The most beautiful compliment is when the song begins to exist on its own, beyond my own little story.
There is a moment when a song stops belonging only to the people who made it and begins to find its own audience.
For Belgian artist Ce’Loy, By Your Side appears to be having that moment. The sunlit single has travelled beyond her established audience, with NEWDAWN listeners taking it from #25 into the Top 10.
Behind that breakthrough, however, are twenty years of music, independence and a refusal to fit neatly into a box.
We wanted to meet the artist behind the song.
For somebody discovering your music today, who is Ce’Loy?
Ce’Loy is a Belgian pop artist with twenty years in music behind her and no desire to fit into a box.
I write my songs and compose them with my musical partner Bruno Sanchioni, and I handle everything else myself, right through to the release.
My motto probably sums me up best: pop doesn’t choose, and neither do I.
I like pop to be free and emotional, able to go wherever it wants.
You’re a Belgian artist, yet your music is now finding an audience in the UK. What does it mean to watch a song travel beyond your own borders?
It feels slightly unreal, honestly.
When you create independently, in your own little corner of the world, you don’t necessarily imagine your voice crossing the Channel and reaching people you’ve never met.
To see By Your Side being played in London is proof to me that emotion has neither borders nor a passport. A melody can speak to somebody hundreds of miles away, whatever language they speak.
That moves me enormously. And it makes me want to keep going.
By Your Side has this wonderfully fresh, summery energy. Where did the song begin?
It began with a desire for sunshine.
I wanted to make something that felt like summer. A song that makes you want to be together, roll down the windows and let the kilometres disappear behind you, with a rhythm that evokes travelling and those memories you never quite forget.
But beneath that sunlight are very real words, born from lived experience and genuine emotions. Writing has always been my way of making it through the storms and sharing the things that move me.
The sunny feeling was already there, but I knew something was still missing.
Then I met Luke Mornay. He immediately identified what the song needed and knew exactly how to bring it out. That was the moment the track really found its light.
Music has always been my language. I started speaking late, but I was dancing long before that.
There is something particularly interesting happening with this record: people outside your existing fanbase are voting for it. How does it feel when complete strangers choose your music?
That is probably what touches me the most.
Having support from the people close to me is wonderful, and I owe them a great deal. But when somebody who has no reason to know me takes the time to listen and then vote, I realise that the music itself has done the work, not me.
That is the greatest compliment.
It means the song has begun to exist on its own, beyond my own little personal story.
Was there a particular moment when you realised, “This song is genuinely connecting with people”?
When NEWDAWN described it as ‘one of this summer’s biggest breakthrough records’, that really was the cherry on the cake.
But before that, there were all the messages.
I couldn’t choose just one because every one of them touched me in a different way. It’s the accumulation of those little messages that eventually makes you stop and realise the song has taken on a life of its own.
If somebody had never heard Ce’Loy before, how would you describe your musical world?
I would say it’s a voice you recognise from the first note, sitting over pop music that changes colour with every song.
One day it can be sunny and danceable; the next it can be cinematic, almost like a film score.
A journalist once wrote that my voice had “a touch of James Bond” about it, and I love that description.
The thread connecting everything isn’t a particular style. It’s emotion.
I want you to feel something immediately.
You’ve spent twenty years making music. As an independent artist, what remains the hardest part: writing, producing, or simply being heard?
Without hesitation, being heard.
Writing and creating are the joy of it. That’s the part I love, even when it’s demanding.
But thousands of songs are released every day now, and the real challenge for an independent artist is breaking through that wall of silence — finding a way to exist within all that noise when there isn’t a large team behind you.
That’s why a radio station extending a hand, or one listener deciding to vote for your song, is worth its weight in gold.
Those are the people who help bring that wall down.
What do you hope somebody feels when they listen to one of your songs?
I hope they feel accompanied. Perhaps a little less alone.
I want a feel-good record like By Your Side to give them a shot of sunshine and make them want to move, while something more intimate like Not Unreal might reach them at exactly the right moment.
If one of my songs becomes the soundtrack to a moment in somebody’s life — a drive, a summer, an emotion — then I’ve succeeded.
I want people to take the song with them. I want it to stay.
If somebody discovers Ce’Loy through By Your Side and NEWDAWN, which song should they hear next?
I’d choose My Star.
It’s almost the opposite of By Your Side. Where this record is sunny and light, My Star is cinematic, orchestral and intense.
It’s probably the best way to discover another side of what I do and to understand how much I enjoy reinventing myself from one song to the next and surprising the people who listen.
If By Your Side makes you smile, My Star might give you goosebumps.
And what would you like to say to the listeners who continue to vote for you each week?
Every vote represents somebody taking thirty seconds out of their week to support an artist they sometimes don’t even know personally. That is enormous to me.
This journey from #25 into the Top 10 isn’t mine. It’s ours.
I’m not climbing those steps alone. We’re climbing them together.
So thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
And hold on — we haven’t finished climbing yet.
One last thing. Away from music, what inspires you — and what helps you recharge?
Life inspires me. Simply life. And what helps me recharge? Music, obviously. My family, my friends… and Muay Thai.
What makes By Your Side particularly rewarding to watch is its discovery by listeners who had no previous connection to the artist. They heard a song, they liked it, and they chose to support it.
Perhaps Ce’Loy puts it best herself: “The music itself has done the work.”
Sometimes, that is where the most interesting journeys begin.
