Q&A: IamOutlandish Found Her Way Back Through Music
WRITTEN BY JAMARI SHELTON
✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩
✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩
For IamOutlandish, music has never really been something she decided to do. It has always been there.
Long before she was uploading songs to streaming platforms or seeing her music appear in H&M stores, the UK-based artist was a kid tapping rhythms onto anything she could find, instinctively hearing melodies and recreating them on a keyboard. At 14, she discovered GarageBand through her music teacher’s MacBook. By 15, she had released her first song and submitted it to BBC Introducing, a radio station promoting emerging artists throughout the UK.
She didn’t expect anything to happen. In fact, she expected the opposite.
“I didn’t actually think it was gonna happen,” she said. “I just thought it would be good to show myself what the process would be like if I was gonna do it one day.”
Even her BBC Introducing submission reflected how little she expected anyone to take it seriously. When asked where she lived, she jokingly answered, “The moon.”
“I just thought they’re not gonna play me, so funny enough, I wasn’t actually nervous because I didn’t think it was possible.” She said
She received an email telling her that her song had been played on the radio. At the time, she was also being bullied at school, making the achievement even harder for her to immediately process. She remembers people leaving cruel voicemails pretending to be from a music organization and telling her that her music was terrible.
And just like that, the girl who thought nobody would listen had proof that someone was. Nearly a decade later, IamOutlandish is 24, but her relationship with music hasn’t been a straight line.
After those early beginnings, she eventually stepped away from music for three years. After lockdown, she began working more, taking jobs in places like garages and pubs. Work gradually became her priority, and music kept getting pushed further into the background.
“I enjoyed making money, and I think it literally just took over because you go to work, do your day, come home. There’s no inspiration. There’s nothing there. Like, I don’t want to do anything.”
Eventually, she realized the problem wasn’t simply that she wasn’t making music. She was losing herself without it.
The realization became impossible to ignore. She would drive home from work listening to music, including her own, and feel increasingly disconnected from the person she wanted to be.
“I’d rather have no money and just fly through it and do music.”
Instead of immediately throwing herself back into the same routine, she transitioned her full-time job into part-time remote work, giving herself room to reconnect with herself physically and mentally.
“I just felt so much more freedom,” She said. “Whereas before the three-year break, it would have felt slightly forced at times. But this was just… I don’t know. I was really excited.”
The break had changed her. That ended up changing her music, too. The break encouraged her to make the music she truly wanted to release.
Her song “IDK” recently became a Record of the Week on BBC Radio. Not long after, she discovered something unexpected in her streaming statistics: H&M had added the song to one of its playlists.
“I saw the sound of H&M, and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’” She said. “It was actually H&M.”
The retailer’s Spotify playlist mirrors the music played inside its stores, meaning her song wasn’t simply sitting on a digital playlist — it had made its way into physical H&M locations.
The moment became even more surreal when listeners began reaching out.
“I am getting people messaging me from America and Mexico and stuff like that, and they’re like, ‘I Shazammed you. I found you in H&M. Like, this is crazy.’”
Her connection to music isn’t entirely accidental, either. Iamoutlandish grew up watching her mother sing in a band while her father played drums in the same group. Her mother had her own musical aspirations, too. At one point, she was offered the opportunity to become a singer on a cruise ship, an enormous opportunity at the time. At the time, her brother was just a baby
Now, her mother sees her daughter pursuing the path she once imagined for herself.
“She says to me, ‘I want you to do everything, everything that I didn’t.’” IamOutlandish said.
With everything happening so quickly, she’s also had to confront something she hadn’t necessarily expected: her fear of fame.
“I had to understand my fear of fame because it is actually still a little scary,” She said. “But when you’re scared of something, the universe isn’t as open to giving it to you.”
She wants other young women to see what’s possible when they take control of their own careers.
“If I can show, especially like young women, if I can show them that you don’t need a label, you can do things yourself, you can learn, especially nowadays, then I think I’m winning.” She said
That philosophy is already reflected in how she works. She’s taught herself production, built her own sounds, learned new technology and figured out how to make music on her own terms.
Now, she wants to take that independence to a live audience.
She’d love to perform through BBC Introducing, which often connects emerging artists with live opportunities and festivals. But she’s also planning to create her own opportunity.
Next year, she hopes to rent a London venue that can hold around 100 people and invite some of her top listeners to experience her music live.
And if her recent run from BBC Radio to Spotify recommendations, international listeners and music playing inside H&M stores is any indication, IamOutlandish might not have to wait long to find out.
