Rising star Alemeda’s story might only just be beginning, but in other ways, it already spans generations. The 25-year-old’s decision to make pop-punk and alt-rock was the result of a youth spent listening to the radio in secret and sneaking glimpses of would-be pop stars on the Disney Channel. But the Ethiopian-Sudanese musician also understands the space she takes up in these genres, which are rarely associated with Black artists, as informed by where she comes from and the struggles her family have been through.
Born Rahema Alameda, she moved from Ethiopia to Phoenix, Arizona, when she was 13 years old with her devout Muslim mother, who banned music in their home, in keeping with her religious beliefs. It wasn’t an easy journey for her mother to make – but the bravery she showed in emigrating to the States gave her daughter the belief that she could not only do the impossible, but succeed. “When she was a kid, my mom would say, ‘I’m gonna go to America.’ She was in a village; she wasn’t even in the city,” Alemeda explains, over a call from her Los Angeles home where she’s made a cosy life among her cats and “little teacups”.
“Coming here and knowing her story and everything she went through has been such a push for me. I couldn’t possibly give up on what I believe in because of all that was done for me to even get here. For me to give up on the crazy, delusional ideas I’m having would be a disservice to me and everyone before me.”
So far, keeping the faith and honouring the sacrifices made by her mother have worked out for Alemeda. She enjoyed viral success with her 2021 drum’n’bass-inflected pop ditty, ‘Gonna Bleach My Eyebrows’, but she had already made some waves three years before that with ‘Ain’t Fast Enough’. That 2000s R&B track, which she released under her birth name, highlighted her quick and witty wordplay and animated delivery – and got the attention of Moosa Tiffith, Top Dawg Entertainment’s co-president. When the conversation seemed to run cold, she persisted and was snapped up by TDE last year, releasing the EP ‘Fk It’ the same day her signing was announced.
Although she’s the first rock-forward artist to sign to the label, which already has a formidable reputation for its work with Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Doechii, Top Dawg’s artist-first approach has made it a perfect fit for Alemeda. “TDE is very much like, ‘We let the artist choose what they wanna do. You come up with the idea and then come to us, and then we’ll help you execute it’,” she explains. “It’s a lot of pressure on me, which is a good thing.” Having some of that creative tension is, she says, preferable to working with “people who are gonna try to mould you into something that you’re not”.
Signing to a major hip-hop and R&B label – especially one so impactful within Black culture – wasn’t something Alemeda predicted when she first came to the US. “I feel like I didn’t really get to experience Black culture,” she explains. “Where I lived in Arizona was not Black at all. I was always the only Black kid in my class. The generation before me in Ethiopia would never call themselves Black. My mom, my whole life, was like, ‘You’re not Black, you’re Ethiopian.’ If I were to do anything that reminded her of Black culture, she’d be against it. But I’m like, ‘You came to a country where Black people literally shaped this country for you to be here.’ But there’s such a negative connotation with immigrant parents with Blackness because of what they were told about Black people.”
Her and her mother’s worldviews shifted as they travelled outside of Arizona, and forged friendships with more people in Black communities, though the music that was prevalent in that culture – mainly rap – remained “forbidden” in her house. “Rap was like, ‘Whoa, you’re putting on the devil’s music’,” she says, mimicking her mom’s voice. Instead, she leaned towards genres, like rock, that were deemed “more acceptable”. “It was played on more commercials. You walk into a mall, you hear rock music being played. Growing up, the Disney Channel was all rock music – that pop-punk music they were putting out,” she says.
Learning about the history of Black Americans as it relates to rock music validated Alemeda’s attraction to it. “I had to educate myself and learn about artists like Elvis… just knowing that these people were influenced to the point of near stealing from Black artists,” she tells us, her voice quickening. Reclaiming a genre that was founded by Black musicians might not be “at the forefront of why” Alemeda makes the music she does, but she says it’s “for sure a reason”.
