“Delivery jobs are not for the weak!” How British singer Coon went from an Amazon driver to a global R&B star | R&B

yourShe was never one to turn her nose up at a job. She worked night shifts at Sainsbury’s and chopped vegetables with her father, the head chef at the Ivy restaurant in London. But her first day as an Amazon delivery driver in 2024 was soul-crushing. Just two years ago, the singer, who is known as K Wilson outside of music, signed a deal and released her first single, Episode Wn. Now, it has been dropped from its brand and has gone bankrupt. Sitting in her truck at the end of a shift, Wilson burst into tears.

“Be nice to your delivery drivers,” the 26-year-old says, shaking her head in dismay. “It’s not for the weak. When I got home, I was broke. I don’t want to make music. What the hell am I going to write about? Delivering packages?” Wilson lasted five months. Then, after failed attempts to interest the industry in her music, she hatched a plan with her manager to sell her next single, Worst Behaviour, directly to fans for £1.99. Five hundred sales would generate about a thousand dollars—enough to keep her afloat temporarily. Within a week, they exceeded their goal tenfold. Within a few months, Wilson was in record label boards, listening to music executives explain her path to stardom.

If the groundbreaking release of “Worst Behavior” catalyzed Wilson’s return to the industry, it was the February 2025 remix with American R&B singer Kehlani, and its accompanying music video in which the pair share a sensual kiss, that made it go viral: 33 million views and counting. (Wilson refuses to discuss her private life, but confirmed in October that they were dating.) Another EP, With All Due Respect, followed, building the kind of hype that led to award nominations and a headlining tour across Europe, North America and Australia.

Being recognized by the Brits, Mobos, BET and Ivor Novellos was great, she says, but it’s nothing compared to selling out concerts. “You can broadcast fake videos and followers and likes, but bums on chairs are different,” she says, sitting in the office of her new label, RCA. “That’s when you know you’re doing it for real.”

Not that fans at her shows spend a lot of time sitting around. “They’re brutal,” she says. Perhaps this is, in large part, because Wilson’s music seems designed to release a rush of pheromones. Her songs are rooted in stately old-school R&B, the sound of her childhood in Walthamstow, London, where her two older sisters introduced her to artists such as Usher, Brandy and Boyz II Men. Wilson takes these artists’ seductive bedroom anthems and raises them to a higher level. On her latest EP, And All Pride Aside, she promises to please her lover with “Til U Cry” and “Til the Room Stinks.” And these are just the song titles.

“I’m never afraid to say things, especially candid things,” she says with a smile. For all the saucy bravado in her music — “I want to strip you down, grab you and turn you around,” she sings on her latest single Touch Myself — Wilson is calm and collected in person. “It’s fun and kind of comedic,” she says of her subject. When she asked her teen hero Ty Dolla $ign to take part in ‘Til the Room Stinks, he immediately responded with a laughing emoji and asked, “How did you think of that?” Fact: A fan came up with this sentence in her comments on TikTok.

Wilson’s approach to lyrics is perhaps all the more surprising because she writes about women within a historically heteronormative style of R&B music—more associated with the slow jams of the 2000s than the alternative-leaning production of other gay artists today. But Wilson doesn’t have much time for labels. “I make music. I don’t come out and say, ‘Guys, I’m a lesbian!'” She doesn’t believe listeners care about her. “Some people don’t know how to understand it on the first listen. But I don’t think that me being a woman writing about women makes a difference.”

Furthermore, listen closely to And All Pride Aside And you’ll find more than just steamy hedonism. The EP ends with Heaven in Your Hands, which was written shortly before Wilson’s grandfather passed away last year. She sings: “My whole family is torn apart / And I’m here in L.A. / I just want to hear you say you’re proud / Of the woman I’ve become.” The song flowed after a week-long bout of writer’s block. “Then, I was driving somewhere at 1 a.m. and it happened again. I cried the whole drive. I needed the release.”

Maybe that’s what Wilson’s music has been about all along. The older track, Lord I Tried, was born from that period in 2024 when nothing went as planned. This year, at a concert in Orlando, Florida, a fan handed out signs to stand during the song. “The world is a lot better with you in it,” they read. Wilson collapsed again, but this time she was in exactly the right place.

“It reminded me why I do this,” she says. “There’s a reason God put me in this position. I want my music to make people feel something — and remember that I’m human. This is my first time experiencing life, like everyone else.”