NEILÀ ( Alien spelt backwards) is an Atlanta-based electropop-R&B artist. Growing up in a Caribbean household in Florida NEILÀ draws from R&B, rap, reggae and calypso to create her alternate reality.  A year after releasing her first project ‘Level 1’ NEILÀ returns with her latest EP ‘Sage’ marking a new point in her musical journey.

Here is what she had to say about her project ‘Sage’ OUT NOW

Tell our readers a bit about you

My name is Neilà! Neilà is Alien spelled backwards, and that really influences my visuals as an artist. I consider myself the ‘Alien Princess’. I was born and raised in Parkland Florida. My Mommy is from Barbados and my Papa is from Jamaica. I’m obsessed with scary movies and ice cream!

How did you discover your passion music and how has your upbringing influenced your sound?

I was in love with music from a young age. Being from the Caribbean, my parents were always playing music in the house [a mixture of, reggae, calypso, r&b and rap].

Some artists have multiple creative outlets and your EP artwork is quite striking. Do you have another creative passion you would like to follow in the future?

Thank you so much! I have a great team and we put a lot of thought and meaning behind the cover for ‘Sage’. Yes I love fashion and I’m really into beauty. While I’m I reaching my music goals I am absolutely going to establish myself in fashion and beauty. I have so many ideas for clothing.

You’ve got a new EP called ‘Sage’ out now, how does it compare to its predecessor ‘Level 1’?

You can see immense growth lyrically and melodically, its really cool.  In ‘Level 1’ I was in love. In ‘Sage’ I went through a really rough abusive break up. ‘Sage’ was a release of emotional negative energy that I was carrying from my last relationship. I needed to cleanse my mind and body.

In CSYF you say “I got a London Boy, he wanna give it to me”

Do you like London? We have a thriving music scene at the moment, any artists you you’d like to collaborate with in the future?

I love London’s culture, everyone is so fashionable and beautiful, spiritually as well as physically. I would love to work with Jorja Smith, Ella Mai, my Caribbean gyal Stefflon Don and A2,  I think he’s really dope. I’m also very excited about discovering more London artists and collaborating!

Can you walk our readers through what inspired each track?

Yes of course:

‘CSYF’

‘CSYF’ is an abbreviation for ‘Can’t Stand Your Friends’. This song is about a true story – it’s a long story, but it says what I meant!

‘Nobody Else’

This song was an amazing creative moment for me. I was waiting for the engineer to arrive and I moved the mouse and ended up looping some vocals, so I started singing over the vocal loop.  The engineer came back in and was like “this is dope!” so we sampled my voice and built a beat. I wrote and recorded the full song that night.

‘Cool’

‘Cool’ was made one night when I was really upset after a breakup. That’s where the first two lines of the song came from “why you have to go and act like you need me, you don’t really need me. Why you have to go and say that you love me, you don’t really love me.”

‘Mary’

This is one of my favourites.  I wrote ‘Mary’ for girls. It tells the story of two girls Mary and Lisa. But the twist is, I’m both Mary and Lisa. I feel like a lot of young women can see themselves in them. We all go through many of the same things, we are much more alike then we are different.

‘Sage’

My Ep ‘Sage’ is public love letter.

Anything to say to your UK fans?

I really just want to say, thank you so much to all of you that have been supporting and showing love. I can’t wait to cross the pond and meet you guys! And hopefully make more of you believers.

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