Although she acknowledges there are more Black alternative artists now, occupying that space can still be lonely. “I definitely doubt myself sometimes,” she admits. “But I could have easily made music that’s already been done before. Choosing to do the music I wanted to do – I feel like it was hard, but my background is what pushes me to keep going.” This year, she’s found a kindred spirit in former The Cover star Rachel Chinouriri, whom Alemeda supported on tour this May and features on her new track ‘Chameleon’. “She talks about it publicly on her social media… how people have boxed her in very early in her career.” Chinouriri, Alemeda says, would talk about how some things in the industry don’t “make any sense”. “Like, ‘You’re just saying that ’cause I’m Black.’ I feel like we related so much on that.”
“Doechii pushed me to do something I’ve always wanted to do, but didn’t have the confidence to do”
Alemeda’s lifelong fandom of rock bands has also deeply influenced what she pours her passion into. “I really loved Dance Gavin Dance,” she shares. “Obviously, Paramore. Arctic Monkeys. I actually really like Coldplay.” When NME mentions that ‘1-800-F**K-YOU’, one of the tracks on her latest EP, sounds a bit like a 2000s garage rock track, she agrees. “That song was inspired by The Strokes for sure.”
The seven tracks that make up her new record, ‘But What The Hell Do I Know’, are both a sonic and lyrical journey through Alemeda’s upbringing – highlighting her penchant for defying genre and the instability of romantic relationships she has witnessed that impacted her view on love and men. The project vibrates with righteous frustration. “I think women are becoming fed up,” she says. “I feel like my childhood and my upbringing made me hate men.”
She points to her mom’s relationship as a catalyst for that attitude. “He treated her so badly, and she was pregnant all by herself,” she shares. “It put an anger in me from a very young age: ‘Why do women put up with this? Why are women so taught to lower their standards?’ My mom is such a blueprint for how I feel about things.” Alemeda’s mother was a child bride who was married to a 30-year-old man when she was just 13. She also went through female genital mutilation, and once her husband died, she was nearly forced to marry his brother. “I’ve always said we are not angry enough,” Alemeda says.
On the EP, some of that anger is also aimed at platonic relationships, like on the Doechii-featuring ‘Beat a Bitch Up’, which is pop-punk perfection: soaring distorted guitars, petulant lyrics and a cheer-along chorus. Doechii is Alemeda’s friend and supporter, but on the collab, also became something of a mentor. “She pushed me to do something I’ve always wanted to do, but didn’t have the confidence to do,” Alemeda says. “There’s a vocal riff that sounds like Hayley Williams of Paramore in ‘All I Wanted’, and that’s the direction she gave me. She sent me a voice note like, ‘OK, you have to do a yell that goes higher and higher and higher.’ It took me three hours to hit that note, but it completed the song for me.”
“Knowing my mother’s story and everything she went through has been such a push for me”
Alemeda sees ‘But What The Hell Do I Know’ as an intentional step in a new direction. When NME asks her how she feels about her 2024 EP ‘Fk It’, she replies candidly: “It was a people pleaser type of thing. I was definitely wanting to prove myself to everybody… especially with ‘Gonna Bleach My Eyebrows’. That was me just trying to prove I could make a viral pop song.
“The difference between ‘Fk It’ and the new project is that I’m being more experimental with production, branching out to different types of sounds,” she continues. “I don’t hate the songs that I made on the first EP, but I do think I was limiting myself. This [EP] is what I would listen to. This is what I grew up listening to. This is the sound that if the younger version of me found this, I’d be like, ‘Oh my god, this is so cool.’”
Although that record has only just been released, Alemeda’s already got her mind set on the future – and her eventual debut full-length album. “I want to do a destination recording. I want to go somewhere else and be out of my comfort zone. I want to feel uncomfortable and write from that perspective,” she shares excitedly. But, introspective and reflective as ever, she’s also looking back on the past and at the younger version of herself who moved to Arizona with a love of music she couldn’t fully express. What advice does she wish she could impart to that less audacious version of herself? “Trust your intuition – really trust it,” she decides. “Don’t second-guess yourself at all.”
Alemeda’s ‘But What The Hell Do I Know’ is out now via Top Dawg Entertainment.
Listen to Alemeda’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify or on Apple Music here.
Words: Erica Campbell
Photography: Kristen Jan Wong
Hair: Danni Bee
Makeup: Kimora Mulan
Styling: Jai Simmons
Styling Assistance: Chadaphea Sethik
Label: Top Dawg Entertainment
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