After dropping her hugely viral hit “GASLIGHT”, rising pop star, INJI, is keeping up the momentum and taking the dance-pop world by storm. As an emerging artist, INJI experienced something that could only be described as divine intervention, when the song became a TikTok hit in 2022 while she was studying at business school. Admirably, the artist has always kept a foot in the music industry whilst pursuing her academic studies by playing classical piano and singing in jazz clubs. However, it wasn’t until she took the plunge and declined a job offer so she could focus on following her musical dreams full-time.
Since that point, the Turkish singer-songwriter who is based in America, went on to release a debut EP entitled LFG and another viral hit called “BELLYDANCING” in 2023. She has continued to develop her craft and is quickly gaining a dedicated legion of fans. Yet most recently, INJI shared the gorgeous sophomore EP, We Good, a five-track EP which boasts a collaboration with the legendary musician Nile Rodgers.
Most would categorise her music style as electronic dance music but as an artist with such a varied background, you can hear the undeniable influences of her classical and jazz upbringing. Writing songs mostly with her friends, she uses her lyrics to tell stories which are easy to relate to, and a lot of fun to sing along with. At the moment, INJI is currently embarking on her first headline tour called the Tour you can Scream Along To, spending her evenings dancing and singing with fans in sold-out venues across Europe and the UK.
1883 Magazine sits down with INJI to discuss her new EP We Good, her energetic live shows, being in your early 20s, and more.
I have to say I have been a fan of you for a little while, me and my best friend saw you support Bastille at Alexandra Palace about a year ago and since then, we have been obsessed. Every time we go out, we’re listening to your tracks, fully vibing to your music.
Thank you, that makes me so happy.
I know you have just released your new EP, We Good, which I am absolutely loving. It’s so much fun. What inspired the collection of songs? Is there a moment of your life that you feel started this EP for you?
For sure. It was kind of an era, it’s like your early 20s. It’s the era when I was approaching the end of college. I think that time, yes, you’re also having the best time of your life and it’s really fun but it’s completely full of anxieties. I have no idea what my life is going to look like, I don’t know what my job is. I feel like this is a very common experience and 22 is like the most stressful time of your life because you have no certainty of anything else. With me, that anxiety created like this big feeling of almost insecurity and kind of the opposite of self-confidence.
It comes from an active thing that I did every morning where I wake up, go to the mirror, to calm myself down, and I’d have to go like ‘you’re good, you’re good, everything’s fine, we’re good, it’s all good’. So, the title came from that and I think that the project overall also feels like, this EP, the purpose of the EP and the project is to convince yourself that everything’s fine and there’s good things in the world to be happy about. It’s like an active choice to feel fine. I feel happy. So, I called it ‘We Good’ because I talk to myself a lot and said ‘you’re good, it’s all good’ a lot. I think a lot of the songs in the EP also actively says: ‘it’s fine, it’s good, there’s no problem here’. The EP is kind of about choosing to be stupidly positive and delusionally optimistic.
I love that, I think that’s so relatable as well, I think that’s brilliant. The song that stood out to me on the EP was the last song, “Rot”, it just got me a bit emotional, you know, I think it’s really a lovely song, a bit more like low beat. I’m curious to know the story behind this song specifically?
Of course, I’m glad you liked that one, that means a lot. Musically with “Rot”, I wanted very specifically to bring out the jazz in me because before I started making any sort of dance music, I was a jazz singer, and I was a classical pianist. My music exposure growing up was very different to the music I do now, and I’ve been looking for opportunities and ways to introduce that to the project a bit more. The day we made “Rot”, I went in, and I said I want to make something that feels like jazz and let’s try to bring it to the dance music world, lets make it drum and base. It’s one of the first emotional songs I wrote, one of the first slower, softer songs I wrote, and it was my favourite song for a very long time, I’ve been sitting on Rot for a so long. Like when we made it, we were just like do we go in this direction 100%, because it felt very true.
What Rot is about, well I wrote it at a time of a lot of personal distress, I was also going through some losses. There is a lyric in the song that says ‘some hearts are meant to beat and some to stop’ because I was really struggling to deal with things coming to an end. Lives coming to an end, college coming to an end, almost felt like my childhood coming to an end, I was going through a relationship that was coming to an end. Also, your 20s are kind of the first time you deal with big changes in your life and change usually comes with a loss of something. I wanted to write a song about that feeling, about loss and things coming to an end. But I don’t like sad music so it kind of had to have a happy twist to it. What I wanted to say to myself was ‘INJI, these things happen, things end. Some loves don’t work, some relationships don’t work, every leaf is going to rot one day, some people are going to die’. What felt therapeutic to me, was saying that everything ends, it’s ok, that’s just how life goes, so I think that’s what the song came out to be. It feels so healing to me. It’s stuff I will write down in my diary a lot when things go wrong. It’s like well, some songs will work, and some won’t. It means so much to me and it definitely heals me, so I’m glad you like it too.
