FEATURE: Spotlight: Poppy Ajudha — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Elite London

Poppy Ajudha

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RATHER than spotlight an artist who is brand-new…

out of the traps, I wanted to focus on someone who deserves a lot more attention than she currently get. Poppy Ajudha is one of my favourite artists of the moment, and I loved her track from earlier in the year, Strong Womxn. She has just released Watermelon Man, and that is getting a lot of plays on stations like BBC Radio 6 Music – it is a reinterpretation of the Herbie Hancock song from 1962. I am going to bring in a few interviews as I go along, as it gives us an insight into a wonderful artist. I don’t think Ajudha has conducted many interviews this year, but there are a few from last year that caught my eye. Ajudha has been performing and putting out music for a while now, but I want to go back to 2017 and the run-up to her exceptional debut E.P., FEMME. That was released in 2018, and I will bring in a feature about the E.P. very soon. In 2017, Ajudha spoke with CLASH about her musical evolution and her lyrical inspirations:

“While contending with the usual battles that most teens have to deal with, Poppy also had to come to a decision about following a career in music. “As a teenager, I really decided that’s what I wanted to do and I had to really push for it because, at a young age, no one really believes that’s what you’re really going to be able to do.” Guidance from her mum resulted in the parallel pursuit of a degree, but Poppy’s personal ambitions always lay within music, explaining how “it was always there” but a lack of confidence affected her. “I always wanted to be an artist but I just didn’t think I was good enough for a long time, so it was kind of in and out. I’ve always been writing, it was just that confidence thing, I think, that a lot of people experience.”

More recently, her progression can be emphasized by the way she is attempting to merge all her musical influences in order to present her unique perspective. “I think [my music] is very Soul influenced. When I look at my childhood and the music I listened to as a child that is one thing that has always come through, with the Jazz influence coming through the chords I write. So, it is that kind of vibe, but I used to want to emulate what I’d grown up with and bring that back, but then I realised that wasn’t actually what I wanted and I love a whole load of really modern, electronic music and so my EP is about melting those ideas together.”

Themes such as gender, race and politics are all issues Poppy is emotionally connected with and consequently form the nucleus of her debut EP. “I had all those ideas as a young person, I’ve always been quite a strong feminist and had ideas on politics, but I didn’t have any way to put them into action,” she affirms in an impassioned manner. “University really empowered me to talk about that stuff, [it empowered me] to feel like I knew what I was talking about as well. It completely changed the way I write. The majority of the songs I write are now based on politics, gender or race because I feel like those are the things that are really important to me. It feels like what I should be doing right now.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Elliot Wilcox for Wonderland.

“I want [my lyrics] to provoke thought, I want people to feel unsure and look [the meaning of my lyrics] up. It’s important for everything not to be on paper so you can just read it and take it in. You have to be a critical thinker and with music that does that, it teaches you to be a critical thinker”.

The FEMME E.P. is a wonderful introduction, and I have sort of become aware of it in hindsight. I wonder whether there are plans this or next year for an album from Ajudha, as she is one of the most original and stunning artists around - and she proved how strong she was with that debut E.P. You can buy it here, and I suggest you so. I think Poppy Ajudha has got even better and more amazing since 2018, and there are few artists who made a bigger impact than she did in 2018. I want to bring in the entirety of CLASH’s feature of Ajudha’s FEMME, as got some insight into the tracks from Ajudha herself:

“The London newcomer is steeped in jazz improvisation, working with some of the best musicians in the capital.

Paired to this, however, is a songwriting ability that seems to blossom with each passing day, matching personal themes to a universal approach.

New EP ‘FEMME’ is out now, and it’s a beautifully multi-faceted document, one that plays with racial and gender identity in a completely accessible way.

“I want women to feel empowered,” she said recently, “I want people of colour to feel their voices are heard or experiences shared, I hope that my music will help people to accept themselves. Recording this EP was such a learning curve for me. It was super difficult at times and really pushed me to my best.”

Opening track ‘She Is The Sun’ utilises the concept of “radical patience” while looking at “endurance as a key element in the feminist project”.

“I wrote this at a point when I was feeling really fucking angry and tired,” she explains/ “I was at uni doing a course on gender at the time and reading on feminism, womanism, queer studies etc. is sobering to say the least. It filled me with a weighted feeling that I needed to process.”

“This time being in the studio was a lot easier because I knew exactly what I wanted and I then developed the track with Ben Hayes and INBLOOM. Getting the choruses perfect were particularly hard and INBLOOM and I spent days in the studio trying to find the perfect melodies, after many consecutive days and nights in ‘The Death Room’ (affectionate studio rename!) we finally got there. I trust him best with my vocals as this is who I have recorded the vocals of every track I’ve ever released with.”

‘Tepid Soul’ is an attack on colourism, and manner in which women of colour are treated by western society. Poppy explains: “As people continually project their cultural fantasies of where I could be from onto me, the last line “am I the right shade for you” critiques colourism and the fetishism and exoticism that exists around mixed race women’s bodies and how this in turns puts women of different shades against each other.”

The magical ‘Spilling Into You’ features Kojey Radical and “came about through experience and realisation” while closer ‘Where Did I Go?’ dwells on the beauty music can offer.

She reveals: “The beauty of a song often reflects the reality of its meaning, and as a musician when it feels deep you often know when you’re in deep and sometimes writing a song makes me face that feeling.”

We’re hopelessly infatuated with this EP, and we’re sure you will to – there’s simply so manner layers to explore, delivered in such a soulful, emotive manner”.

