South African singer & songwriter, Ipeleng is an independent, alternative artist. She released her debut EP titled “Unsolicited” in March, this year. The EP is an alternative, infused RnB body of work that has, a total of seven songs. One interesting thing about Ipeleng is that not only is she a singer and songwriter on her EP, she also produced two of the songs “A need” & “A craving.”
We compiled questions from our Instagram followers and chose five questions that we think are interesting and would give us more detailed information about, Ipeleng and her music career.
Who is Ipeleng besides her being a musician and where is she from?
I am a student, a writer, a feminist, someone who believes in social justice in all its forms and I reign from the East Rand.
As an alternative artist, how do you plan on creating music that is mainstream yet, still represents an authentic sound that best describes you?
I don’t plan on making and creating anything that strays far from who I am. At the crux of everything, I make music for myself first and I can’t create anything authentic if I am constantly pondering about how the mainstream market will receive it. If it happens that people outside of the alternative space – creators and consumers alike – enjoy my music then that would be great. At the end of the day people will love and connect with anything that is good and real irrespective of the genre.
What’s the story behind “A need?”
“A need” is a collection of stories and experiences. It’s not attached to a single encounter but it really just encompasses the feelings of inadequacy that have characterised a lot of these encounters. I’ve struggled with this; giving and giving to someone and hoping that it would make them change their mind on how to treat me. That never works. People will treat you the way that they want to and often it has nothing to do with you. I’ve started embracing the idea that regardless of what has been done to me, I am responsible for my own healing and I am responsible for taking myself out of unhealthy spaces. For my mental health.
Any visuals coming up soon?
As soon as we get past this pandemic there are definitely visuals coming your way. I’m already working on a few things.
What inspired the title of your EP?
I worked really hard to make this EP what I wanted it to be and throughout the process of making it and sorting out all the finer details, I found myself really stretching myself and just jaded. I recall asking myself, “Why? Nobody even asked for this.” At that point I realised that nobody ever asked me for my love, my pain, my heartache, my grief and insecurities yet here I was giving it to them. This EP is really Ipeleng unsolicited.
Stream and download ‘Unsolicited’ here
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