WEDNESDAY 6 PM AUGUST 26, 2026 LONDON
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PINKPANTHERESS: Let me pull up the questions, for fuck’s sake. Oh, god. iKeda, I’m so sorry I’m such a mess.
IKEDA: [Laughs] Don’t worry.
PINKPANTHERESS: Let’s get into it. So obviously, you have this project coming out so soon, which we’re all excited about. When do you think you finally clicked for people?
IKEDA: To be honest, it’s still not glazing. But I do feel like it was after tour.
PINKPANTHERESS: Oh, bro. Gag it.
IKEDA: After night two or something?
PINKPANTHERESS: Yes.
IKEDA: Or maybe a tiny bit before the tour. It really felt like people were recognizing my sound a little bit.
PINKPANTHERESS: Definitely.
IKEDA: And after the tour, people heard snippets of my new music on Twitter. I was so excited to go on tour with you. I look up to you so much and I’m a fan, but I was also hoping that I would connect with people as well. I wanted to harmonize with your vibe.
PINKPANTHERESS: I literally agree. I’m always on Twitter, by the way. I’m on Twitter every five minutes.
IKEDA: [Laughs] Babe.
PINKPANTHERESS: I’m just scrolling, scrolling. I feel like your music videos are being reposted all the time. I chose you and Cece as my openers because the quality of everybody’s music is so good. Nowadays, you have to find people that don’t just make good music, but who make excellent music and all have a really specific sound. Having good music now isn’t enough, because everybody is getting so good at making a good song. Also, I knew that I wanted girls with personality. I want girls that I can pick out of a lineup. So when I hear the voice, I don’t even need to think twice about who it is. One of the craziest things about you is that your voice is exactly how you talk. You are British like me, so I can pick up on a lot of the influences that you have. One of the big ones that people are mentioning now is M.I.A., but before M.I.A. was Ms. Dynamite, who’s a gateway into this whole other genre. And of course you had dancers for your opening set, because one thing about iKeda is she’s going to go full out.
IKEDA: I wanted to do it justice though, because your production levels are so pristine. It’s still got the really fun elements of nostalgia with the set design, your outfits, the choreography, and even the lighting. The first couple times I was properly performing, especially with the amount of people there, I was like, “It can’t just be me going around on the stage. I can’t put on a low-level production.”
PINKPANTHERESS: Totally. Having dancers on stage with me was such a good way to settle in as a performer. I definitely took too long to feel comfortable on stage. I think you did yourself a favor. I go on your Instagram, or I see you on my feed, and I’m in the comment section. I’m like, “Damn. She’s got some real great people commenting, showing support, showing love.” Are you reading those things like, “Oh, I’m gassed,” or do you feel pressure?
IKEDA: It’s quite surreal, but I also feel more pressure from it because I’m just like, “Oh my god. I need to continue being like this.” I’m also one of those people who doesn’t enjoy things for long enough. It’s always, “What’s next?” Sometimes it’s hard to just savor the moment. But it’s cute and affirming because people are actually taking it seriously.
PINKPANTHERESS: 100%.
IKEDA: I’m in that phase where I’m having to take it more seriously, but still have fun and not make it take over my whole life.
PINKPANTHERESS: Music is your whole life though, which is kind of scary.
IKEDA: I think it’s only scary if it stops being natural.
PINKPANTHERESS: Of course.
IKEDA: But that’s something I’m getting more confident about. For a while it was just painting and drawing. When I first started with music, I was like, “I’m going to start because it’s something that I’m drawn to now and I’m having fun.” But I was like, “Maybe I’ll be really successful with music and then I’ll go back to painting and putting on exhibitions.” You know how Bladee did that? He does exhibitions. There’s not many people in music that then do art.
PINKPANTHERESS: I always wanted to be someone that had different fingers in different pies. But the older I get, the more I’m like, “Wow. Music is pretty much the one thing I can really say I can do.”
IKEDA: You produce as well though.
PINKPANTHERESS: Well, there was a point for me where I was like, “I don’t want it to take over.” I got into my head about it like, “I don’t want to not be able to live a normal life, hang out with my friends, and have all of this.” But the older I get, the more music has taken over everything. I mean, you are someone with friends for upwards of 10 years, so you’re going to have a completely fine time with maintaining your life and doing music stuff. The fact that you do all these other things too is going to end up being your greatest strength. I was going to ask you, I know it was Erika [Kamano], that took the cover photo, but did she also edit the photo or did you have some hand in doing that?
IKEDA: Yeah, the cover was basically designed by me and my friend Archie, the Cracker.
PINKPANTHERESS: The Cracker.
IKEDA: With Pretty Little Problem, I did all the drawings.
PINKPANTHERESS: Oh, cute.
IKEDA: Archie was going to help me with that originally, but then I kind of just took over. We started working together and I didn’t really trust he could do it, so I just did it myself. Archie will take my drawings, but then he’ll make it so clean and shiny.
PINKPANTHERESS: Oh, cool. So obviously you’ve put out a few videos at this point for your new—are you calling it an EP or an album?
IKEDA: EP.
