Originating from London, has spread like wildfire across social media, invoking sheer obsession from every person her viral electro-dancehall single ‘Go!’ reaches. With a half-shaven head, stilettos, and nasty dutty wine, she’s the diva the industry has long been craving.

Her music is an explosion of electro-pop, dancehall, UK garage, and club-adjacent music, inducing sweat and liberation from anyone willing to submit. She pays homage to her Jamaican roots while advancing the genre through diverse influences and a unique pen. iKeda looks and sounds like none of her peers, and it’s her most magnetic artistic quality.

CLASH got a chance to sit down with the songstress ahead of the release of her sophomore EP ‘Bangs N Braces’ to talk touring with PinkPantheress, her cultural heritage, and finding her sound.

Congratulations on this moment! Gay twitter is going absolutely crazy over you. Are you seeing the way that people are reacting to you?

Yeah, I’ve been seeing a lot of Twitter stuff. I’m really happy about it. I’m happy to finally have people acknowledge me and like my music. But it’s scary as well, because now I’m being perceived.

You deserve it. You don’t sound like anyone else right now, which I believe is the highest compliment you can pay a new artist. It doesn’t seem like you filter anything and are really creating from the soul outward. Is that something you’ve had to battle with, not sticking to the lane people expect of you?

Thank you so much. To be honest, I feel like I’ve gotten quite lucky that I’m allowed to just do my thing. I’m signed to a distribution label now and I’m not even just saying this, they’re genuinely really supportive. They trust my ideas. But nowadays I feel like people don’t really understand the value in music videos, so I’m learning that I have to convince people on things sometimes and say, “Okay, I really want to make this, I want to do this”.

I love that you mentioned the significance of music videos. I’m such an advocate of how important visuals are. It feels very reminiscent of what electro-pop was in like, the 2011 Tumblr era. Is that intentional?

Yeah, it is. It’s interesting because a lot of my references are pulled from the past or things I’ve grown up with, or people I really idolized growing up. But at the same time, I really do try to make something fresh. I pull from multiple genres. I like a certain instrument or a certain synth and add it to my electro-pop influences and change it so it’s fresh. I don’t really like when people are too on the nose with the electro-pop stuff. It can get a bit ironic real quick. I really don’t want to be an ironic artist. I feel like that’s happening a lot recently.

You mentioned pulling from people that you were inspired by. I’d love to know which female artists you feel gave you permission to be so uninhibited.

My main one is Lily Allen. I was really obsessed with Lily Allen. I like that she’s so messy, raw, and unfiltered. Same as Azealia Banks. Obviously she’s very controversial, but I was a really big fan when I was 14.

I also see Fefe Dobson and obviously you’ve drawn so many comparisons to M.I.A. You exemplify what it means to not abide by the confines of what people expect from Black women. How does it feel to be part of that tribe?

It’s amazing. It would have been really inspiring for me as a little girl to have seen that more and to feel part of something like that. It’s such a privilege. It’s already so hard as Black women to get recognised in these sort of genres. I was struggling a lot at the start because I felt like a lot of my peers were white, and these spaces were super white. Especially on the club nights I was doing, it was a bit isolating.

Everyone would be pulling their references from Black artists like Azealia and Santigold, but producing or recreating it as white. So it was very polarising at the start, but now it feels like there’s more and more Black girls taking over like and I love it. I feel like it’s not happened like this for really long time outside of rap or R&B. I feel very privileged to be a part of that transition.

You’re found a particular niche with electro dancehall as well, bringing something that was kind of underground to the masses. Can you speak to platforming your Jamaican culture and watching the world engage with it?

It’s really, really cool. It showed me how it doesn’t matter how niche an influence seems, people just want to be educated and eople want to be convinced of things. I don’t know if malleable is the right word, but people are very eager to learn about things. Dancehall has been such a big part of my upbringing. It was also scary at the same time, though. It’s scary representing your culture, especially with Jamaicans who are perfectionists. It’s hard to live up to that expectation. I want to make Jamaica proud.

Do you think about the experience you want people to have with your music? Do you envision them in sweaty clubs?

I never know. I do like to make music to make people dance, but at the same time, I’ll listen to quite heavy music, or heavy bass music, when I’m just doing normal things as well. So it’s for those type of people as well, waking up and immediately playing on something really crazy. I feel like I’ll always have that thing with my music where I’m just shocked that people want to even play it at a club. Like, my God, this is so weird. But I think I just have that because it’s my own music. 

Let’s talk about ‘Bangs N Braces’. Where did the title come from?

I’ve always had a lot of fun with the titles of my music. I wanted to be a little, is it coy? A little bit cheeky. I was at a stage where I wasn’t really serious about making music, I just wanted to put out songs because I’m a big music fan and had an urge to put something out. ‘Bangs N Braces’ just came to me in my head and I was like, “I’m just gonna put it out and rock with it. The story comes afterwards.” At the time I had a full fringe, but it was also like, bangers and big tracks. And then braces just because I’m obsessed with braces. That was literally my look at the time.

I was telling my friend that every woman needs to have a bang era for their psychological development. Can you talk about the spiritual experience of having a full fringe?

