{"id":746356,"date":"2025-11-26T19:23:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=746356"},"modified":"2025-11-26T19:23:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:23:23","slug":"meet-inji-the-rising-turkish-pop-star-making-party-girl-anthems-with-a-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=746356","title":{"rendered":"Meet Inji, the Rising Turkish Pop Star Making Party Girl Anthems (With a Twist)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Music<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Meet Inji, the Rising Turkish Pop Star Making Party Girl Anthems (With a Twist)<\/h1>\n
By <\/span>Liam Hess<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

November 26, 2025<\/p>\n

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    A few years ago, Inji was at a crossroads. The New York-based, Istanbul-born musician had recently departed the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in finance, and found herself on a graduate scheme at a management consulting firm in New York City\u2014while making dance-pop bangers on the side. \u201cIt was a real everything-is-falling-apart time of my life,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI was crashing out.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The result of this freakout is captured on \u201cTeen Angst,\u201d the brilliant, brassy opening song on her mixtape Superlame,<\/em> released at the end of October. (Suffice to say, she turned to music full-time.) The song was the product of her getting in the studio with producer-of-the-moment Zhone, the mastermind behind Troye Sivan\u2019s \u201cRush\u201d and Demi Lovato\u2019s \u201cFast.\u201d After hours spent looking for the right starting point, Inji took the mic and just started freestyling over a stomping club beat, chanting, \u201cI woke up pissed off on a Tuesday \/ I said, \u2018Fuck this shit!\u2019\u201d Inji explains that the words came out as a furious stream of consciousness, remembering the aftermath of recording the track with a laugh: \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh, I see. I think this is what the album\u2019s about.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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    If Inji felt like she\u2019d landed on a theme while writing \u201cTeen Angst,\u201d you wouldn\u2019t necessarily guess it while listening to the mixtape as a whole. Its 12 tracks veering from the floor-shaking dubstep of \u201cU Won\u2019t\u201d to the sound of an Arabic lute on \u201cBoys Ain\u2019t Shit\u201d and the cheeky electroclash of \u201cBodega,\u201d the project is a showcase for Inji\u2019s remarkable versatility and her iconoclastic approach to genre. But what ties it all together is her eye for an irreverent lyric and ear for an irresistibly catchy pop chorus\u2014even if, in Inji\u2019s words, \u201cit feels like a complete and utter coincidence that I ended up making dance music.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Inji\u2019s journey as a musician began with taking piano lessons from the age of seven. After a few years of study, her teacher suggested she apply for the Istanbul University State Conservatory, where she spent a decade studying music theory and classical piano. \u201cIt was very intense,\u201d Inji remembers of that period of her life. \u201cI think, by the end, there were three of us graduating in my class, and those other two are now concert pianists.\u201d She then headed to Pennsylvania, where she kept her musical muscles working by participating in church choirs and jazz ensembles.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI loved clubbing. I loved going out. I loved going to DJ shows. And my first friend in college, who was the drummer in my jazz band, gave me a house beat to sing on, so that\u2019s where it started,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know what house meant.\u201d (There are a few nods to Inji\u2019s musical roots on the mixtape, however, courtesy of the jazz riffing that crops up in the intro and interlude.)<\/p>\n

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    That initial ignorance became something of an asset. \u201cI think one of my biggest strengths is that I came into the music industry not knowing pop music or dance music and not really listening to much mainstream music at all, so I didn\u2019t know a lot of these constraints that maybe some people are boxed in by,\u201d she says. \u201cIt means that everything has felt really exploratory and free.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Similarly, it was the rigidity of her environments at a high-pressure college and in the corporate world that nudged her to be as playful as possible with her music, and to inject the songs with a winking sense of humor\u2014leading to her initial breakout moment a few years back, when her hits \u201cGaslight\u201d and \u201cBellydancing\u201d went TikTok viral, racking up tens of millions of streams. \u201cMy life was very serious, very stressful, wearing blazers and loafers and calling bankers on the phone to ask them about the market. Horrible!\u201d She breaks into another laugh. \u201cSo the music became the antithesis of that. It was really silly and about having fun, and letting out the side of me that my school didn\u2019t really allow for. The whole project is about life not being that serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    When we speak, Inji is in Los Angeles, busy with writing sessions before she returns to her home in New York, where she\u2019s bought her first fancy piano. \u201cI\u2019m practicing some of the hardest pieces I used to play, and I really want to work them into the debut album,\u201d she says, noting she\u2019s been inspired by the classical elements on Rosal\u00eda\u2019s Lux.<\/em> She\u2019s also begun preparations for her first major headlining tour, which she announced last week.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s an impressive roster of venues on the list\u2014LA\u2019s Fonda Theatre, New York\u2019s Webster Hall, London\u2019s Koko\u2014and Inji is ready to give it her all. \u201cI\u2019m being super meticulous,\u201d she says. She\u2019s been asking friends to film her performing, then going back to comb through the footage and perfect every detail, besides working with choreographers and movement directors and running on the treadmill while singing through her entire set list to build up her stamina. \u201cThe rooms are really big\u2014like, scary big\u2014but touring is my absolute favorite thing to do in the world. That\u2019s why I\u2019m an artist. And I want this tour to be an absolute rager.\u201d<\/p>\n

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    Inji certainly doesn\u2019t lack for ambition: the mixtape was something of a side quest as she works on her first full-length album. \u201cI was in such a good flow with making really fire music, and I was like, \u2018Okay, let\u2019s take these 10 songs and just put them out,\u2019 but I never stopped writing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

    Her reason for calling it a mixtape? \u201cI want my debut album to be fantastic and so thought-out and so coherent. So I didn\u2019t want to call this one the debut album. I love it, and I think it\u2019s great, but I think the debut album has to be phenomenal\u2014really out of this world.\u201d She\u2019s also been studying the rapid ascents of Doechii and Chappell Roan, observing that breakout live performances were what helped them go stratospheric. \u201cI\u2019ve realized it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, and that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

    But for now, she\u2019s also basking in the afterglow of Superlame<\/em>. When she did a festival in San Francisco immediately after the mixtape\u2019s release, she was delighted to find her audience singing back every line to every song. \u201cThis has definitely been the most rewarding release of my life ever,\u201d she says, breaking into a wide smile. \u201cIt\u2019s just wonderful to see that people really care.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

    Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/inji-superlame-ep-interview-tour-announcement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Music Meet Inji, the Rising Turkish Pop Star Making Party Girl Anthems (With a Twist) By Liam Hess November 26, 2025 Photo: Hellen Elizondo A few years ago, Inji was at a crossroads. The New York-based, Istanbul-born musician had recently departed the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in finance, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":746357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-746356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=746356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/746357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=746356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=746356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=746356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}