Charlotte Emma Aitchison, popularly known as Charli XCX was born on the 2nd of August 1992, in Cambridge and raised in Start Hill, Essex, into a family of a flight attendant Shameera and entrepreneur and show booker Jon Aitchison. She demonstrated an affinity for music from an early age, being interested in acts such as the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, and began writing songs at the age of 14.
At 14, Charli XCX persuaded her parents to grant her a loan to record her first album, 14, and in early 2008, began posting songs from the album, as well as numerous other demos, on her official Myspace page. This caught the attention of a promoter running numerous illegal warehouse raves and parties in East London, who invited her to perform. She was billed on flyers under the stage name Charli XCX, which was her MSN Messenger display name when she was younger. In late 2008, she dropped her first  unofficial album “14”  which was never commercially released.
At the age of 18, Charli moved to London to study for a fine art degree at UCL's Slade School of Fine Art but dropped out in her second year, and signed to Asylum Records in 2010.
Then, she he began working with Swedish producer Patrik Berger. He sent her two beats, and she quickly wrote songs for each, one of which became "I Love It" and the other of which became "You're the One”, but in 2012, Swedish duo Icona Pop re-recorded the song and released it as a single featuring her vocals. The song became an international hit, hitting number 1 in Charli's home country and climbing to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013.
In early 2014, Charli XCX was featured on Australian rapper Iggy Azalea's single "Fancy”; the track topped the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming both artists' first number-one single on the chart. Charli XCX expanded her portfolio of songwriting for other artists during this period.
On 20 August 2017, the majority of Charli XCX's third studio album was leaked with the remainder of the tracks leaking in the following year. The leak of the album featuring the then-lead single "After the Afterparty" led to the album being cancelled and Charli deciding to remake an entirely new third studio album. Charli XCX has expressed her admiration for the 1990s' pop culture which she prominently used as the inspiration for her music video. Her third and fourth studio albums, Charli (2019) and How I'm Feeling Now (2020), received widespread acclaim. Her fifth studio album, Crash (2022), became her biggest commercial success to date. In 2023, she released the single "Speed Drive" as part of Barbie the Album, the soundtrack of Barbie. In 2024, Charli XCX released her sixth studio album Brat.
Finally, Charli XCX has released six studio albums, four mixtapes, three extended plays, one live album, one soundtrack album, two DJ mixes, 48 singles (including 15 as a featured artist), and 13 promotional singles.