POPPY AJUDHA
Genres: RnB, Pop, Art Song, Folk • United Kingdom

Musicians often talk rather vaguely about spending their childhoods surrounded by music. Poppy Ajudha actually grew up in a nightclub – The Paradise Bar in south-east London, to be precise. The Deptford club was owned by her dad, ensuring she was immersed in jazz, roots and rocksteady from the age of five. No wonder making music sounds as natural to her as breathing. Of English, St Lucian and Indian descent, Ajudha has a soft, jazz-inflected voice and a neo-soul vibe so chilled you could easily overlook the fire in her writing. A fan of Amy Winehouse and Gil Scott-Heron, she’s described her recurring themes as love, femininity, and "The way women mould themselves around men". Last year she shaved her long hair in a rejection of "Normative ideals of beauty". Here you can hear the singer and her band play Spilling Into You, about the way we change in relationships, and new read more...