music

Then got here a music that modified all of it. Peng Black Women – a monitor by the up-and-coming south London rapper Enny – was launched in October 2020, however due to a December remix, it snowballed right into a viral sensation that served as an antidote to lockdown gloom. The lyrics and video, which showcase her group in all its glory, are a love letter to Blackness, womanhood, and crucially pengness (a London slang phrase that primarily means “hotness”).

Enny, born Enitan Adepitan, connects with me over video from her automotive, and immediately begins breaking down the politics in her lyrics. When Black girls are so usually both erased by the media, or held to unimaginable scrutiny with regards to the best way we glance, on Peng Black Women, Adepitan calls out the truth that girls who aren’t Black are praised for embodying those self same traits: “Need a fats booty like Kardashians? / No / Need a fats booty like my Aunty received, yo.”

One other of the music’s overarching themes is our variety: “Darkish pores and skin, gentle pores and skin, medium tone / Permed tings, braids, received minis afros / Thick lips received hips a few of us don’t / Massive nostril contour a few of us received’t”. The reference to contouring – a make-up method that enhances the looks of options just like the nostril and cheekbones – feels notably notable, because it ties into wider conversations about magnificence requirements within the Black group.

“That line’s devoted to me, man!” Adepitan laughs cheekily. “I bear in mind once I was actually younger, somebody advised me that I don’t have a bridge on my nostril … I used to be trying within the mirror like: ‘Oh my God, I don’t have a bridge on my nostril! I’ve a extremely African nostril!’ For a very long time, that was like a stigma for me. So writing the music helped me simply get snug in my very own pores and skin, and my very own insecurities.”

In addition to having a therapeutic impact for Adepitan, the music has seen the artist thrust into the limelight: she has been heralded as the way forward for rap by Vogue and GQ, whereas Notion magazine referred to as her “probably the most thrilling figures within the present UK music scene”, and, crucially, “somebody you’d wish to be mates with”. In the meantime, Peng Black Women has been shared by the likes of Skepta and Summer season Walker, with each the unique and remix cumulatively amassing greater than 12m views.

In Adepitan’s different movies – notably, Similar Previous, which sees her marching by way of the streets of London and taking up the subject of gentrification – she exudes confidence, flipping her hair, staring down the lens and gesturing within the air with brightly manicured nails. It’s a totally different aspect to the Enny I meet at this time. As we converse, she often angles the cellphone digital camera to the roof of the automotive, so solely her brow scrapes the underside of the body, or appears out of the automotive window. “I’m deffo shy,” she says.

“I wasn’t actually just like the youngster that may play exterior; I used to be at all times in my room,” she continues. “My dad taught me play the keyboard … and so I’d do this on a regular basis.” Her household’s tastes performed a key function in nurturing her curiosity in music; Lauryn Hill and Stevie Surprise specifically.

Regardless of going to school and attempting different careers, Adepitan saved making music – and received observed by native radio stations for a freestyle model of her music He’s Not Into You. That’s what put her on the radar of Root 73, an artist-development programme run by folks born and raised in Hackney, east London.

“I met Root 73 in 2019 by way of my now-manager” – Adepitan turns the digital camera to Pascal, who’s sitting nonchalantly within the driver’s seat, and cackles. “He introduced me into Root, which was the studio he was figuring out of, and so they turned household. They actually took me in, placing me on stage and stuff like that early on, once I solely had about three songs,” she says.

Contemplating her shyness, what have been her first experiences on stage like? “Horrible!” she shouts. “I needed to drink plenty of alcohol simply to get the juices going.”

After the pandemic broke out and the gigs ended, Adepitan launched Peng Black Women, and by the tip of the yr it had blown up. The remix, which featured her label-mate Jorja Smith singing the hook moderately than former collaborator Amia Courageous, had been launched by way of the streaming channel Colours. The video racked up thousands and thousands of views in quite a few days.

The truth that it was this video – which swapped out Courageous in favour of the lighter-skinned Smith – that introduced the music to prominence, attracted scrutiny from listeners. To many, it regarded like colourism – made extra biting by the truth that it’s a music about Black girls’s empowerment. Whereas Adepitan and Courageous have acknowledged the optics of the choice, each advised that the scenario is complicated, with Adepitan telling Crack magazine that Smith would rake in additional views, and Courageous telling gal-dem: “In my coronary heart of hearts, I don’t suppose they realised the way it comes throughout.”

