Alemeda Wants To Keep You Guessing

Alemeda didn’t listen to music like your average pre-teen girl. Growing up in a religious family in Ethiopia, she wasn’t allowed to play it at home. “Mom was very anti-music, but as I got older, you couldn't avoid it,” the 25-year-old says, after her set at the All Things Go festival in New York.

When she moved to Arizona for school, she figured out her own methods to listen in secret. “I was watching Disney Channel and getting influenced by Camp Rock,” she says. “I was sneaking Camp Rock discs in my library books.” (She’s partial to the song “This Is Me.”)

Eventually, she started posting covers to YouTube, looking to Alessia Cara for inspiration. At age 14, Alemeda got her first big break. “I posted a cover of ‘Here’ by Alessia Cara, and she commented on it, saying I had a soulful voice,” she says. “I was jumping around my bed. Being in Arizona, being Muslim, being East African, I felt like I was under a rock, especially because my mom made it that way. So it felt like this weird portal to be like, ‘I could actually be a part of that? I could be an artist?’”

It wasn’t long before Alemeda became exactly that. In 2019, she started releasing original music, and six years and a few viral hits later, she’s collaborating with artists she’s dreamed of working with. Her new single with Doechii, “Beat A B!tch Up,” arrives on Oct. 10, and a full EP, But What The Hell Do I Know, will follow on Nov. 7. It includes “elements of rock, pop-punk, and pop” stylings, aligning with her love for spanning genres, and features a duet with Rachel Chinouriri, whom Alemeda opened for on a U.S. tour this spring.

“I've always wanted to [bring together] all the Black women that I love and respect, so I’m excited,” Alemeda says. “Rachel was the best host on tour; she gave me so many tips and set the bar so high. And Doechii is so f*cking confident and knows what the f*ck she's doing. From the moment I met her, she's inspired me.”

Below, Alemeda shares the three artists who shaped her sound.

SZA

Alemeda came across SZA’s 2017 album Control without knowing anything about the artist behind it. “I listened to her project, and then I found out she was a Black woman, and I was like, ‘Wait. Let me listen to it again,’” she says. “I was obsessed. Control has me in a chokehold still to this day.”

It’s not only SZA’s songwriting that Alemeda loves (“she could literally talk about sitting on the toilet and it's gonna sound good”) but also the way the “Kill Bill” singer takes up her rightful space in the industry. “We don't have a lot of Black women of her complexion in that mainstream space right now, and I’m just inspired by her,” Alemeda says. “She's one of the reasons I did music. Seeing her, I'm like, ‘Wait, if she can do it, I can do it.’”

Hayley Williams

Though she was “late to the party” on Paramore, Alemeda became a fan of the pop-punk group after hearing their songs on the radio. “I was in love with everything I heard from them as a kid,” she says. “Her voice is so strong and beautiful, and the rock mixed with that is gorgeous. Also, she's just randomly popping up on other songs. She's over here on ‘Airplanes’ [by B.o.B].”

“Misery Business” became one of Alemeda’s favorite songs as a teenager, and the band’s production piqued her interest in experimenting with that genre. “Even the songwriting, it’s just all so good to me,” she says. “I was like, ‘This is my vibe.’”

Arctic Monkeys

In high school, Alemeda heard the song “Arabella,” which kicked off her “heavy Arctic Monkeys phase” centered around the 2013 album AM. “I love every song on there. There are like a billion streams on each one, and there's a reason,” she says. (She’s not wrong — four songs from the album clock in at over 1 billion Spotify listens.)

She loves the rock group so much that she wrote a song with them in mind. “It's called ‘Not Asking for Much,’ and production-wise, it was completely inspired by them,” she says. These types of new songwriting avenues keep her feeling energized. “I get so bored easily, so I'm like, ‘Let me do a new genre. New genre, new genre,’” she says. “I’m just dipping into everything that feels good for me.”