Alemeda is learning to let go of being right. “I used to think I knew everything,” she admits, “Turns out I really didn’t.” That reckoning, that we’ve all felt at some point in our mid-twenties, sits at the core of her new EP “BUT WHAT THE HELL DO I KNOW?”, via Top Dawg Entertainment and Warner Records. The anthemic and occasionally devastating coming-of-age sonic scores of emotional whiplash fill the tracklist with what can only be described as the raw chaos of accepting you really don’t know it all.
The Ethiopian-Sudanese artist has found her groove mixing chaos with clarity. Her earlier breakout, “Gonna Bleach My Eyebrows,” bratty and cathartic, served as an alt-pop manifesto. Now, she’s finding something deeper. “It’s about fucking up in your twenties, learning your lessons, and being humbled,” she says. The project explores every kind of relationship, from friendship breakups (and actual breakups) to spiritual awakenings, and an explosive collaboration with her friend, Doechii, titled “Beat a Bitch Up.”
Raised in a strict household where music was banned for the most part, Alemeda once had to sneak pop music through a clock radio and find loopholes through watching Hannah Montana and Camp Rock. Now, she’s living and breathing the kind of rock-star soundtrack she always wished existed. “It’s me just figuring it out,” she says with a shrug.
After a very busy summer playing All Things Go, Osheaga, Lollapalooza, and many more music festivals, we had the chance to catch up with Alemeda at the stage doors of the All Things Go Festival: Toronto, just weeks before her EP drops on November 7th, 2025.
As a self-proclaimed know-it-all, what’s something you were absolutely sure about that turned out to be totally wrong?
I think the way I navigate relationships, I just thought, ‘oh, I know what I’m doing’, and then I realized—I really didn’t. I had to take a minute to really recognize my flaws. Everybody thinks they’re perfect until they’re not, and I have a lot to learn.
You’ve said being a “know-it-all” has shaped who you were, but your album title flips that confidence into curiosity. How did that shift—realizing you don’t have to know it all—change the way you write songs?
I feel like before it was so focused on ‘oh, I hate this person. I love this person.’ Very hot and cold. But with what I know now, and how I’ve grown, I feel like I have way more understanding, way more just patience—I had no patience before.
If your younger self could hear one of your new songs, which one do you think she’d put on repeat?
Probably “I’m Over It,” because that’s one of the more emotional songs I have on there. It really came from a place of beginning to view things from outside my own perspective, so I think she would love it.
So, getting into the collaboration you have on the EP with Doechii, “Beat a Bitch Up,” how did that come to life? What’s the story behind it?
It’s actually a four year old song, almost five now. I re-sang it and re-produced it this year, but I made this song because me and her were out one night and, again, I was like in a crash out. And I said to her like, ‘oh, yeah, if somebody came up to you right now and started to have a problem with you, I’d fight them’. So that was the initial inspiration, but it was also pulling inspiration from a relationship breakup I was going through.
Coming to terms with not having it all figured out is such a huge part of your twenties. So in the spirit of that, I won’t ask you to tell me ‘what’s next,’ but I do wonder, what’s a moment this year that made you feel like, ‘okay, maybe my frontal lobe really did just finish developing?’
I think my hatred for men grew, and that definitely is a huge sign of growth. I feel like, as a woman you haven’t truly grown until you see men for who they are. I mean, I already did, but I see it even more now, to the point where they can’t even play my face. I’m like, ‘please get away from me.’ So, yeah, that would be my most honest answer.
That’s a great answer. Moving from Ethiopia to Arizona meant you were constantly negotiating identity—East African, Black American, outsider, insider. How does your music speak to that in-between space?
I think my upbringing is the reason I’m even doing music because, if I just followed the traditional Ethiopian upbringing, I’d probably go to school and become a doctor or a lawyer. But, because I was all over the place and I also moved every year, I never was in one place. I feel like my mastery of detachment made it so easy for me to move away and go to LA and just start my career.
What’s the most romantic thing you can think of right now?
My cats, they’re always just being so lovey dovey to me.. And that’s true romance.
If “BUT WHAT THE HELL DO I KNOW?” was adapted into a coming-of-age movie. Who’s on the soundtrack besides you?
beebadobe, Dominik Fike, Rachel Chinouriri, Hayley WIlliams, and Doechii of course!
That sounds like a movie I would watch.
Me too.
Sydney Goldhawk is a Freelance Stylist currently living in Toronto.
With a love for all things vintage and runway, her perspective draws heavily from her fascination with the synchronicity she observes between modern aesthetics and references to the past.