Since emerging with the alternative indie smarts of searing debut single ‘Slip!’ in 2021, and vibrant, varied first EP ‘We Speak of Tides’ shortly after, London artist Aziya has been cementing herself as a musical triple-threat. Influenced by the multiple talents of childhood hero Prince, she’s an artist with naturally powerful vocals, but also a deft and enviable mastery of her guitar and an increasingly independent grip on production. Heading into her next phase with a second EP set for release this summer, she’s already carving out an ambitious space for herself where she can create with complete artistic control.

Growing up in a modern household where genre was never seen as a boundary, with System of a Down, Santigold and The Stone Roses played on the same speakers, from a young age Aziya was encouraged to follow her musical inclinations, picking up a guitar aged 10 and starting to pen early attempts at her own material shortly after. But there remains a notable gulf between your average creatively-inclined young person from a supportive family and the incredibly driven, career-orientated artist she stands as today.

The turning point - aside from those early inspirations (Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith and Sister Rosetta Tharpe are also namechecked as key formative figures) - she explains came back in 2018. Though she recalls her time there as hugely important, when she graduated she found herself in sessions where her tastes and ideas were being ignored. “I remember leaving one particular session thinking, ‘I’m gonna get my guitar playing and producing to a point where I’m able to express myself as a musician the exact way I want to’,” she explains. 

Today, she describes ‘We Speak of Tides’ as an EP that helped cement that ambition, laying the foundations for Aziya as an artist. “That EP was me saying, ‘Hey guys, you might not think I’m going to make guitar music but that’s exactly what I’m going to do, and here are five different genres within guitar music that I’m going to dip my toe in to prepare you for what’s gonna come next’,” she says.

You can also get a sense of her immaculate musical appetite via the wealth of riff-heavy, one-woman-band covers she’s been posting online since those early days; to date, her TikTok videos have received nearly five million likes. Tackling everyone from PJ Harvey, to Aussie psych weirdos Pond to Jimi Hendrix, when she uploaded a take on Grimes’ ‘Oblivion’ - complete with looped live instruments, angular guitars and on-point vocals - the Canadian singer even reposted the cover on her own socials. “She’s a massive inspiration for me as an artist; I was a bit starstruck when I found out she’d posted it,” Aziya recalls. 

Grimes hasn’t been the only famous fan to back Aziya either. Over the past two years, she’s been handpicked to support The Vaccines, Nova Twins and The Amazons; at the end of 2022, meanwhile, she opened up for Florence + the Machine at London’s O2 Arena, ticking off two long term goals at once. “It felt like a really full circle moment to share a stage with someone I've been inspired by for ages. It was weirdly the calmest I’ve been playing live; I don’t know why, but I really did feel at home,” she grins. “I wanted to do her justice. My aim was to fuck shit up and I think we all came away just so gassed by that show.”

Around the same time came stand-alone single ‘girl meets world (demo)’: a softer, more vulnerable track that also saw Aziya taking the visual reins, directing its accompanying video, helping make the artwork and dying the front of her hair blonde to mark a new aesthetic era. And now, bringing those ideas through into a second EP release, Aziya is gearing up for her most fully-realised, autonomous stage yet.

First up is next single ‘atomic’ - a knowing nod to her heroes Blondie, and a glimpse into the new wave-influenced sonic palette that she’s been embracing of late. Citing The Cure, New Order and more modern bands like Eyedress as influences, the track takes a sideways look at modern romance, asking the question, does love in 2023 even really exist?. “I wanted to give an insight into what love is like in 2023 with algorithms and AI, so in 50 years time we can look back and be like, ‘Shit, yeah, that’s kind of how it felt’,” she explains. “It’s a diary into Gen Z love, and also it’s saying that it’s OK not to find your person now and to enjoy each experience and learn something from it.”

Having connected and toured with an important array of fellow female musicians across the last few years, the camaraderie and support has been a huge source of encouragement; “We’re all striving for the same thing, so there’s no need for rivalry because you’re just in awe of that other woman on stage,” she says. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that in her new material Aziya has been doing it for the girls, honing in on her biggest female influences (Santigold, Grimes, Debbie Harry) and pulling their energy through to a collection of tracks that inhabit their musical heritage proudly whilst pushing it firmly into the now.

“It’s post-punk, new wave, but if they were doing it in 2023,” she says. “The effects and the fact that I’m using Ableton instead of tape to record, naturally it’s not gonna sound like what it sounded like back then, but it’s a modern take on it.”

She highlights forthcoming new track ‘Wundagirl’ as a key example of exactly what Aziya in 2023 is all about. Discussing the difficulties of entering the adult world as a young woman, on one side it’s open and vulnerable, its lyric, “Then you turn 21, owe the world everything” tapping into a society that’s rarely weighted in young women’s favour. On the flip side, it’s a track that Aziya produced entirely herself, with an insatiable hook and a message of learning “not to be a people-pleaser”. “I get such an excitement from having creative freedom and control. Making that track was a real moment, even with my production, of where I wanna sit sonically and how that’s developed,” she says.

Heading into a summer that will see the multi-hyphenate musician embark on her debut headline tour and gear up for the release of EP2, what’s brilliantly clear is that Aziya firmly knows who she is and how to make the magic happen within her own mould.

“My ambitions have always been pretty high - my aim is to play the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury and sell out Madison Square Garden and that’s not really changed. I’ve always set those big goals, but the next steps to getting to those goals have become a lot clearer,” she nods. “A lot of the hunger comes from me wanting to change the norm and make it clear to people that hear my music that it’s me writing and playing. One day I’d love to completely produce my own album. I want to be the artist that I didn’t get to see growing up.”