ILENE Reminds Us Black Girls Can Make Hyperpop

Being an independent artist has never been easy — and with the constantly changing internet landscape, advent of TikTok, and razor focus on streaming services — it doesn’t seem to be getting easier. Still, creative music makers are excited to put their music in front of audiences despite the challenges, even when their challenges are more complex than their counterparts. Enter ILENE, a genre-bending, sound-defying hyperpop alternative artist. Her visceral pop bangers put her on the map in 2019, with fans finding her on BandLab, and resonating with her sharp delivery and in-your-face lyrical antics. The DIY ethos of the platform worked well for Monica Ilene Lackey, who had been writing songs her whole life, and she went on to win two of BandLab’s global songwriting competitions and became the first recipient of their Creator Grant in 2022. Critics took note, with NME calling her an artist to watch, referring to her turbulent tracks as “enticingly dark delights.”

With the talent, looks, and fearlessness to pursue her career, chart success felt like the obvious next step for ILENE, but as a Black artist making music that didn’t fit into the neat boxes of R&B or rap, she faced challenges getting her music to the world and being accepted by the industry and fans who thought she should present in a certain way.

Now, she’s working on an EP with Grammy-nominated producer Epikh Pro (Bryson Tiller, Cardi B, Eminem) and excited to share her most unpredictable bars and soundscapes yet. The first taste for that collection of tracks, “HONEY NUT” is a raunchy yet hilarious and sonically playful bop. “I want it to be stuck in their heads,” ILENE says of the summertime track. “It’s so fun and I want people to have fun singing it, even if they don’t sing the whole song, it’ll be hard not to scream, ‘Mario, cheerio, cereal’ over and over,” she tells UPROXX.

Below, ILENE talks to us about the specific issues of being a Black independent artist, what she hopes will change in the industry, and how she plans on getting her songs out into the world.

I love your new track “HONEY NUT” — with the references to video games and the echoing in the open. How did that song come to you?

The song is hilarious because it’s very raunchy and off the wall at times. It’s so not serious. I literally got this song idea while I was pouring chemicals down my pipes, literally having a plumbing issue. Also, I have been celibate for over two or three years [Laughs]. It’s funny and it’s upbeat. I love the fact that it’s playful and there’s a call and response. It gets stuck in your head. That’s what happened to me … it was like I didn’t write the song, so to speak, it just came to my head. I was pouring stuff down the drain, and it reminded me of the game Super Mario Smash Bros, how they jump through the pipes. That was exciting, how quickly that song came to me. I hope that the song makes people feel empowered and fun, flirty, cute, sexy, badass. Just so they can do whatever they want, even if their pipes haven’t been cleaned in years.

How has the reaction been from listeners?

There have been double standards. There was a guy with a social media platform that reviewed it. he said it was inappropriate and needed more innuendo than being direct. Then people were in the comments like, “You literally just played a song that was way raunchier.” He had literally just played a rap song with disgusting lyrics and the guy couldn’t even sing and he’d loved it. And then the minute it was a woman talking about sexual empowerment, he hated it. He went on to triangulate me and Sabrina Carpenter… he said she was great because she wasn’t so direct, because of the innuendo.

Interesting that he’s ok with it if it’s a man or a white artist. What are some of the issues you’ve dealt with as a Black artist putting out music and resonating with fans?

BandLab had picked me during Black History Month as one of the Black artists on their platform a few years back. When they did, people were like…“She isn’t even black.” Growing up in my family, things were always fractured. There was a whole identity thing from my parents’ skin tones being vastly different and I don’t look like either of them completely. My mother, she would go out in the sun, hoping for darker skin and only getting freckles. So when I would rap and say the ‘N’ word, people would say that I couldn’t say that word. I was getting attacked online. I don’t want to be a victim in this whole… but we’re in 2025, and people fail to realize that Black people could look differently, in a wide range of ways. I feel like my identity has been policed. Even with “HONEY NUT” I say the ‘N word’ twice and someone wrote in a comment, “You sound like a white girl and you don’t look Black… you shouldn’t be saying that.” I’m so tired of having to defend my Blackness. I’m so tired of having to defend each and every part of me all the time, even being racially ambiguous or a more “palatable” Black girl… This wouldn’t even be happening if I looked how people would expect me to look.

I remember reading about Tina Turner when she was trying to get radio play and feeling like she was in between — not Black enough for Black radio and not white enough for white radio. How do you hope that changes in the future?

Just not being boxed in and for people to know that people are not a monolith and that everyone, each and every one of us, regardless of how we look, we’re all capable of being multifaceted and into multiple different things. I feel like you shouldn’t have to just pick one genre and stick to it. I feel like a lot of artists have gotten blowback. When you see artists go into the country genre or or pop artists go into rock… artists are allowed to explore in different genres more now than ever. It does feel like people are freer than they’ve ever been to explore different genres.

What are you most excited to share with fans next?

I have a couple of singles that are coming up and I am working on an EP. It’s pop, alt pop, hyper pop. I’ll be dropping singles every single month. It’s going to be very much the inside of my closet and there are clothes all over the floor and it’s like you’re picking up a mini skirt, like “oh that’s cute,” and there are panties, a cardigan, a tee, and rollerskates. There’s a bit of everything. That’s how the EP is, it’s amazing, but it’s [chaotic] too.