Reggae Singer Lila Iké on Staying True to Her Jamaican Roots

15.08.2024 - 20:24 / cntraveler.com / Bob Marley

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Lale sits down with reggae singer Lila Iké, as part of Condé Nast Traveler’s music and travel coverage this month, to find out about life in Kingston, the old school influences that still shape her music now, and what it was like performing live on stage for the first time. But even as she tours the world, she remains faithful to Jamaica’s reggae heritage. “I am a very Jamaican girl,” says Iké. “I grew up in the country, and it doesn't get any more Jamaican than that. I'm a very rootsy, and my music reflects a lot of that.”

Lale Arikoglu: Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu and this is Women Who Travel. Earlier this year I caught up with the talented reggae singer, Lila Iké for Conde Nast Traveler’s Ask a Local column. We talked all things Jamaica, but I also asked her, if she’d be a guest on this show.

Lila Iké: My mom really loved reggae music, so I grew up listening to a lot of reggae. So we might listen to a Bob Marley album, or a Burning Spear or a Peter Tosh and whatever she was into musically, I would always pay extra attention—I wonder why she likes this song. So from a very young age, I always just listened very closely to the lyrics of the music and listened to the instrumentation and everything, and the music that I listened to, the music that was played in my house is music that made me who I am. I don't think if my mom was listening to some other genre or some other type of music, if I would be the same artist that I am today.

LA: Lila's music fuses contemporary reggae with elements of soul, hip-hop and dance hall, but she's faithful to Jamaica's reggae heritage.

LI: I'd say my music definitely represents Jamaica because I definitely keep the roots involved. I am a very Jamaican girl. I grew up in the country. It really doesn't get any more Jamaican than that. But I'm also very much grounded in reggae music. I love reggae for real. I'm a very rootsy girl, so my music reflects a lot of that. And if you listen, you'd find that the elements in my music, the songs, the bassline, the drums, it's very reggae. I try to incorporate a lot of the original old school Jamaica music that I grew up on, because I realized that a lot of my peers, especially when I was in university, when everybody was listening to when Trap was becoming a thing and everybody's blowing up and it's like, "Whoa, this is a cool thing right now." I was still skanking to the slow one drop and everybody thought I was weird, and I was like, "Yo, this music is so beautiful. I just don't understand how you guys are not getting it."

And I was like, "This is the music I'm going to make. I'm going to do reggae music."