I love it and actually hearing you explain it makes me love it more. It’s such a relatable feeling, and I think that is something that people really love about you, is how relatable your lyrics are. Listening to you and singing along, I feel like you’re having a chat with your friends, or in a song like ‘Hate Your Guts’ you can really feel the anger and release. What is your creative process when it comes to writing lyrics, how does that go?
There’s a reason that it feels relatable and like you’re talking to a friend, and that’s because the songs that come out are almost always written with my friends. I now write a lot, and I go to LA and I work with a bunch of people, but the songs that make me feel like: ‘this is a good one, lets put it out’ are almost always written with me and people I really love in a room. Because that’s when I think I can talk authentically. The process is very random, the process is almost, I’ll find songs and concepts when I’m talking to my closest friends, and I’ll write it with them most of the time. All of the stories are real, all the stories are very recent in my life. I guess the process is just make the songs with your friends.
That’s how the project started, the whole music project started not because I was like I want to be an artist, it was me messing round with a friend. We wrote a song that the internet decided to like. I think if I had sat down and been like ‘ok I’m going to start a project, it’s going to be dance focused’, I think it would have been much less real and relatable. The first songs were made never thinking about ‘oh is the world going to like this, is the mainstream media going to like this’. Its only purpose was me and a friend messing around and writing something, so I think the process is very authentic.
I wanted to ask you about that as well, in terms of your first song, Gaslight, going viral. I know at the time you said you were in business school, you had this very serious ‘blazer-wearing’ part of your life, and I wanted to ask about your decision to leave that and pursue this creative process? What was that like?
It was so stressful! I was freaking out! I’ve definitely been a musician, especially a performer my whole life. I can confidently say: yes I feel like I was put on this earth to be on stage. That’s clear. But I also really enjoyed econ and business and everything I was studying. It never occurred to me, you should be a musician as a career, I just thought that was impossible, it was a fever dream, even the most talented people don’t make it. That’s what I thought. I never even thought, I’ll try this. My goal in my head was like, I’ll have a big girl job, I’ll do my finances and then at night I can go sing at a jazz club. That was my life goal. I think it was some kind of divine intervention being like, no you should be doing this. When we made “Gaslight”, out of a coincidence and posted this one video of me in PJs and no make-up and it had a viral moment.
It was at a time when TikTok was everything in the music industry, like viral videos were making platinum songs. Immediately, I had all the labels jumping on me, calling me, while I was trying to go to class. The summer of Gaslight, I was working as a consultant in New York City, in this huge, tall skyscraper, in a suit and secretly taking calls about deals. It was the most stressful time of my life. I was freaking out; my parents were freaking out. They were like ‘are you crazy!? This is just one video, what are you doing?’. So, my parents were like: ‘No you have to finish school, don’t be an idiot’, which I think was good advice, so I ended up finishing school.
I think I was lucky because I was a junior, it was my third year. My goal was in this one last year, I need to prove it to myself and to my parents that there is something here that we can pursue. So yeah, it was so stressful, and I didn’t make the decision until recently because, I don’t know, the music industry is so scary, and you never know what is going to work and when it’s going to work. You always hear stories of like, the best artists breaking after 10 years of hard work. Like, fantastic, but how hard must those 10 years be? Imagine making incredible music and incredible albums and no one discovers you for 10 years, I would lose my mind! It was a very scary jump, but it was a few months ago that I called and quit my consulting job. I was like, can I start my job later, and they were like ok, and then a few months later I gave HR a call and they were like: ‘yeah we’ve been seeing your social media, we know why you’re calling.’
Wow! That’s the dream, that’s, like, everyone’s dream! That is amazing, what was the feeling? Did you feel sad to give it up or was it exciting?
It feels deep down like, yes 100%, obviously this the right position, I feel that deep down. But I like my music, I’m a very anxious person, so it was scary because, anxious people are usually risk adverse and this was a very risky thing I was doing. I think I still struggle with it everyday when a song doesn’t perfume like crazy, or when a show doesn’t sell out, and when I have to talk to my mum and be like ‘yeah, things are going ok’. I feel like she is going to be like ‘why did you quit your job, go back to your job.’
