Konyikeh is letting every part of herself shine

The contemporary singer has spent most of her life learning rules, but with her third EP ‘Cinere’, she’s finally allowing herself to break them

W hen Konyikeh emerged with her 2023 debut EP ‘Litany’, the world was introduced to a charming, sonorous voice that felt as timeless as it did unique. Quickly, she carved a niche for herself with a sound that mirrors the intersections of her creative journey – teachings from her early classical training moving freely between the R&B, jazz, rap and choral music she absorbed growing up.

It wasn’t long until that mix scored the London-born, Essex-raised singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist her breakthrough moment – a striking COLORS performance of her pensive ballad ‘Girls Like Us’ in 2023 – and earned her opening slots for Sam Smith , Tems , Jalen Ngonda and more. Now, with a reputation as one of Britain’s most compelling rising talents cemented, she earned a spot on the NME 100 last year and has signed with FAMM, the close-knit independent label founded by Jorja Smith .

“I think she’s been able to show people that you don’t have to stay in one box,” Konyikeh says of Smith, sitting on a comfy couch in the FAMM office – an unassuming red-brick home in the middle of Bethnal Green. The sentiment could easily apply to her own artistry. While listeners often place the 26-year-old within soul or R&B, those labels have never fully captured the breadth of her influences.

Instead, her music reflects a lifetime spent collecting sounds from wildly different places and allowing them to sit alongside one another. For a long time, Konyikeh was “scared to tap into” her classical background, but with her pivotal third EP ‘Cinere’, she pulls together the many worlds she’s spent her life moving between. On the record, which was released last month and is named after the Latin phrase “ex cinere” – or “from the ashes” – she goes “back to basics”, burning down all the rules holding her back, returning to the foundation she once tried to outrun.

K onyikeh was eight years old when she successfully auditioned for Guildhall School of Music & Drama after a teacher at her small Catholic primary school spotted her aptitude for the violin. The next decade was spent immersed in orchestras, chamber choirs, music theory and performance, later joining the National Youth Orchestra and National Youth Choir. Classical music became her first language, but never her only one. Outside rehearsal rooms, she was listening to pop on the radio with her mum, falling in love with musical theatre via Andrew Lloyd Webber productions, opera and ballet before eventually soundtracking her teenage years with Afroswing, J Hus and Southern rap. When she says she “grew up on everything”, she really means it.

Stories were also just as important as songs. Growing up, Konyikeh devoured books, recalling childhood obsessions with Jacqueline Wilson, the Cherub series and Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses . More recently, she’s returned to Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry, admiring its purposeful, emotive punch, which she hopes to channel with her own songwriting for ‘Cinere’: “My songs are relatively short, so I want to make sure every word has an intention behind it.”

Despite spending years immersed in classical music, Konyikeh developed a complicated relationship with her place in that world. “I was known as the violin girl for so long, and I had some resentment towards that,” Konyikeh confesses, revealing that she didn’t play for the FAMM team because she “hated” feeling like she was “showing off”. This self-consciousness followed her into the studio. “I’m used to having sheet music in front of me, and I’m playing what I’m taught, whereas now I have the ability to just play anything that comes into my head. My big fear was, like, ‘What if I make a mistake in the studio, in front of everyone? What’s going to happen?’ It felt so embarrassing.”