Konyikeh and the Courage of Vulnerability

There is a particular stillness in Konyikeh’s music, steeped in intention. Her songs don’t rush to meet you; they sit, breathe and then open themselves slowly. Her voice and writing mirror one another in that they are both raw, full-bodied and complex in structure but instinctive in delivery. You can hear the years of classical discipline in the depth of her tone, the way the harmonies stretch and resolve, but you can also hear a young woman learning, in real time, how to let herself be seen.

Off record, Konyikeh describes herself as reserved and guarded in her personal life, careful with who has access to her inner world. On the record, that restraint dissolves. Music has become the place where she tells the truth she doesn’t always know how to say aloud. “My first EP was the safe space I didn’t have in my personal life,” she reflects. “It was extremely raw. I didn’t really filter anything”.

The debut EP, Litany, captures an artist unafraid to stew in discomfort, allowing emotion to spill freely in sonic form. Songs like Sorrow and Girls Like Us feel surprisingly mature for work written between the ages of 13 to 17: meditations on identity, grief and self-perception from someone still figuring out the world around her. Listening back now, it’s clear that even then, Konyikeh possessed a strong sense of self, even if she didn’t yet know how to embody it outside of her music.

Her second EP marks a shift. Where Litany feels like an open wound, Problem with Authority is more measure - not necessarily comfortable, but cathartic and necessary. “It’s the most authentic version of myself that I don’t usually let people see” she says. “That’s why it still weirds me out when people tell me they connect with my music. They are literally listening to my inner most thoughts.” Though she holds affection for both projects, she admits the second EP represents a time she wasn’t in a rush to revisit. “There are things I’d do differently now. The production, the order of songs. But that’s growth.”

Music was never an obvious or linear path for Konyikeh, even though it was always inevitable. She trained classically, attending Guildhall School of Music and studying music theory in depth - a different entry point from many of her contemporaries in the industry. While others found their voices in gospel choirs, Konyikeh grew up singing Latin choral music, differing in harmonies and tonalities that stretched her ear early on. At 18, she stood at crossroads: conservatoire training as a classical violinist, or university. “I realised I didn’t actually want to play the violin anymore,” she says plainly. Choosing to lead with the richness and control that defines her voice is essentially and subconsciously the first steps to becoming Konyikeh.

She chose university, drawn to the academic and theoretical side of music. “I knew music would always be in my life, I just didn’t know how I was meant to exist within it”. That uncertainty bleeds into her earlier releases, which she now views as snapshots rather than attempts at creating timelessness. “People always want to make timeless music, but my songs show who I was at a specific moment in time”. Everything released so far, bar Vulnerability, was written before adulthood fully set in. What’s coming next, she says, finally feels like her.

The evolution is audible. Where her earlier work feels regimented, her forthcoming music is freer, more assured, unboxed. Her listening habits have widened dramatically, folding Southern Rap, Gqom, Afrobeats and Dancehall into a sound that refuses easy categorisation. In the studio, she id meticulous and, bu her own admission, stubborn. “My mind is running 24/7,” she laughs. “I don’t really come in saying, ‘I want to make a song like this.’” Instead, sessions become a process of synthesis. She’ll break ideas down to their most granular level, leaning on her academic training while pulling from whatever she’s currently obsessed with. Her example of Arabic scales meeting Amapiano log drums brought an excitement and thrill to her voice as she recounted.

2024 highlighted a turning point. After a creative block that forced her to start again, she describes the year as one of regrowth and rebirth. Reordering her creative process allowed her to return to herself, and to the reason she started writing songs so young in the first place. That early encouragement to know who she was, instilled in childhood, became harder to hold onto during secondary school, where she was the only Black girl on her year. “Individuality wasn’t championed”. She put simply. As many children in her situation often did, she reclused in order to survive. 

Ironically, entering the music industry has reinforced just how vital self-understanding is. Her relationship with sound has always been shaped by discovery: from the first Afrobeats song she consciously remembers hearing, Mr Eazi’s Leg Over in 2016, to falling down YouTube rabbit holes of Wizkid and Burna Boy thanks to her friend. At home, music was expansive and borderless, ranging from Jennifer Hudson to the Kenyan Boys Choir, classical compositions and 90s RnB.

Now, Konyikeh approaches her work with ownership. Trusting herself as a musician has never been the issue; years of violin practice, three hours a day for over a decade, gave her certainty in her technical ability. Trusting herself as an artist, she says, took a lot longer. “Music theory has rules. Being an artist doesn’t.” That distinction has freed her. She no longer feels the need to mould her work into digestible categories or external expectation.

The confidence extends beyond sound. With Vulnerability, she mapped out her vision in terms of the sonic textures and how it supposed to sound to the visual language of the music video, writing step-by-step treatments for directors and producers alike. What once felt like overthinking now reads as clarity. “I know exactly what I want,” she says.

Despite it all, she remains a fan first and a student always. She’s currently learning to play the drums, still chasing new ways to understand rhythm and still curious about what music can teach her. And maybe that’s what makes this moment feel like a beginning rather than an arrival. It is safe to say Konyikeh has matured into her sound and is finally comfortable enough to let it develop alongside her, trusting that wherever it goes next will be honest and true.