iKeda is building her own world full of bubbly electropop gold

London-based singer and DJ iKeda might be making all the moves of a pop star, but describe her as one, and she’ll baulk at the term. “These days, it’s just too easy to call someone a pop star,” she says, sitting down with NME in a sunny Hackney pub garden. On the verge of releasing her latest EP ‘Bangs N Braces’, she’s adamant that the term carries real weight. “You really need to earn your stripes to have that label. Someone like PinkPantheress or Addison Rae, they’re building a whole image and world – those are true pop stars.” While the 29-year-old artist might still be working her way up to the levels of those stars, she’s moving in the right direction. She’s been dropping tracks that ride on an infectious blend of UK funky, electroclash and dancehall since 2024, and has become a mainstay on London’s underground electropop lineups. Earlier this year, she scored a highly sought-after invite – to support PinkPantheress on her acclaimed ‘Fancy That’ tour, a booking she says was “almost like a dream”. “I just couldn’t believe I was playing venues that size at this point in my career,” she says, but she took any early nerves and channelled them into “super healing positive energy”, ...