PINKPANTHERESS: I love your videos. One thing that’s beautiful about today is that when something blows up on Twitter, people are forced to have a visual with the song that they’re listening to. I think it helps people understand the song better. When you posted the video, did you expect the reaction it got? Did you expect people to be this gagged? When you told me that you were going to Jamaica for the video, I was like, “The fact that she’s spending all this bread, you have to respect it.” When I first started out, I didn’t take videos that seriously.
IKEDA: Videos are your thing now though.
PINKPANTHERESS: They are. But I remember back in the day when I made my first video, I made it just for me. I didn’t even put up my main channel.
IKEDA: I remember that.
PINKPANTHERESS: But in today’s day and age, videos can basically make or break a song, innit? So the fact that you did all of that stuff—going to Jamaica, getting the dancer to come with you, having choreo—that could have been the turning point for a lot of people that made them go, “I’m an iKeda fan.” Was there a lot of pressure for those videos?
IKEDA: With “Go,” there was a lot of pressure.
PINKPANTHERESS: I can see that.
IKEDA: I’m Jamaican, so going there to make the video, there’s pressure because it’s kind of that thing of, “I need to do Jamaica justice.”
PINKPANTHERESS: Of course.
IKEDA: I do tend to have imposter syndrome. I was like, “Maybe people won’t watch it, but I still want to go really hard.” It was the same as when I went on tour with you. I was like, “People might drag the darkness out of me, but I still want to put on a good show.” That’s always a current running through everything I do. But I definitely thought people would gag.
PINKPANTHERESS: I got my fucking life watching that video.
IKEDA: Thank you, babes.
PINKPANTHERESS: I wanted to ask you—obviously we’re both mixed. I’m half Kenyan, you’re half Jamaican. And when it comes to my identity, I’m very open about being Kenyan and speaking Swahili, but it would be a whole different thing if I was to bring in Kenyan music. So to represent not only being a Jamaican woman, but to also put the influences in your music, I’m lowkey realizing how much pressure that must be. Have you had anybody actually talk shit yet?
IKEDA: It’s actually been mostly love, and I’ve been really surprised by it. Now I’m just like, “Okay. I’m just bugging. I’m just being insecure.”
PINKPANTHERESS: Because what can they say about being Jamaican? [Laughs]
IKEDA: It’s just affirming to not cringe anymore because people love it and no one’s looking at me like, “Who do you think you are, bitch?”
PINKPANTHERESS: Right.
IKEDA: It’s authentic to who I am, so that’s all I can do.
PINKPANTHERESS: Definitely. When I came out and I was sampling a lot of drum and bass tracks, people felt quite strongly about how I was respecting the genre. I remember being like, “If I was making trash music, I would understand why you might have something to say, but I’ve done nothing but respect the artists I’m sampling.”
IKEDA: We really need to FaceTime more.
PINKPANTHERESS: No, babe, I know. I am so horrendous at FaceTime. But you’re right, because I do love seeing your face.
IKEDA: I love FaceTime.
PINKPANTHERESS: I hate it, but babe, I’ll do it. I have a few smaller questions. Does your fan base have a name?
IKEDA: I talk in my Discord quite a lot. I was really scared of it at first.
PINKPANTHERESS: It’s scary in there.
IKEDA: It’s gone scary a couple of times, but we were talking about it being the “Gyaldem.”
PINKPANTHERESS: That’s so fire.
IKEDA: I thought that was quite cute. So now it’s just unofficially Gyaldem.
PINKPANTHERESS: I’ve noticed there’s a lot of crossover between our fans. People that are iKeda fans will also be fans of me and vice versa.
IKEDA: That’s so true.
PINKPANTHERESS: I think we need sister fandoms.
IKEDA: Yes! They’re already there.
PINKPANTHERESS: They already talk about it. There’s a fan page called @ikedapantheress.
IKEDA: I saw. I was going to send it to you.
PINKPANTHERESS: I was getting my life from that.
IKEDA: It’s everything I’ve hoped for. There’s so many crossovers with us that harmonize so well. Like the Ms. Dynamite stuff. It’s all in the same world, or worlds that are so close to each other, but it’s very individual.
PINKPANTHERESS: I definitely think forming friendships with other musicians is very easy when you see each other at events, but actually quite hard to maintain when you are both traveling. But I’m in a group chat with female musicians and it’s mostly POCs. Natanya, Flowerovlove, Kehlani. I love seeing us in this alternative space banding together. A lot of people consider me mainstream, but in terms of who I am as a person, I definitely fit in with the alternative crowd. It’s very important that we find our own space in this POC-alternative world. I’m just glad that we have more members coming in.
IKEDA: I really love that. It’s something I knew should have always been a thing, but didn’t predict to actually be a thing—women of color in this space of alternative pop, electro-pop, dance pop. I feel like it is actually a takeover, which is really cool because before I was just doing lots of club nights in London around a lot of underground electro music people, but everyone was white.
PINKPANTHERESS: Yeah. I always felt like the bigger I got, I was being taken under the wing of people that I knew I could relate to on a lot more things. So I will always find an excuse to bring up Kelela at some point.
IKEDA: Thank you so much for doing this, babe.
PINKPANTHERESS: You know you’re my bitch. When they asked me, I said, “This is a no-brainer.”