I mean, it’s clearly paid off, you’re on your tour right now. I’m so excited, I have tickets to see you in London, I can’t wait.
It’s going to be so fun!
Its going to be a great time, what’s the tour been like so far? Are you loving it, is it exhausting, all of the above?
All of the above! It’s the best thing in the world. I’m definitely one of those artists who lives for tour. I love the tour part of it all, I love being on stage, I’m doing shows where I can see everyone’s faces and I can meet a bunch of people after. It’s the most wonderful thing to meet a community around the music. Especially the music I make is a lot more communal than individual.
It has meaning when it’s in a group setting. It feels like all of my hard work paying off. Yeah, tour is the best thing. Tour is the thing that makes me think, ok there is something here, this is all worth doing. This is all worth the trouble.
Are there any songs that in particular are really going off? Are there any that stick our every night.
So many of them! Everyone asks me this question, I can’t answer. One that surprised me, Hate Your Guts, because it’s not the most popular song I’ve put out at all.
I love it.
People really hate other people! They love screaming that song. That one goes off.
Brilliant, I can wait to hear that one, I love screaming that in my car.
Everyone will be screaming it with you.
Amazing. I’ve seen a couple videos of you performing, and I just feel like you have so much energy all the time. Even talking to you now, I can really feel you’re so passionate, what do you do to keep your energy up? Do you have any pre-show rituals or routines or anything?
I’m a person who sleeps so much, which I think is very important for a tour. I literally sleep until I have to go on stage. Tour has now been: wake up very early and we drive probably until 3pm. Unfortunately, INJI is not chatting and being lots of fun on the bus, INJI is asleep.
In terms of tours in the future, do you have any dream venues or music festivals that you are desperate to play?
For sure, I don’t know a lot of festivals or venues. I think this is surprising, I hadn’t been to a festival in my life until I performed at one. I didn’t really listen to pop music before I started making it. I hadn’t been to a show. Like the one show I’d been to, I was 12 and Lady Gaga came to Turkey so I saw her, but this is all like new and fresh to me.
I really want to play Lollapalooza and Glastonbury because I feel like the crowds there will be the best crowds in the world. I mostly have like a dream show I want to put on, with like a lot of theatrics and big production because I love the performance aspect of being an artist so much. I always dream of the big shows I’ll put on. The venues though I’m not sure, we’ll figure out.
Who is your dream collaboration? I know in your new EP you have a really big collaboration, but who is your dream if you could pick any artist?
Right now, Charli XCX.
Good Answer.
I’ve been watching like a two hour documentary on everything Charli. I think currently, she is the artist changing the music world so much, I think she is creating the most change.
I want to hear that collab, it would be so good.
It would be so fun!
One thing that has really stuck out to me about you is that you have said you make music for people to play at 7am in their car on the way to work. I have to tell you, every single one of your songs is on my driving to work playlist, literally I’m in my car, in my suit and I am jamming. I want to know, who do you jam to at 7am, what gets you up in the morning?
I’m so weird! I don’t listen to music; I listen to audio books. Right now, you’re going to die, I’m listening to this audio book. I wake up and the first thing I put on is ‘How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.’ It’s a great book, but yeah, I need someone to start speaking to get out of bed.
As soon as you wake up, audio book straight away?
Yep, for me to stand up I need to put on the audio book. I think it’s also like the IPad kid in me. You know how we all need content going all the time. I don’t want to open Instagram, so I put on an audiobook.
I really love that, what’s something that you read recently that you’d recommend?
I’m mostly reading phycology books. I read recently Grit by Angela Duckworth. She was a professor at my school too. It’s about like what makes people successful, it’s a phycological study of it. I think especially aspiring musicians or writers, or creatives, it was a very inspiring book because like the title, they identify after like decades of study the two things that make people successful was that they didn’t give up, basically.
What a message, I’m so interested now, I want to go and read that, what a brilliant answer. Thank you so much, I’m so grateful you came to speak with me and I’m so excited to see you in London. Are there any surprises in the European Tour, I know you just finished the US leg, is there anything special that you’ve got for us?
I don’t know! I need to think about it, there is a surprise that I make my audience drink with me, which is always fun. I like to pour shots per show.
Wow, I’ll be prepared for that. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much, I had such a wonderful time getting to speak with you.
INJI’S new EP, We Good is out now. INJI headlines the Village Underground in London on October 26th.
Follow INJI @injiverse
Interview Tabetha Parrick
Photography Danica Robinson