My god, it’s so fucking high maintenance. I did not realise what I was getting myself into. I’m still growing out my fringe. It’s an actual mess. But it was definitely a moment. Your hair is your outfit. You can wear the most basic clothes and if you have a full bang that reaches your lashes, that’s all you need. It felt so empowering.

I want bangs but I don’t want to commit. I might get clip in bangs. 

Do not do it. Get a clip-on fringe. I’m gonna have my hair stylist customise a clip on. It does feel crazy that now I don’t have a fringe as ‘Bangs N Braces’ comes out, but I’ve been working on it for a year. So it’s kind of grown out, but I’m gonna get clip-ins.

You mentioned the transition between making music just for the sake of making music and now taking your artistry seriously. What shifted for you?

I used to be really hard on myself. I still am quite hard on myself. I tend to be a perfectionist. I was working a full-time job, I didn’t really know what I wanted. I was playing things safe for a really long time. And I was like, “Well, if I start doing music, who knows what’s going to happen? Are people even going to care? Is this a thing that I can take to a different place?”

My best friend Babymorocco was showing me love and putting me on. Then after I got fired from my job, I was like, “Okay, I have so much time now. Maybe I just need to invest that into doing music.” After that, I started getting a bit more attention from my music and I felt a bit more confident. I feel like I’m always trying to not be ruled by fear or make fear-based decisions because I’ve done that for a lot of my life. It has been a bit nonstop since then.

When the fear-based voice creeps up, what do you do?

I have to be forgiving to myself. Maybe it’s not gonna go perfectly and it’s okay for something to be a bit rough around the edges. Anytime I have that worry in my head, I’ll just put it out and be impulsive and let go. Usually I’ll see the reward from doing that and it trains me to now just ignore that nagging voice.

Let’s talk about touring with PinkPantheress. I didn’t get the opportunity to see you guys live, but I saw many people say you were one of the best openers they had seen. What was that experience like?

So amazing. It changed my life. That was also a big help for the last little bits of fear that I had about doing music. I was like, “What the hell, am I actually opening up for one of the biggest pop stars right now? I wouldn’t be doing this if I was bad.” It was very affirming for me. It was such an easy experience, almost too easy. I’m very grateful to have my first opening tour be with an artist like her. She’s so open and puts people on and made me feel really at ease. I was very looked after.

The first show I was finding my footing and was really nervous and hadn’t really performed a crazy amount of times before that. The first show was in Scotland and the VIP people came in whilst I was rehearsing and that was the worst. They all obviously ran to the front to try and get to Pink. I know the vibes because I remember going to one of my first ever concerts, I think it was AlunaGeorge, and I remember there was someone else supporting them. I just stood there dead face because I was waiting for Aluna to come. So I get it. Other than that experience, it was literally so fun. I just love performing on stage.

As someone who had really a similar come up in terms of how the internet platformed her, did she impart any advice to you about navigating this next phase of your career?

It was more just words of reassurance to keep going. She hasn’t said any explicit words of advice, it was more just reassuring me as a friend when I’m nervous about stuff. She’d always support me after I come off stage and be like, “That was amazing, I was watching. You have to just believe in yourself.” She was just always so nice after the each show.

I feel like people would be so surprised to find out that you’re timid or ever nervous at all. Your persona as an artist is so bold and the fashion is so brave, it’s fascinating how both can be true.

I think some people probably presume I’m a little cold, but I’m really the biggest empath. I don’t even know if anyone says that anymore. But I really feel things very deeply. I’m a very emotional person. I like to be authentic and it’s exhausting sometimes because you’re also giving away so much of yourself.

Where are your emotions when it comes the EP dropping? 

I’m really excited actually. I can’t wait to see people’s reactions and what people’s faves are. I’ve been sitting on these tracks for a long time. I remember performing little shows when I supported Pink in Brixton last year, and people were pretty obsessed with ‘Pyramids’ and ‘Maps’. Obviously people have gotten to know me through ‘Go!’ and ‘Tiger Tiger’, but those people haven’t heard ‘Maps’, so I’m curious to see which one is the fan favourite and people’s interpretations of everything.

I think it’s too easy to just say that I sound like M.I.A. I’m getting tired of that now. It’s like, guys, M.I.A., got her inspiration from dancehall music, like a lot of it. You guys need to get outside and experience life a little bit more. There are a lot of artists outside of just M.I.A. Obviously, she’s one of my biggest inspirations, but I would say I’m more inspired by actual dancehall artists. It’s just something that people have to learn, you know.

And they’re gonna learn it the more that they experience you. 

Yeah, I think people have a tendency to want to categorise people. I feel like it’s this 2026 thing where people really want someone to be someone’s daughter. It’s interesting because it’s a compliment but it’s also shade because you could never be her. But I’m not trying to be like her. Artists can’t just be artists. 

What are you looking forward to next in your career?

I’ve just finished making a music video for ‘Tiger Tiger’, I’m waiting for the music to come out before making more. I want to see what people want a video for. But also, I’m just really excited about doing live shows. I’ve never done my own show before, I’ve always just supported. I’m just excited to be able to know that I’m looking out to the crowd and everyone is a fan. It’s a different feeling. I want people to know that I want to be more consistent with putting out music. I want to put something out to start next year. I’ve really found my sound through this EP.