When one looks at Neila's profile, it is undeniable that she is an artist who exudes creativity from top to bottom. The pop of colour throughout her artistic expression and the hyper glam and energy you get from what you see is just one part of her creative identity.
Neila is not just a singer and songwriter who blends R&B and pop. She is a versatile, multidisciplinary artist who serves as a creative director and stylist, among other things. Her versatility keeps her audience intrigued and excited about her next project.
Amidst the vibrant colours, a profound vulnerability resonates when you press play. On her latest EP, SCARS, released earlier this year, Neila delves into themes of loss, love, and a journey of inner transformation she has embarked on throughout the year. This journey of self-discovery is not just Neila's, but a source of inspiration for her audience.
Speaking to Neila, we touch on everything from her creative expression, making music, creative inspiration, her brand new EP, and more.
For people who don't know, how would you introduce yourself,
That's always an interesting question because I'm very multi-faceted; I am first a daughter, a sister, and an auntie. I'm also a singer-songwriter. People would probably put my music into an R&B category, but I do genre-bending; it leans more towards Pop and R&B as a mix. I'm the product of two immigrants. My dad is from Jamaica, and my mom is from Barbados. I'm a multi-faceted artist and singer-songwriter with Caribbean roots.
Being multi-faceted, what would you say have been the roots of your creativity and where that expression began for you?
I've always been super creative. I've also always known that I wanted to pursue a career as a recording artist since I could speak. I've been on this creative journey as a singer, songwriter, visual artist, creative director, stylist, and everything else. So those things trailed after I realized from a very young age that I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be on these big stages and perform for thousands of people I've known. Then, the songwriting, the creative directing, the styling- that stuff- came as an extension of wanting to be a recording artist. My parents are super awesome. People usually think of Caribbean or immigrant parents as, like, very strict, but my parents have been one of the biggest driving forces behind why I've even pursued music. So yeah, my whole life, honestly, and I owe a lot of it to my parents, not shutting down my dreams, not showing down my passions, but honestly, pushing me towards doing it.
Who would you say were some of your musical influences?
I am inspired by, like, a melting pot of artists. I've always loved the Beatles. In middle school, I discovered the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, and I was involved in learning about Michael Jackson. My mom was a huge Michael Jackson fan, so I got into super old Michael Jackson in middle school. Their freedom and expression have always been a big part of what inspired me. And then the visualization of how they express themselves visually as artists, Jimi Hendrix and his look was like a whole thing, you know, I'm saying like to this day, like people still emulate Jimi Hendrix and how he looks. The Beatles ' self-expression was very colourful, very vibrant, very psychedelic. Michael Jackson is one of the best visual artists we will ever have. So, that started in middle school for me. Then, as time passed, people like Pharrell, Missy Elliot, Tyler The Creator, and people like that have always been sources of inspiration, musically and fashion-wise. I love how they are themselves, blending so many different genres. You can't put any of those people into a box. And they're like little creative geniuses, like on their own.
How did you come to establish and discover your sound and the hybrid of music you would make?
It took me a while because I am a songwriter, so naturally, I can write almost anything. I was doing that for a while, just like writing to everything. I started to hone in on that, like the sweet spot for me, in 2021 and 2022, and then the project I dropped that felt the most like me authentically was my project. Bite me. And we worked on that for a few years prior. So it was like finding it there, and then with this newer project, Scar kind of like a blend of that, with me being more emotional, a little bit darker in certain aspects. But, yeah, it took me some time. Many songwriters can write many different things, but not everything is for them.
With your EP Bite Me, which you released last year, and Scars, which came out this year, how do both these projects represent the different sides of your artistry?
Visually, I'm a very colourful person; extra is extra, more is more, and that's my visual aesthetic type. I like the theatrics, like the storytelling, and with my music, with Bite Me and SCARS, I started telling more, taking that visual aspect of me, telling stories, and putting it in the music. I like my beats to hit hard, and I do like 808s, and that's not common in R&B; I like to be cheeky in my lyrics; I have a very pop way of writing, which is a little bit more straightforward and a little bit more play on words. I feel like R&B is very soft sometimes, and I don't always feel that way; I don't feel soft like I do feel like banging on a desk and screaming sometimes. So I think that once I allowed myself to get out of the mind of you're an R&B singer, you have to sing R&B like how everyone sings R&B, I started being more like myself, and that's when my Missy Elliot vibes came in and listening to Pharrell Destiny's Child and it was like, oh, this is fun this feels good. I have a very defiant personality, in the essence of I don't like people telling me what to do. I don't like people trying to control my body and my mind, and everybody should have autonomy over every single part of their life. So that's what my music reflects more now, as I started feeling more confident and not like trying to fit some R&B mould. I just started doing what I liked, what felt good, and what felt more like me. That's where the music and my aesthetic started to match up more.
Speaking of your visual aesthetic, it's a prominent part of your artistry and stands out firmly, even in establishing that aesthetic and building that side of things. Could you elaborate on how you came to create this aesthetic to go with your music? What was the process like and how does it complement your music?
