• 2000
• Drum & bass vocalist and songwriter Isabella "Issey" Cross was born in the southeastern English county of Kent to two hairdressers. Her music career was sparked when she received a guitar for her 13th birthday.
• During Issey's teenage years, she honed her musical talents, performing gigs in nearby pubs in Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells under the moniker Issey C.
  
  Issey's first gig was in the pub opposite her father's salon. "I was really nervous and started singing a Taylor Swift song on guitar and went to sing one of the high notes and completely f---ed it up!" she recalled to Notion. "I'll always remember that moment because of how embarrassed I was. Me and my sister still laugh about it to this day!"
• When she finished her GCSEs, Cross moved to London to attend music college. After completing college, she met Adam Midgely, who became her manager and signed her his Cult Behaviour label. He suggested that her voice would work well on more R&B-oriented sounds and helped her develop her sound.
  
  "He put me in sessions with different people and different ideas and I really enjoyed it," she recalled. "It just made me come out of my shell a bit more and say what I wanted to say in a song."
• Cross released her debut EP, Mirrors Don't Lie, via Cult Behaviour on March 26, 2021.
• Following successful collaborations with Luude ("Oh My"), Wilkinson ("Used To This") and Nathan Dawe & Bru-C ("Oh Baby"), Issey was established as an in-demand songwriter. She signed to Atlantic in 2023 and released her debut single with the label, "Bittersweet Goodbye," that June.
• Issey Cross is a member of Loud LDN, a collective of female and non-binary musicians based in London and its suburbs. The collective was founded in 2022 by Coupdekat and Maisi; other members include Venbee, Charlotte Plank, and Willow Kayne.

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