ADÉLA named her debut EP ‘The Provocateur’ because she’s “a little bit of a rage-baiter”. A year after her first brush with public perception on Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, a Netflix series about the making of girl group KATSEYE, she’s building a career as a wildly exciting solo artist. ADÉLA is the “future reigning pop star” – Grimes‘ words, not ours – who prefers spiky home truths to smooth sugarcoating.
“Not in the way that I necessarily want to just make people mad,” the 21-year-old tells NME over Zoom. “but I think my bluntness and honesty gets people kind of jarred and makes them uncomfortable, which I’ve always kind of enjoyed”. ADÉLA points out that the EP’s cover art shows her “pissing on a wall”, a visual that some may find “uncomfortable”, but which she thinks is “kind of funny”.
ADÉLA is a devoted student of pop music who’s watched “every documentary about Lady Gaga and Beyoncé“. When she logs onto the video call from her LA apartment, the second thing we notice after ADÉLA’s signature pink hair is a framed photograph of Madonna on the wall behind her. Not coincidentally, it’s an iconic shot from the pop queen’s infamous Sex book, a provocative highlight in her massively provocative career.
“When I saw the ‘Like A Prayer’ video, I was so young and I was like, ‘Wow, there’s so much more to being a pop star than just being pretty and on stage,’” says ADÉLA, who hails from Bratislava in Slovakia. “I think that’s why I love pop music, because you can kind of hide the meaning in a super-catchy song. There can be so much depth in an ‘if you know, you know’ kind of way.”
Dropping on August 22, her debut EP ‘The Provocateur’ has plenty of depth. As it pivots from MARINA-esque electro (‘Homewrecked’) to Britney-style robopop (‘Superscar’) and industrial club thumpers, ADÉLA documents the thrills and pitfalls of navigating the music industry as a self-aware and very ambitious young woman. “Maybe I should count myself so lucky, so lucky,” she sings on ‘Superscar’. “All these dirty hands, they wanna touch me, so touch me.”
The project is smart, sharp and savagely catchy, but “not musically very cohesive” in ADÉLA’s eyes – something she’s perfectly happy with. “It’s got the first song I ever made and the last song, which was finished literally last week,” she says. “So to me, it’s meta in a way, because it’s this snapshot of, like, ‘How does this girl feel about what she’s trying to achieve, and how is she finding all the things she has to do to get there?'”
One such thing is dealing with the way “the public is suddenly perceiving her”, which she believes is “so different from who I am as a person, really”. But ultimately, she “doesn’t give a fuck” about it all. On the hyperpop stomper ‘Machine Girl’, which was co-produced by Grimes, ADÉLA sings about being a “pinned up poster of pop perfection” who’s “d-d-drippin’ in drama”, but also tells us: “Past her lips, you will find her brain.” She’s committing to the role of high-maintenance pop starlet with a knowing wink.
“I’m here to make people more comfortable with being uncomfortable”
ADÉLA’s pop star training began long before she signed up for a reality show. When she was growing up in Slovakia in the 2000s, Adéla Jergová became “obsessed” with American pop culture. She remembers watching Hannah Montana and thinking “this is what I’m going to do”.
Her older brother tried bringing her down to earth – “he said, ‘You know that girl [Miley Cyrus] is American. It’s very hard to do that here” – but ADÉLA wasn’t deterred. She committed fully to her ballet lessons, which offered a “very structured and traditional” career path in Slovakia, but also taught herself English “in secret” so she could chase her American dream when she was older. “It was kind of a delusional vibe,” she recalls with a shrug, “but not really, because I guess I’m on my way to doing it.”
As a teenager, ADÉLA trained at the Vienna State Ballet and then at the English National Ballet School in London, which taught her the “discipline” she still values today. She notes wryly that sitting down for an interview at 9:30am – early for a pop star – is easy when you’re used to “waking up at 6am to do ballet for like 12 hours a day”.
When she moved to Los Angeles three years ago to pursue a music career, she felt immediately at home. “Whereas in Slovakia,” she adds, “I stick out like a sore thumb.” Did she try to soften her natural bluntness? After all, LA’s entertainment enclaves practically run on tactful euphemisms. “No, I refuse!” ADÉLA replies gleefully. “I think it’s kind of funny, and people actually like it because they’re just not used to it.”
In 2023, she landed a place on The Debut: Dream Academy, a YouTube reality series that created the K-pop-inspired girl group KATSEYE. ADÉLA was the first of 20 hopefuls to be eliminated, but again, she was undeterred. When it was followed a year later by the Netflix docuseries Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, she was ready with an attention-grabbing debut single. “I’ll catch you with that dirty little whore,” she sings on ‘Homewrecked’, chastising her father for his extramarital affair.
“I was very logical about it,” she says. “Because no matter if I was a background character or more prominent, I knew I’d have the most eyes on me ever. But I ended up being quite the provocateur on the show.” ADÉLA isn’t exaggerating: after the series premiered, the first comment she read was from a troll calling her an “ugly, stupid ass bitch”.
“I love pop music because you can hide a deeper meaning in a super-catchy song”
ADÉLA wrestles with her post-reality show reputation across the EP: her way of telling trolls that “I’m not gonna be submissive just to win over public perception, because that’s not reality, it’s bullshit”. Besides, bullshit would get in the way of her purpose as a pop star. “I’m here to make people more comfortable with being uncomfortable,” ADÉLA says. “Being human – truly human – in pop music, I like to talk about my imperfections. To me, the negative sides of myself are just as interesting as the positive sides.”
‘The Provocateur’ by ADÉLA drops August 22 via Capitol Records and Polydor