I've always been super attracted to colour, colour extraness, just things that are bold and different. I'm very organized in thinking about things and viewing things, so I made a mood board of what I wanted Neila to look like. Neila is not my birth name; it's alien spelt backwards, so for me, it was like, I get to imagine exactly how I want to look. Like, this is beautiful, this is so cool and so fun. It was like I was building myself in The Sims right now. So I sat down and just made a mood board and put whatever felt good to me on the board. I've always had a powerful sense of self, and that helps me a lot, too, because I don't lean towards what other people are doing or what is trendy; I lean towards what feels good for me. To this day, I make mood boards whenever I have a concept for a project or anything. I make a mood board, and I put things together.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
A lot of my inspiration and ideas come from downloads. My family's very spiritual, and I grew up knowing how to cleanse the space with incense and stuff like that. So, as an adult, I got into meditation and stuff like that, and I honestly get downloads. A lot of the times I'll pray about something, I'll ask, or like, pray out loud, and it'll just come to me. Visually, when stuff does come to me, I get like, kind of like a vision or an image in my mind and from there, I either draw it out kind of have the image kind out of my mind, and then from there, I'll go searching for real-life images so whether that be on Pinterest which is the only thing I use as far as visual mood board kind of things. But I often like to draw them out, and then again, I also like music videos. I love the early 2000s and how expressive everyone was. Like Buster Rhymes, Ludacris, and Missy Elliot, again, always Pharell visually. I'll sit down and watch, like, hella of their music video over and repeatedly. So that's kind of how I think I pull in my inspiration.
Speaking on the EP SCARS you put out earlier this year, what would you say it represents about where you are on your journey?
So SCARS came out earlier this year towards the end of summer, and it has five songs, which we released as one song a month. Last November, right while working on the project, my great-grandmother died. She was 96, and even though we knew it was coming, it wrecked my family in a way that I'd never experienced. Like I've never experienced a loss that close in any way. I had the project title before that happened, and when that happened, it felt like everything aligned more. I had a thesis statement that I make for every project for this one; it was that on our journey through life, people, places, and experiences leave their marks on us, and those are the scars we carry. And one mark or one scar we all have is losing somebody. So I found myself related so much more to the project after that loss, and some of the songs like 'Needle and Thread' ended up morphing into something more about, like, the loss of a romantic relationship. But I started writing that after driving back from Florida to Atlanta with my boyfriend, like in the car after her funeral and stuff.
How would you say you had changed from when you first started doing the project to where you are now and everything that has happened since then?
When I dropped Bite Me, the last EP last year, I was very much a bang-on-the-table person. Like, you're not going to disrespect me fuck you type of vibe, that's my personality. I don't like people doing wrong things to people, and so that's very much the space I was in, and I went from being this little angry person who was always like fuck you, to be more like, okay, it's time to heal. I realized that you don't have to say fuck you to everybody, and everything doesn't have to be a fuck type of situation. And, with my grandmother passing away, I think that I still have my edge, and I'm still a very sharp knife, but I don't think the knife needs to be brought out all the time. I am in a healing process and a healing space, and I am just looking at life as being more like, okay, not everything has to be a fight. You're not going to war with everything; these things happen. Somebody can 100% piss you off, but you don't have always to cut them up. And that's where I am now, even working on music; now I'm trying to figure out where I feel where I am because I may fuck your music for a long time. So I think finding out what that sounds like for me, lyrically, and how that feels for me now is different. So, I'm in a transitional stage because I'm no longer the angry person I am.
For people listening to this project for the first time, what do you want them to get from it?
With the project, what I want people to take away is that everyone you come across has experienced something that has left its mark on them. Understanding of cheating everybody, it's easier. We're all healing from something, such as a significant visual aspect of the project; the visuals were band-aids. And when you see a band-aid, you know something is healing underneath it. You know there's a cut, a bruise, a mark, or whatever is healing underneath that band-aid, and we all are healing something. So, I want whoever listens to the project to take it away. It's very quirky. I'm very quirky lyrically, but it's more tells a story about the things that you come along throughout life you pick up these scars from, but I think overall, it is a project about healing, and we all are healing in some way, shape or another.
What are you looking forward to next, having dropped the project?
I am going on tour, performing more, performing these songs more, seeing how people interact with them in real life, and being able to travel and share my music with people who may be hearing it for the first time. Also, I want to meet fans in real life and hear their stories because being an artist is ultimately a service industry, like we're making music. I know that music has changed my life because of the artists I listen to. Suppose I could positively impact anybody's life. In that case, I'm doing something positive, and so travelling and being able to perform my songs for people and see them in real life, like impacting somebody positively. That's what I'm looking forward to the most.
CREDITS:
Photographer: BANVOA (@banvoa)
Creative Directors: Neila and BANVOA (@neilaofficial and @banvoa)
Graphic Designs: BANVOA (@banvoa)
Makeup Artist: Tatiana Kazana (@tatianakazana)
Hair Stylist: Eboni Wallace (@ebthebeautyplug)
Styling: Neila (@neilaofficial)
Model Coach: Inari Briana (@inaribriana)
Lighting: Inari Briana (@inaribriana)
Interview: Seneo Mwamba (@seneomwamba)
Special thanks to Tre Native for the location - (@trenative).
