Annahstasia - Tether

Photo Credit: Annahstasia by Zhamak Fullad 

Last week, British music producer, Toddla T, reported in an Instagram post that a “private and confidential letter was recently sent to the bookers of Glastonbury Festival, urging them to remove Kneecap from the lineup.” According to the post, the letter was submitted by “a systematically powerful music agent and signed by 30 individuals within the industry.” The controversy added fuel to the fire surrounding Kneecap’s appearance at the festival, but it also hinted at something far more insidious, a deeper lie that sits at the heart of the industry. The illusion of artistic liberty.

In a business where powerful gatekeepers commodify creativity while claiming to champion it, control often masquerades as curation. Those who challenge the status quo, whether it be politically, aesthetically, or spiritually are quietly pushed to the margins, regardless of their talent. While Kneecap’s story continues to unfold in public, countless other artists face a slower, quieter kind of erasure. One of them was Annahstasia Enuke. Last week, she released her long-awaited debut album, Tether, a work shaped as much by resistance as by vision. Ahead of its release, we caught up with her to learn a little more about her long and arduous journey through an unforgiving industry.

“I’ve had a long road before coming to this moment,” she says, reflecting on her origins as an artist. “I got discovered when I was 17.” At the time, Annahstasia had her sights set on becoming a doctor or a researcher, the idea of a career in music had never really crossed her mind. Yet, after a chance encounter while singing after school, she took a detour that would mark the beginning of a long and complicated road.

Signing to a record label at such a young age naturally came with its benefits. “I got a really nice education in songwriting,” she says, a skill that would lay the foundations for the artist she is today. However, the illusion would soon dissipate and what should have been a dream opportunity, quickly became a nightmare. “Me and the label, we didn’t see eye to eye,” she reflects. “They wanted me to be making music that I didn’t want to be making.” At that age, she may not have known exactly what kind of artist she wanted to be, but she had the clarity to understand who she didn’t want to become. “I could definitely say no to the things that didn’t feel right, and I said no a lot. So I got shelved.”

Locked into a contract and unable to find a creative compromise, Annahstasia found herself at a crossroads, so she went back to school. “I got a political science degree, I got a paper making degree, I did other things besides music” she explains. “I didn’t touch the guitar for five or six years because my relationship with music had been completely destroyed.” 

The desolation of a dream, crushed by capitalistic and litigious forces always stings and in this instance amplifies profound questions about the ownership of creative people and their ideas. “I couldn’t release any music without it being outright owned by this label, I didn’t see the point of being in that kind of slavery. So I went and pursued other avenues of creativity until that expired.”

It wasn’t until 2019 that she was free from her contract and could finally start work on new music. “I decided to do it independently. I didn’t want to mess around with labels again; I was pretty traumatised by my experience and afraid of getting locked into another long-term situation without the money for lawyers or the right kind of protection,” she says. “I felt completely ill-equipped to navigate the music industry at that level by myself.”

The first steps she took after the expiration of her deal happened in tiny studios. Away from prying eyes she worked alongside friends like Ben Kahn, Jay Cooper, and Jahi Sundance. Together, they crafted a multi-genre alt-R&B sound that culminated in the release of a project called Sacred Bull. 

Photo Credit: Annahstasia in the studio recording Tether by Diana Quach

The record caught the attention of bookers and soon she found herself on the way to Europe to open for Lenny Kravitz, another moment that seemed poised to offer the breakthrough she had been working so hard for, but ultimately, it didn’t materialise. “My career has been marked by all these moments that I thought were going to change my life,” she says. “I thought ‘this is it, this is going to change the game, I’m going to get a manager, I’m going to get a label again, it’s all going to get easier.’ Low and behold, it did not. I was massively in debt. And then COVID happened.”

Isolated like the rest of the world, Annahstasia was forced to sit with the reality of her situation. “That was a very depressing time on multiple fronts. For me and my musicianship, I really felt lost, I didn’t know what to do, how to keep going. I gave up in a sense.” For most, that kind of disappointment might be enough to force them to change course but for Annahstasia, her unwavering resilience kept her pushing forward.

