She’s beaten cancer, and now she’s found her sound… A Jersey-born singer-songwriter has recently released her debut single, ‘BAD’.
Following a battle with leukaemia, Isabel Marsh, better known as IZI, unlocked her love of songwriting, later moving to Manchester to pursue a career as a musician.
She made her breakthrough in the music industry this month with the release of her debut single, which played on BBC Introducing earlier this week.
Express caught up with the 25-year-old to discuss her inspiration for the track, the recording and production process, and her goals for the future…
How and when did you discover your love of music and songwriting?
I’ve always loved singing, but decided it was something I really wanted to pursue when I was around 12 and went to my first singing lessons.
Since then, it’s been something I’ve been so sure of and spent my teenage years determined that it was the route I wanted to go down.
I spent most of this time singing covers and only really discovered my love for songwriting after I recovered from cancer.
It became a tool to help me process how I was feeling and it really helped me through understanding my trauma.
Can you tell us a little bit about your schooling experience in Jersey and the various musical and creative groups/clubs you took part in when you were based in Jersey?
I had a few singing teachers during my teenage years in Jersey.
I first went to Leila Begg at Progressive Music, which solidified my huge love for singing and music, and this is where I got most of my grade exams for vocals.
I then went to Jaime Boylan at B Vocal around the age of 15, and she really helped me grow my confidence in a performance setting.
It was here that I started to properly explore performing in front of more people than just my imaginary audience at home, and I started going to regular open mics around Jersey – one of my favourites being at The Princes Bar.
I then moved to Imogen Nicholls at Musical Originals when I went to college, and we focused more on my technique, which made the possibility of a career in music and singing feel achievable.
I owe so much to all three of my singing teachers, as I learnt different skills at each school, and I would not be the singer I am today without all of their input.
I also joined Youth Arts as a teenager, and I really enjoyed my time there, as they offered me a lot of support, which I am still grateful for.
They gave me a space to perform; we put on a musical, did a showcase, and I competed in their Battle of the Bands with my friend Ricky which we managed to win!
This then gave us opportunities to actually gig around the island, performing at events like Weekender and Groove de Lecq.
I, again, owe a lot of who I am as a singer and performer to the opportunities they gave me as a teenager.
Finally, I attended the Performing Arts course at Highlands College, which is where I really honed some of my performance skills and had the best time being able to explore acting, music and dance.
I really excelled in a space that promotes a more creative and practical way of learning.
I look back at my teenage years in Jersey with a lot of love and appreciation.
There were a lot of people who really went out of their way to create spaces for young people interested in music and to them I could not be more grateful.
How have your life events and experiences influenced your songwriting and music style?
I spent my childhood obsessed with pop divas, which really directed what type of music I wanted to be a part of.
Pop is something I always come back to and love so deeply but I also love how music can help you to express emotions and felt really drawn to ballads when performing.
This emotional connection with music is what grounded my first exploration into songwriting.
I was unfortunately diagnosed with leukaemia when I was 20 and subsequently had a stem cell transplant at 21.
I think without this life-changing event, I likely would never have realised my love for songwriting.
I struggled to write before 20, as I didn’t ever really feel connected to the words I was writing.
Allowing myself a space to write just to feel when I was recovering from cancer took away any pressures I felt before.
I was quite sad and angry, and this was really prevalent in the songs I was writing, drawing a lot of knowledge from ballads, having sung them for so long.
It was only when I started to explore songwriting and production as a viable option that I began to connect back with pop in a happy way.
The songs I write now are fun and energetic, although I have realised that there is always a place for ballads, and I do still love to write them, but there is also something so freeing in writing music that just makes me feel good.
Can you tell us a bit about the writing process of your new single, and also the production and distribution for those who are familiar with the overall process.
I met my producer, Joe Jennings, at university in Manchester and we’ve been working together since around February 2025.
We both have the same influences and found we work really well together, and the writing process for BAD was really fun.
Joe already had a scaled-back version of the instrumental written and I top lined over it.
We then came into the studio and refined the ideas; there was originally a different chorus that we liked, but thought there was something missing, so we came back to the drawing board in the session and came up with the chorus you hear in the song now.
The original instrumental Joe sent me didn’t have a bridge, which we also added in the session.
It started with the idea of descending chords, and once we had finalised on these chords I could hear a choir in place of the piano.
This was a really fun process as we used solely mine and Joe’s voices to create it and we had to sing in lots of different ways to emulate the sound of lots of different voices – I have a video on my Instagram (@_onlyizi_) and TikTok (@only_izi) breaking down how we actually did this.