The unique video, which options dozens of ladies, is a greater car for showcasing the variety of Black womanhood – in addition to Adepitan’s personal background. Shot by the St Lucian north Londoner Otis Dominique, the video was largely filmed in Adepitan’s native Thamesmead (different notable shoots within the space embody Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy and A Clockwork Orange). The marshland web site turned brutalist housing venture, which has for many years been solid off by politicians and planners as a “sink property”, is present process regeneration.

She nonetheless lives within the space, at residence together with her mother and father, and says that it holds a particular place in her coronary heart. “When my brother and sister have been youthful, I do know it was fairly racist. They have been perhaps the one black folks within the space on the time. However once I was older … it was residence; there was plenty of group.

“So the toughest factor is watching [the disappearance of] belongings you grew up with – recollections you affiliate with folks that might not be right here any extra. When sure buildings go, you form of really feel just like the individuals are going with them.”

This group spirit and solidarity threads by way of the video: mates standing round her; aunties in conventional Nigerian costume; her little cousins in matching orange raincoats and pink wellies. There may be additionally a theme of adaptability: the motion strikes from healthful pictures in Adepitan’s front room by day, to glossy stylish in a Croydon automotive park at evening. “I wished to indicate the totally different sides to how I grew up,” she says.

The message of the music, and the remainder of her small physique of labor – tackling Boris Johnson’s premiership and dishonest in relationships – clearly connects with a rising fanbase. Within the YouTube feedback for her tracks, quite a few followers have dubbed her the “British Lauryn Hill”, whereas over on TikTok, Peng Black Women serves because the backing monitor to movies of Black girls and women showcasing their make-up, hair and outfits. “That’s gassy,” she says. “I really like seeing that. Black girls are simply so lovely and I don’t really feel like they get advised it sufficient.

“[When the song came out] I received so many messages from younger black women, in Europe or in Asia, simply saying that they felt ugly and now they really feel lovely … It kinda made me unhappy, as a result of I realised that how I felt rising up typically was how hundreds of ladies are feeling proper now. But it surely additionally felt particular to know that it related and made a distinction.”

On-line suggestions appears to have been all of the extra vital for Adepitan on condition that she rose to fame in the course of the pandemic. It has made for a wierd introduction to the business: the absence of dwell occasions means she is but to satisfy many ladies within the enterprise, apart from Smith, whom she describes as a passionate perfectionist. “I believe I’m nonetheless discovering my footing,” she says.

When the business resumes, there’s a large world on the market for Adepitan to discover. The previous couple of years have seen a sudden boom for women in rap – from the success of Shygirl and Little Simz within the UK, to Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat throughout the pond. “It’s virtually like a Renaissance second for ladies who’re taking a stand in what they wish to do, and simply being whoever they wish to be with regards to music. They’re not getting caught in bins, or centered on what they suppose that folks may wish to hear, or what labels are telling them to do. They’re simply being themselves.

“Earlier than Cardi [B] and Nicki [Minaj], it was Lil’ Kim and Missy Elliott, like you may pinpoint particular moments,” she says. “However now you’ve received lots of of woman rappers.”

She admits that typically, as a Black girl, she feels the stress of the business looming over her. “I really feel like that stress was initially what sort of stalled me for a very long time, as a result of I at all times felt like there wasn’t a market for those who appear to be me … for a dark-skinned Black rapper, particularly one which was not going to rap about intercourse or stuff like that.

“However I’m going to die sooner or later. I don’t wish to have regrets and be like: ‘Oh, I didn’t do that as a result of one other human being thinks a sure method, or society is telling me that I can’t.’”

With a viral hit beneath her belt – plus a brand new upbeat celebration monitor, I Need, and an EP on the horizon – it appears as if Adepitan goes to have an enormous summer season. “As soon as exterior is correctly, correctly open, I’m going in all places!” she says excitedly, earlier than reeling off simply the place: “I’m going to the golf equipment, I’m going to the festivals, I’m going to the eating places.”

She pauses, the stage persona sporting off, and the introvert re-emerging: “I say that now, however I’ll in all probability keep at residence.”

If meaning extra music, and extra causes to really feel peng, then none of us can complain.

Enny’s subsequent single, I Need, is out in June