ADÉLA is opening up about the pressure that came with creating PRIMA after the release of her debut EP, The Provocateur. In a new interview with V Magazine, the Slovak singer-songwriter reflects on the anxiety of following a project that changed how audiences viewed her.
“My first EP was one thing, it was about all this pent up rage and it wasn’t truly about me as a person,” ADÉLA tells V Magazine, describing The Provocateur as a project shaped by an experience she had in the public eye. “I was like, ‘but it’s time to be myself.’”
That shift became central to PRIMA, her debut studio album released September 4 through Capitol Records. Rather than continuing to build around the anger and confrontation that defined her first era, ADÉLA approached the album as a more personal introduction to who she is as an artist.
The transition also brought a different kind of pressure. “My EP didn’t go crazy, crazy,” she says, before explaining how even a modest positive response can change an artist’s relationship with their next release. “As soon as you feel something you’ve created is loved by anybody, immediately the human reaction for some reason is, with the next thing you make, oh my god, are they gonna like this, too? Now there’s eyes on it.”
The Provocateur arrived August 22, 2025, after a rollout that began with “Homewrecked” in September 2024 and “Superscar” the following month. ADÉLA followed with “Machine Girl,” produced with Grimes, and “Death by Devotion” before announcing the EP.
The project established ADÉLA as an artist willing to embrace provocation rather than soften it. Its campaign included the striking “Sex on the Beat” music video and controversial cover art, while The ProvocaTour took the material to the stage in October 2025.
PRIMA marks a clear expansion of that identity. Across the album, ADÉLA moves between pop, electropop and R&B while confronting insecurity, toxic relationships, ambition, success and the complicated process of figuring out who she wants to become. The album’s title references the “prima ballerina,” the highest rank a ballerina can attain, mirroring its themes of ambition and self-definition.
PRIMA generated more than 10 million Spotify streams during its first day, while “Ain’t in LA” climbed to No. 7 on Spotify’s Daily Global chart and became the first song by a Slovak artist to enter the Billboard Hot 100.
ADÉLA is now taking that momentum to the stage with her Red Bottoms Tour, which began in London on August 25 and continues through February 3, 2027, in Warsaw.
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