Not only is Ajudha fascinating in musical terms, but she has talked about toxic masculinity and race. In an interview I will bring in soon, we learn more about her early life; Ajudha is very open when it comes to topics like sex, race, and equality. I realise I am sourcing from a lot of sites, but there are some essential interviews out there that help in painting a complete picture. Here is a great news feature from NME of 2019, who reacted to an interview the songwriter gave to Channel 4 News:

“The South London singer, who featured on NME’s ‘100 Essential New Artists’ for 2019, also discussed identity politics and opened up about both her cultural and queer identity and the messages about both that she hopes her music will spread.

Ajudha said: “You kind of look different to your white family, you don’t fit in with your black family because you don’t look like them either…People often project these ideas of what they think you are which I think they don’t realise are very conditioned ideas that are radicalised and sexualised.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Waters

“I felt like the term bi-sexual when I was young, it was charged in a certain way whereby women could kind of experience same gender sexual experiences and it was seen as attractive to other men, but if men were doing the same thing it was seen as unattractive and I felt like that was quite homophobic.

The singer also spoke candidly about toxic masculinity and said she hoped her songs and discussions about these songs at live performances might help to open up the conversation on the topic more.

“I want [the conversation on toxic masculinity] to be inclusive because nothing will ever change if we’re kind of all in our circles talking to each another,” Ajudha explained.

She continued: “I think a lot of men aren’t taught to be reflective about themselves and that’s why I kind of talk about my songs at my shows and stuff because I don’t want them to feel intimidated or excluded by the conversation – I want them to be like, ‘ah this sounds really interesting, does that affect me, do I see any of those concepts in myself.'”

Ajudha also said she thought fans could identify with her honesty and openness on Instagram. “I just try and say how I am feeling so that other people might realise that it’s okay to feel like that or that they are not alone…I want people to realise that we are all human, we all feel things, we all mess up and we all do things wrong. It’s just life”.

Right now, we are living at a time when colour and equality are sharply in focus. Not only is there inequality and sexism in music but, because of continued racism and assaults against those of colour, the conversation is not going away. Those in the music industry have been speaking loudly and proudly. Poppy Ajudha’s lyrics touch on huge issues like race and sexuality, but they are also personal in a way that connects with so many people who identify with her. I have listened to a lot of Ajudha’s music, and I have learnt a lot and reflected strongly. I was reading an interview from The Standard from last year, and the nature and importance of her lyrics was discussed:

“Fans tell her they find solace in her lyrics. Laddish young men (“who are not taught to be self reflective”) say she’s got them thinking about their relationships. Young women say she gives them hope. “If I can help even a few people feel more comfortable about themselves,” she says, “it’s therapy for me as well.”

Ajudha wasn’t always so confident. Sometimes, she wavers. “I’m unstable,” she declares at the start of Strong Woman, naming the feelings accompanying a recent mini-breakdown prompted by the stresses of being an independent artist, of maintaining creative control. For the most part, however, she relies on a sense of self that was transformed while studying for a degree in anthropology and music at SOAS, University of London. The working-class kid who “never knew things like anthropology and gender studies existed” discovered the power that comes with critical thought.

“My mum suggested SOAS, and it changed my life,” she offers. “I learned that things are nuanced, that right and wrong is a matter of perspective. I found a safe space to explore feminism and queer politics and who I could be.”

Her songwriting changed as a result. 2017’s Tepid Soul, a song-poem about mixed-race identity, references the hypersexualisation of light-skinned people of colour (“Am I the right shade for you?”), along with colourism in the black community: “I know it benefits me being a lighter skin colour,” she says, “but how fair is it? I want to talk about it.” Last year’s Spilling Into You, which features rapper Kojey Radical, looks at love in all its guises while giving the finger to objectification, exoticisation and toxic masculinity (an accompanying video by director Ali Kurr features Ajudha alongside female creatives including jewellery designer Suhaiyla Shakuwra and writer and model Hélène Kleih).

As much as I love where Ajudha is now, I am fascinated to learn where she came from in a musical sense, and what her early life was like. I think upbringing and those early experiences not only enforced how a musician writes and what styles they incorporate, but those musical memories can enforce their personality and moral stance. In the interview from The Standard, we learn about Ajudha’s earliest years:

She was always surrounded by music: the rare groove, jazz and Motown records that her mother played in their council house, and the roots reggae and rocksteady pulsing from the Deptford nightclub owned by her father. “I’d stay at my dad’s when I was five or six and wake up because the bed was shaking with the bass. Then I’d run downstairs crying and someone would always scoop me up, hold me above their head and Dad would come and get me.”

At school she wrote poetry, and songs about love that she was yet to experience. She’d walk down the street singing with friends, who told her she could be as big as Adele; encouraged, she put on her first gig aged 16 in a pub in New Cross: “My mum was on the door.” She applied to the Brit School but bottled out of the audition; then came a slot at Steez, the roving south-east London jam night that served as an entry point for the now booming new jazz underground, birthing the careers of King Krule, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia and more.

“It was a space where we could learn and perform and see what experimentation was,” says Ajudha, who has since collaborated with several of the musicians and producers who’d gather there. “I sat in jeans and a white vest and played to about 10 people. I was this nervous teenager; I knew nothing back then”.

I would urge, as I always do, for people to follow Ajudha and get involved with her music. She has released some fantastic music this year, and I feel next year will be one where she releases a big album and hits new peaks. As a solo artist or collaborative force, she is sensational and so intoxicating! Some artists hit you because of their voice or lyrics, but Poppy Ajudha is amazing in every department and she is definitely someone primed for massive international success. If you have not heard of Poppy Ajudha, then make sure you rectify that. She is an incredible force and she is, without question, one of…