength- training sessions, supported by a session each of Pilates and yoga. As well as lifting barbells, strength sessions feature ankle weights, resistance bands and sliders to target every major muscle group – Janet Malinowska, Alesha’s PT of 16 years, tells me – with a focus on building a strong core, improving balance and bolstering agility; the yoga and Pilates sessions support flexibility while keeping cortisol in check. But just showing up to a session is an stress-reliever. ‘I’ve made that connection; if I’m not working out, I can get quite low, don’t feel great about myself, and I can get into a negative mindset. But when I’m consistent with working out, everything’s manageable. It has a ripple effect on all my other choices throughout the day.’
Good Intentions
Such is the power of daily intentional habits that, when I ask our cover star what else she’s working towards in 2025, it isn’t the headline-grabbing goals, but these, which spring to mind: ‘I’m very much about, what’s my intention? What am I trying to achieve? If I’m not getting something positive out of this, then I’m not really interested in it. So I try to make sure I micromanage what I’m feeding myself, because health isn’t just about what you’re eating, it’s about what you’re consuming, what you’re watching, what you’re giving your energy to.’
Right now, energy is being plunged into walking in the woods near her home in Hertfordshire (‘nature has the answer to everything’), building a healthier relationship with social media (‘I’ll literally delete the apps from my phone and have a little break, and I feel great’) and forging the same solid foundations of self-love that her mum instilled in her. ‘You don’t have to look like that person to be beautiful. You don’t have to act like that person or do what that person is doing or have what that person has. What do you have? What are your qualities? Everyone is unique and has something to offer. That’s the dialogue my mum gave to me. So that’s what I’ll be saying to my girls.’ Figuring out who you are, then staying true to that person: a success formula we can all get behind.
The new series of Britain’s Got Talent begins on Saturday 22 February at 7pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
You Might Also Like
