Musicians often speak vaguely about their childhoods spent in a musical environment. Poppy Ajudha actually grew-up in a club – The Paradise Bar, south-east London. Her dad owned the Deptford club, which meant she was exposed to jazz, roots, and rocksteady since she was five years old. It’s no wonder that music is as easy to her as breathing. Ajudha, who is of Indian, St Lucian, and English descent, has a soft, jazz-inflected vocal tone and a neosoul vibe that’s so chilled, you can overlook the fire in her writing. She’s a fan of Amy Winehouse, Gil Scott-Heron and has described her recurring themes to be love, femininity and “The way women mold themselves around men”. In a rejection to “Normative ideals” of beauty, she cut her long hair last year. You can listen to the singer and her band perform Spilling Into You about how relationships change and the new song Love Falls Down about first love. Both have a fluid beauty that suggests femininity. Ajudha is not about conformity. www.redbull.com
