As she prepares to make 2024 a year to remember, we sat down with Ajudha following an exclusive photoshoot to discuss all the new material fans are soon to be obsessed with. 

You kicked off the year with “My Future.” How have you felt about the reception of it so far?

It’s been really good, actually. I think it’s really nice how universally that concept connects to people. Regardless of where you’re from or what your gender is like, the idea of wanting to be an ambitious person and sometimes feeling like that isn’t received well by the people around you. It’s about that feeling of wanting to chase your dream where you don’t want to be held back and having to negotiate that a lot with your friends and your family. I’ve heard so many people talk about it with me and it’s just really cool to know that what I felt also so many other people resonate with. It’s been good!

Top Mark Fast / Hot pants Molangela / Bracelet Miu Miu via 4Element

In the music video, you perform choreography. When did you first learn to dance? Have you been dancing for many years?

Never! I’ve never had a dance class. I just decided with this project, I  wanted to do choreography and I’m working with an amazing choreographer called Kash Powell. We did one or two rehearsals before the shoot.

Really? It looks like you’ve had many years of experience.

I’m glad that it looks like that! I’m a very ambitious person and if I do something, I wanna do it well. I don’t wanna look like an amateur. I definitely was practicing at home in between, but it’s a very new thing for me, and I love it. 

Do you think you’re going to do more of it now?

Absolutely. I love it as much almost as making music. I really want to get into it more.

You recently performed at Maida Vale for BBC Radio 1’s Future Artists live session. How was that experience?

It was amazing. It was my first time recording “My Future,” “Ready,” and the live. It was a special experience for me and the band to do that for the first time. You learn a lot about the way you perform a song when you play it live. I think those early experiences teach us a lot about what we want to change, what we love about the song, and which song feels the most strong. So yeah, it was super fun.

“Ready” is your most recent single. What inspired it? It feels very positive.

I was a hundred percent love-bombed when I thought I was falling in love. So pseudo-positive [laughs]. I met someone who validated me, listened to me, and supported me. I felt like I’d met someone that I finally felt really safe with and could be honest and open. In the lyrics, I sing, “I don’t wanna play no game. I can only say it straight with you.” I didn’t feel like I had to hold anything back or that I was too much. It just felt very organic. I wrote that song when I was in the middle of feeling like I could put everything into this one person because I really trusted and believed that they were the right person to do it for. It is a beautiful song because it’s very hopeful. It’s very euphoric. Because for me, falling in love almost feels like a drug. I’ve got a bit of an obsessive personality, so I think it can feel very visceral and addictive.

You have another song called “Lean On Me” on the project, which is quite soulful and one of my favourites. Tell me a little more about that song.

That’s a story of friendship. It’s a story of me going through something. I’ve just gone through a breakup and I was still trying to piece myself together afterwards. And my friend was going through a family bereavement and he was obviously in a tough place, but he still kind of found the time to give me advice and show up for me when I needed him as well. I wrote this song on how we show up for people, and how true friendships and true bonds are built, which is in those moments where you can be there for each other.

I also wanted to be that for him as well. So that was the idea of how “Lean On Me” came about. I wrote it in LA and then I brought it to London and finished it with a producer called Grades in London, who I actually met one of my early first sessions when I was 17. We found he had a Polaroid of me with long hair, so it was like a very full-circle moment. It’s a lead song on the project that I’m working on and it’s a special one to me.

“Somebody To Love” is another great song. It sounds quite light-hearted but lyrically, it’s not.

It’s kind of melancholy in the sense that, in my music, there’s a depth and a commentary on something with an uplifting ethos. That’s who I am as a person. I’m very deep. I like to think about things deeply, but I’m very positive. I hate to like look at the world from a perspective that isn’t hopeful and optimistic. “Somebody To Love” is very much that. It’s about childhood, it’s about choices you make as an adult, the people you choose to love, and whether they are deserving of that love or not, and how that reflects how you might see yourself in the first place to get yourself in those situations. And recognizing that we all need and want someone to love, but we have to make intentional choices that serve us well and that aren’t gonna create trauma and help us grow as people. 

You also recently performed a show at Cafe KOKO where you showcased your new material. Was that nerve-wracking?

Yeah! Because everyone’s expecting you to play songs that they know. I’m like, “Here’s a bunch of songs” and no one can sing along to them. But you have to have that start so people can begin to engage in your journey and be welcomed into your world. Those songs will become familiar to people who love the music. I think it was nice to see the reception of the audience and to feel that people could understand where I was coming from and what I was trying to do with this new collection of songs, especially because only one song had been out.

Your last album, THE POWER IN US, took a more political stance. Why was it important for you to make a record with such pivotal messages?

It was what I was thinking about and what I was feeling at that time in my life and what was going on in the world. I think at that point when I wrote THE POWER IN US, there was a lot going on in the world that sparked me to want to create social commentary on things going on in my life. I was going through some big life transitions as well. And this new project is more reflective of that self-awareness, that understanding of who I am, who I wanna be, who I wanna be around. I think albums for any artist reflect different stages in your life.

I read that on the last album, you took off the love songs because they didn’t really fit the story you were trying to tell. Does that mean we will hear more of those on this upcoming project?

This one is all love songs! For me, it’s very vulnerable. In my last lot of music, I didn’t talk so much about my personal life, whereas this next selection of songs is so much more about my heartbreaks, my transitions, trying to break patterns, and creating healthy relationships. It’s also about the meaningful friendships that you make as an adult. When you go through big transitions, sometimes it can feel like you’re starting again I think I had that where I felt like I had to make all these new friends and work out who I was. You’re constantly reevaluating your identity as you grow and have experiences. I think this project speaks to that. It speaks to that journey in self-exploration.

Top HuDieGongZhu / Hot pants Molangela / Boots Aniye Records

Do you think that because you have a degree in Anthropology, which was based on politics and gender, your music will always have those messages in it?

I studied Anthropology, gender, and neoliberalism, and all of those things. I think it’s hard for me to not speak with nuance because I don’t see the world in black and white. I see that there’s so much intricacy to all of our emotions and all of our experiences. I can almost in my personal life be too compassionate because I can see people in their depth so much that I like to take the good and the bad. So yeah, naturally that comes out in the way that I tell stories through music.

You’ve been making music for a while now. I wondered if you ever reflect on your early material?

I don’t tend to, because I get scared that I’ll hate it, but when I do hear old music, I don’t usually hate it. I’m usually like, “Oh, that spoke to that moment” or I think it’s beautiful for this reason or that reason. Maybe I would write it differently if it was now, but I’m not someone who likes to regret it in general. I think every experience happens for a reason and you make what you do based on the tools you have at that time. I think my past music is a product of that naturally. I’m in love with this new music I’m writing because it speaks to my own progression as a human in the world.

When this new project does come out, what do you want listeners to take away from it?

Radical honesty. Just being able to really love yourself in all your imperfections. And I know that sounds cliche, but I think that we can spend a lifetime trying to work that out in a world that doesn’t always support us loving ourselves. This album is me doing the inner work on myself to try and be the best version of myself to work out my relationships and to find healthy people to be around. I hope that the music sparks the people who listen to it to do the same because the world will only be a better place when we do that when we are self-reflective and self-aware. I believe that’s what this album is about.

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