London-based singer and DJ iKeda might be making all the moves of a pop star, but describe her as one, and she’ll baulk at the term. “These days, it’s just too easy to call someone a pop star,” she says, sitting down with NME in a sunny Hackney pub garden. On the verge of releasing her latest EP ‘Bangs N Braces’, she’s adamant that the term carries real weight. “You really need to earn your stripes to have that label. Someone like PinkPantheress or Addison Rae, they’re building a whole image and world – those are true pop stars.”
While the 29-year-old artist might still be working her way up to the levels of those stars, she’s moving in the right direction. She’s been dropping tracks that ride on an infectious blend of UK funky, electroclash and dancehall since 2024, and has become a mainstay on London’s underground electropop lineups. Earlier this year, she scored a highly sought-after invite – to support PinkPantheress on her acclaimed ‘Fancy That’ tour, a booking she says was “almost like a dream”.
“I just couldn’t believe I was playing venues that size at this point in my career,” she says, but she took any early nerves and channelled them into “super healing positive energy”, determined to push her craft to its highest potential. “I told myself that I was asked to do this for a reason, that I need to take the audience reception as actual constructive criticism and not crash out. It was too amazing an opportunity not to go one hundred per cent full throttle.”
Sipping from her tequila soda, iKeda describes sonic influences ranging from Santigold to SOPHIE. Her most central source of inspiration, however, comes from a close-knit constellation of friends and collaborators. It was fellow club-circuit denizen Babymorocco who first persuaded iKeda to begin songwriting in 2024 with her first single ‘Luv Drunk’: “It was such a far-away concept, going into the studio and writing, but he started doing it, and I saw how quickly he got good.”
Growing up between the “concrete jungle” of Tottenham and a houseboat in pastoral Cambridge, iKeda has always had a knack for storytelling. She experimented with writing short fiction as a teenager before going on to pursue visual art at Central Saint Martins. “It’s so powerful when you can take something into your own hands and write these things which you wish could happen in real life,” she says, explaining the heavy importance of imagery in her work. “I love just being in a world when I’m listening to music.”
This immersive fantasy world figures heavily on ‘Bangs N Braces’, her upcoming second EP, which departs from the Y2K dance-pop sensibility of her 2024 debut, ‘Pretty Little Problem’. Here, she delves further into her dancehall and funky house influences, producing a kind of manifesto for what she calls the “gyal dem” lifestyle. For iKeda, being a “gyal” transcends gender and sexuality: “It’s all about one goal, moving toward complete liberation. It’s about maximising disruption, taking up space regardless of if someone has a problem with it.”
It’s precisely this disruptive energy which has allowed her to push into new sonic territory. “Jamaicans can be very perfectionistic about their dancehall, so I’ve always been a little bit intimidated,” she prefaces as she describes paying sonic homage to her Windrush roots. “I’ve always wanted to make this kind of music, and I’m finally at the place where I’m confident in exploring that.”
This musical evolution has culminated in a style which iKeda has dubbed “bubblegum riddim” – a mixture of electronic club pop and dancehall. “I feel an obsession with music that’s very effervescent and bubbly – it’s like your head is fizzing.” Yet this sweetness is balanced with a rawness. “A lot of pop music is meant to sound quite tuned,” she explains. “But with bubblegum riddim, there’s an edge. I love how in a lot of ’90s dancehall, the female vocals are a little off-key, almost fighting the beat.”
“I want to put on an actual production. I want to make bodies of work with coherent eras”
This new outlook is presented throughout ‘Bangs N Braces’, the sonic palette of which leaps between the grime-inflected ‘Red Red’ and the bubblegum bass dancehall of ‘Go!’ and ‘Meoww’. Single ‘Tiger Tiger’ epitomises both iKeda’s approach to storytelling and her newfound boldness: “I was going down memory lane with old childhood books, and I saw The Tiger Who Came To Tea. The story morphed into this whole thing, like there’s this secret club and you can only go if you’re a bad girl.” Beyond psychedelic imagery of perception-altering potions and spiralling white rabbits, iKeda emphasises the way the track signals her new outlook on life: “It’s part of my new path of just completely feeling myself.”
Ahead of the EP’s release later this month, that self-assurance has got iKeda feeling free – something that’s translating directly into her songwriting approach. “I just want to make feel-good music because that’s how I’m feeling right now,” she shares. But while her music evokes a fun-loving club pop sensibility, simple melodies are serious business for her. “People don’t understand how hard it is to write a catchy hook without it turning into slop,” she explains. A consummate perfectionist, iKeda is dialled into the details, focused on particulars like “the little intros and interludes, which labels don’t care about but that listeners love”.
While she might not accept herself as a pop star yet, the way she talks about her music and what she wants to do with it in the future points to an artist who’s more than fit for the role. “I just want to improve everything. I want to put on an actual production. I want to make bodies of work with coherent eras,” she replies, her relentless creative drive evident when conversation turns to what’s next. “Right now I’m trusting more in my ideas. I’m eternally grateful for all of the good times I’ve had, but I definitely have more to say.”
iKeda’s ‘Bangs N Braces’ EP is out on August 28 via Orbit Artist Group.
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