Meet Blenda, the Swedish artist and creative mogul doing it on her own terms

Swedish-Congolese musician Blenda was on the cusp of a career-defining era, when the world shut down in 2020. After years of honing her craft as a singer/songwriter on the Swedish music scene in Stockholm, at the age of 27, she signed a major record deal with Def Jam in the US, with the label promising to make her ‘the next Doja Cat.’ At that point, she had spent a year in New York, uprooting her life to chase the dream of becoming a global superstar. Just as she could taste it, the coronavirus outbreak put an abrupt end to it all before it even began.

“I just remember being so devastated,” she recalls, as we catch up over the phone. “That US trip and the world I was living over there was insane when I reflect on it now. I was the first Black Swedish girl being signed to such a big record label, but everything just came and went so fast,” she adds. Although now, she views it all as a blessing in disguise.

As we speak, Blenda is sitting bathed in sun in the glasshouse of her home in a Stockholm suburb, where he lives with her husband and business partner, and their two-year-old daughter. She is the co-founder of the hybrid culture community firm Folk where she co-manages the acclaimed Swedish musical duo Deki Alem and upcoming artist Demekech. Last month, she released her latest single, ‘Habits’ - the first song from her upcoming EP, ‘Got Shit On My Pants', and one she describes as a perfect summary of her new state of mind. “Despite the disappointment of losing out on what could have been, lockdown was a real blessing for me. It forced me to reset, and start fresh by doing things on my own terms. I cut out the old habits, like letting external factors dictate my music and the kind of artist I should be, and just trusted my own instincts and talents. That’s what my song ‘Habits’ is all about.”

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Growing up, Blenda was constantly surrounded by music. Her dad was a musician, known in Paris as a multifaceted reggae and blues artist, while several other members of her family were well-versed in singing and playing musical instruments. “I grew up in church so there was always music around me, not only in my family but in my community," she says. Still, she never entertained the idea of pursuing a music career until she was much older. “I grew up in a very strict, Congolese household where education was the most important thing. My family and the wider community really valued the importance of traditional jobs and careers, and my dad being a musician himself added an extra layer. Because he knew what the music scene was like and the kind of environments musicians are in, it definitely wasn’t something he wanted for his daughter.”

Instead, Blenda kept her head down in school books and went on to study economics at university, considering a career in music only after graduating. “I think I was really influenced by my community at church, my friends and seeing what everyone else around me was doing," Blenda reflects. "They were getting educated and becoming lawyers, doctors, and I always felt I had to do the same. It became important to me to have a degree to fall back on, and I’m very close to my family too so I wanted to do it for them too.”

With proud parents – and an educational safety net under her belt – Blenda decided to tap into her talents as a singer and a songwriter, booking studio sessions and releasing music locally in 2018. She caught the attention of New York-based music manager and A&R, Steven Victor, known for working with Hip Hop artists like Pusha T, The Dream and late rapper, Pop Smoke. “Steven became my mentor. He took me under his wing and taught me everything. He was the person that actually signed me to Def Jam in 2019 when I had moved to New York," Blenda says.

In March of 2020, she dropped ‘Options’, a track produced by duo Wallis Lane, whose catalog included collaborations with Drake, Post Malone and Kanye West. However, weeks prior to this, the death of Pop Smoke shook Victor, and he decided to quit his A&R role at Def Jam. “When Steven was gone, things got really complicated because he was the person fighting for me. In the US, you need someone in your corner to vouch for you in the industry because it’s like a jungle. So when I no longer had that, and Covid hit, going home was the only option.”

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Shortly after her return, Blenda fell pregnant with her daughter. It remains her biggest blessing, but a pregnancy in lockdown, right after what felt like a broken dream, was challenging to say the least. “I went through a period where I was super depressed for two years. I felt like I had lost direction and I was fighting all sorts of demons," she shares. "Having to let go of what I thought was my one shot at music, navigating a difficult relationship with my mother as I entered motherhood myself, and also just questioning my own relationship with God at the time. It was a lot."

For years, Blenda had watched her peers in the industry cenrer their lives around music. She had watched it become their identity, just as it had become hers and it was a scary sight. “I felt like that was a curse,” she admits. “I realised that I felt trapped by that approach to music and it made me question, is this all I am? But as I was waiting for my child to come into the world, it reminded me that there is so much more for me to explore and so much more for me to be.”

But it was at this moment, inspired by family and the idea of complete autonomy that Blenda and her husband decided to launch Folk. “We wanted to create a business that we felt passionate about and that was our own. Something we could build together, for our family but also for the culture,” she says. “I told my husband, I just want to create from a place where I’m really having fun with it. When I’m singing and telling my story, or telling the stories of others, I want it to feel genuine and real.”

Prioritising authenticity and working from a place of gratitude has completely shifted Blenda’s approach to both her music, and her life. “I’m so happy to have the life that I have and the people in it and that’s what inspires me to create. I want people to feel that in this new music, and I think they will. These corporate music giants are so quick to mold you into what they think will sell, that it becomes so easy to lose the creativity and uniqueness of your talent. I want my life and my career, especially with Folk and my music, to be the complete opposite to that.”

*Blenda's next single, 'There For You', from her upcoming EP, will be released this week. *