Aliyah’s Interlude fully understands her purpose as a rapper, actress and influencer who is, as she confidently puts it, “slaying in all genres”. “I just hope to influence people to be themselves and not give a fuck about how they’re perceived,” the 22-year-old multi-hyphenate says. “Because honestly, these bitches are gonna hate regardless.”
To that end, she’s named her exuberant debut EP ‘Kuntology 101’ because she conceived it as “an intro class to serving c**t”. She says the key to being a ‘C**nt Bitch’ – the title of the EP’s strutting penultimate track – is “walking into a room and really embodying who you are and not letting anybody or anything affect that”.
Aliyah is speaking via video call from Cape Town, where she’s shooting a “super-Gen Z” movie that she’s sworn to secrecy about, but her upbeat, plain-speaking energy permeates the screen. The C-bomb may be her favourite word on record, but during this interview, she says “honestly” just as often. As someone who built her following on TikTok, she knows the value of projecting authenticity.
This infectious directness also shines through on her debut EP, a 20-minute blast of thumping club cuts (‘Bop It’, ‘Back It Up’) and braggadocious hip-hop (‘Nana’, ‘Kryptonite’). On the ferocious opening track ‘404’, which Aliyah confirms is “autobiographical for sure”, she offers a snappy recap of her rise: “Dropped out of school when I turned 19 / I said ‘fuck that shit, I don’t need a degree’ / I’m-a make a career out of just being me.”
In fairness, the artist born Aliyah Bah was making a living from her own singular vision even before she dropped out. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, she caved into cliché and embraced TikTok as a creative outlet, but immediately carved out her own niche. “I would see people on there making dancing videos and stuff, and I was like, ‘This is cute, but I got something to say,’” she recalls.
At this point, Aliyah’s main method of self-expression was fashion. Her parents, first-gen immigrants from Sierra Leone, launched a clothes recycling business when they moved to Atlanta and instilled its ‘waste not, want not’ values in their daughter. “My parents would hardly ever let me buy clothes [new] from the store, so I was wearing thrift store clothes when that was something people really looked down upon,” Aliyah shares.
To mask her embarrassment, Aliyah began customising her thrift store garments to create eye-catching and unique looks. “From a young age, I learned how to sew and upcycle vintage clothes from the ‘70s and ‘80s,” she says. “People would always ask, ‘How did you get these clothes?’ Because it never looked like stuff that other kids were wearing.”
Though Aliyah was bullied at school for being “out there and alternative”, she intuited that her distinctive dress sense would be a hit on TikTok. “I was like, ‘I’d be doing a disservice to myself if I didn’t at least try to get my style out there,” she says. Touchingly, she confides that the megawatt confidence she projects today grew from a concerted effort to “stop giving a fuck” what her teenage tormentors thought of her. “Once you stop trying to hide the person you really are, that’s when you start to shine like the star you’re supposed to be,” she says.
“I hope to influence people to not give a fuck about how they’re perceived”
Still, Aliyah was surprised by the sheer fervour for her signature style, a maximalist mish-mash of Harajuku street fashion and Y2K-era staples like rhinestone belts, earmuffs, fur boots, garters and bikini tops. “I knew it was taking off when people started calling it ‘Aliyahcore’,” she says. “People think I came up with that [term], but the internet named it for me. Whenever somebody wore an outfit that looked like something I might wear, they’d say: ‘Oh, that’s so Aliyahcore.’ And then I took that and made it a movement in its own right.”
This isn’t hyperbole. By November 2023, the #Aliyahcore hashtag had racked up 400 million views on TikTok while its originator was parlaying the hype into styling assignments for Lizzo, Rico Nasty and Ayra Starr. In September 2023, Aliyah appeared in Doja Cat‘s ‘Agora Hills’ music video and dropped her own debut single, ‘It Girl’, a sassy hip house banger infused with a hint of retribution: “While y’all busy hatin’, I’m flying across the country to be in Vogue.”
Refreshingly, even though she’s promoting her debut EP today, Aliyah makes no attempt to retcon her backstory. “For me, it was always fashion first, and music was an extension of that,” she says. “I literally got into music in the most accidental way possible. Like, I released that song because Aliyahcore was going crazy. But I had no idea the song was gonna go as crazy as it did.”
After going viral on TikTok, ‘It Girl’ cracked the UK singles chart and surpassed 200million Spotify streams – no mean feat for an independent release. Aliyah’s follow-up singles like 2024’s ‘Moodboard’ and 2025’s ‘WTF My Drink @?’ minted a similar mix of zippy beats and zingy lyrics. “I can wear a fucking trash bag and still gag hoes like Em Rata,” she brags on 2024’s ‘Fashion Icon’.
Aliyah’s Interlude credit: Jordyn Simmons
Still, ‘Kuntology 101’ is a step up creatively because it sees Aliyah expand her sonic wardrobe. ‘C**t Bitch’ begins with a palate-cleansing blast of retro horns, while the naggingly catchy ‘Nana’ has a low-slung, ’90s-style beat. “I make super-fast-paced music – fun music – but this is me really rapping and putting in bars,” she says. “I’ve been wanting to release a body of work like this for so long, but now feels like the perfect time. It’s a new year, and I’m feeling generous with my art.”
Now, Aliyah is also teaching herself to produce so she can make her own beats, but she has no intention of forgetting her roots. “I don’t think I ever want to be somebody who’s just a musician, just an influencer or just an actress,” she says. “I really want to do it all. I really think I’m gonna be multifaceted my entire career.”
Aliyah’s Interlude’s ‘Kuntology 101’ is out on January 16.
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