Four years ago, Enny (full name Enitan Adepitan) was working as a payments officer in a bank. ‘I was 22, 23, and I had that moment of sitting in an office, looking around me and being afraid that was it, that I’d be stuck there forever,’ she remembers.
So she quit and started to actively pursue a career in music. In October 2020, she released her breakthrough song, Peng Black Girls. ‘I just wanted to gass myself up and be proud of who I was,’ she says of her lockdown hit, which saw her compared to Lauryn Hill. She went on to release a remix of the tune with label-mate Jorja Smith singing the hook. ‘The remix happened on WhatsApp,’ she says. ‘Pascale, my producer, was sending me different beats on the group chat. It played a vital part in helping us collaborate – because of the privacy features, you know your IP is protected.’
Next for her is working on a second EP. ‘I want to give more context on who I am,’ she explains. ‘I want to show that being this Black girl from southeast London isn’t monolithic. There are different types of ways Black women and girls exist and I’m just one story of many.’ What would she say to 23-year-old Enny working in a bank now? ‘Keep going fam. They say you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. I’d rather try and fail than never know.’
Watch our video below where Enny talks about her musical inspiration, her new song Champagne Problems and what’s next for her as an artist.
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Alison is head of content for the Good Housekeeping Institute, responsible for product reviews across homes, beauty, wellness, family and food & drink. She lives by the William Morris quote that you should “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Alison has over 15 years' experience as a lifestyle editor and has written features on everything from misophonia to how to dress like Claudia on The Traitors. She has also interviewed everyone from Dame Joanna Lumley to the Kardashians.
In her spare time, you'll find her hanging out with Monty the cocker spaniel and refreshing the Sezane website every five seconds.