We loved the choir so much that we felt it needed to be in more than just the bridge, hence why you hear it in the intro and outro of the song too.
We distributed the song through DistroKid, so it is available on all major platforms.
This part was all pretty new to me, and honestly was quite daunting, but it ended up being pretty straightforward (bar a few hiccups which delayed things a little), and overall made the process easy to navigate.
For those who haven’t listened to Bad yet, can you describe the meaning behind the track and what people can expect when they hear it?
BAD is a fun, upbeat pop song about knowing someone isn’t a good match for you but wanting them anyway.
If you’re into a good romance book it definitely gives the trope of enemies to lovers!
I wrote it based on a few experiences I’ve had throughout my life, and although they put me through a fair amount of emotional turmoil at the time, I’ve managed to write a song I really love off the back of them, which still has an exciting, fun energy about it.
My hope for BAD was that the lyrics would be something some people can resonate with, but even if they don’t, they can still enjoy it and have a good boogie.
Following your cancer treatment and recovery, can you share a bit about your experience returning to studying and music again, and the side effects that perhaps affected this process?
I really struggled initially following my cancer treatment with where I stood in music.
I still had a huge love for it, and it was still my biggest dream, but my treatment majorly affected my voice.
As part of my stem cell transplant I had to have extensive chemotherapy and radiation over my whole body (total body irradiation), which has left me with a few autoimmune diseases.
I also didn’t sing properly for the majority of my treatment and the combination of this and the side effects of treatment left me with a voice that used to hold a lot of power to a voice with no power or control at all.
I had somewhat accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to ever sing in the same way again and I felt really lost.
Every time I sang, I felt incredibly frustrated that even though I was doing everything right, I didn’t sound the same, and I lost my passion for singing.
It was at this point that I realised that maybe singing wasn’t my path anymore, and I needed to find something else to pursue.
I had about two weeks where I decided I wanted to be an astronomer (I find space really fascinating), but I didn’t have any science qualifications beyond GCSE and knew that deep down I needed to be spending my life in the music industry, even if that wasn’t singing.
At this point, I decided to go down the route of music production and did a year-long online diploma.
Taking the pressure off my voice needing to be “back to normal” allowed my passion to come back, which I never thought possible.
I explored production and songwriting in the course, whilst going back to singing lessons and found that singing was actually still something I wanted to pursue.
I applied for university, initially for production, but at the submission point I saw Spirit Studios in Manchester was offering a new songwriting course, and it just felt right.
I’ve worked really hard to build up all of my skills, and I still have a long way to go, but I finally feel like I sound like me again.
I owe a lot of my vocal rehabilitation to my current vocal coach in Manchester, Rob Lines, and I can confidently say that singing is now, again, one of the major things that brings happiness to my life.
How does it feel now that your debut single is out in the world, and what has the response been like?
It feels so exciting!
The last few years have been really difficult, so to be in a space where I can share a song that I am so proud of feels surreal.
I’ve spent a lot of time doubting myself and my abilities, and I am now finally in a place where I feel happy with who I am as an artist.
I’ve had lots of positive feedback on the song, and it makes me so happy to know that people love it just as much as I do.
What can we expect to see or hear from you in the future? Any plans for music videos, more singles, EPs, albums, etc?
I’m hoping to release another single early next year. I am starting to actually sit down and figure out my concept for this, which I’m already really excited for.
I want to get a bit more creative with photoshoots and possibly a music video for my next song, but I still need to finalise the planning part, so we will see!
I also want to get out gigging more, hopefully in Manchester and Jersey, so this is something I really want to explore in the coming months.
What are your long-term goals with your music career? Any particular festivals or venues that you’d like to play or anything that you’d like to achieve over the next few years and beyond?
Ideally the ultimate dream would be to be an artist in my own right, but I have also discovered that commercial songwriting is something I’d really like to pursue too.
My next goal is to get more of my songs out in the world, be that under my name or another artist’s, and after talks with my tutors at university, we think the next step to achieve this is to look for a manager, which is really exciting!
As for future goals, this is a really rogue one, but I would love to have a career successful enough that I could record one of my songs for The Sims, a computer game.
My sister and I have loved playing it since we were kids, and unapologetically still love playing it now, so I feel hearing one of my songs in “Simlish” would be fulfilling a childhood dream.
For a more mainstream answer, I’d love to have the chance to go on a major tour one day.
The idea that my music could connect and resonate with so many people is one that fills me with hope and joy, and I can’t think of a better goal than being able to share that space with people who can connect to the words I write.