“I had this feeling that I needed to make a record that I actually wanted to make. I realised I hadn’t done that yet. In all the distraction, I was constantly trying to make something for the industry. I never just sat down and made something for myself.” With her stimulus cheque and the unexpected abundance of time, she began recording Revival, a collection of tracks written over the past eight years. Through that EP, she would rediscover her love for music and composition, finally revealing to the world the sound of her true, authentic voice as an artist. The project stands not just as a testament to her immense talent, but to the fact that she was right all along in trusting her creative instincts.

Revival was also my own personal point of entry into Annahstasia’s world. When I first heard her soft, buttery vocals on “Midas,” I was immediately spellbound. Often cited as a disciple of Nina Simone and Tracy Chapman, her voice carries that same gravity. Genreless, fearless, and wholly her own. On “Power,” a standout from the EP, she captures the full weight of her battle with poetic force:

It’s a painful labor
I’m always on my back
Trying to become someone, the world can't crack
Will I ever bounce back?
Will I ever bounce back?

The track highlights the emotional truth that sits at the heart of her songwriting, equal parts vulnerability and strength. Her words feel lived-in, grounded in the tension between her perseverance and doubt. It’s here, in this friction, that the full extent of her talent emerges.

To borrow the words of a very different artist, on “The 1,” Taylor Swift sings, “the greatest films of all time were never made.” Annahstasia’s story plays out as a quiet echo of that sentiment. Had she capitulated to the industry at 17, the world might never have known this stunning collection of songs and a voice that comes along once in a generation. How many other artists have suffered the same fate? How many are out there right now, making music they don’t believe in, suppressing their truest artistic selves and what does that rob from the world?

Photo Credit: Annahstasia in the studio recording Tether by Jackie Radinsky

In addition to marking her first steps as an artist on her own terms, Revival helped Annahstasia begin building a team that could finally support her in navigating the industry. With newfound confidence in her vision, she began work on her debut album Tether just six months after finishing Revival, but it would take years of growth, experimentation, and persistence for it to become the record we hear today.

“I was in and out of the process for four years,” she explains. “I recorded it several times, in different ways. The first few times were without any budget at all, completely independently, until I realised that to do it properly, and to do what I wanted to do, I needed to prioritise Hi-Fi recording in a proper studio.”

In order to realise the ambitious scale that she had envisaged for Tether, it was essential to find the right engineer and players to create the sound she’d wanted, but that, of course, required money and support. “It was a lot of waiting for the right partner and the right deal to come along, with the right people who would basically just give me the money and fuck off and not be breathing down my neck the entire time,” she jokes.

Eventually, she forged a partnership with ‘drink sum wtr’, a team that describe themsleves as an “emerging record label that looks beyond trends to invest in a new cultural legacy.” It felt like a perfect fit. 

On the surface, it seems as though it might finally be Annahstasia’s time. When the record dropped last week, it was met with a wave of adulation. NME summed up our thoughts when they wrote: “Here, she claims her rightful place as a pioneer of modern folk.” Finally receiving her flowers for the artist and innovator that she truly is.

But after all the years, the effort, and the setbacks, what kept her coming back? “The reason I’m doing it is not for the fame. I’m not doing it for the success or the financial stability. The music industry has been completely gutted in terms of financial opportunities for musicians,” she explains. “I’ve had to establish a reason and a core for why I’m doing this, outside of generally accepted measures of success. The only thing I’ve found that I can lean on faithfully is my spiritual connection with music.”

What might sound glib coming from another artist lands as wholly sincere when expressed by Annahstasia. You get the sense that, regardless of what was happening in her world, she would still be there, guitar in hand, writing and playing. “The only thing I can concern myself with is my relationship with my craft, my relationship to my voice,” she says. “I have to find peace in the prospect of being seventy years old, singing to two people in a dive bar somewhere and that being enough for me, and still bringing me joy.”

Tether is one of those rare albums that reminds you why you fell in love with music. It carries all the scars of its creation, imbuing it with a distinctly human quality. After all, we are each shaped by the roads we’ve travelled. In an often exploitative industry that rewards compliance over courage, this is not just Annahstasia’s first full artistic statement, it is an act of resistance. A radical rebuttal against the forces that seek to shrink us and a quiet reminder to artists everywhere to trust your instincts, honor your voice and don’t wait for permission.

Tether is out now via drink sum wtr.