Òlah Bliss is a London based – Polish born singer who’s music can only be defined as emotionally honest, raw and 100% real. She shows the good parts of her self and the bad parts within her music, she doesn’t cherry pick out little bits and curate it to show a pristine life like many do with social media within her music. She shows everything, the passion, infidelity, the desire and everything else in-between in a genre that she has titled ‘Situationships’ (there’s even a Spotify playlist for it.)

Bliss started off her music career at a young age by performing at multiple Jazz events in her native country of Poland before moving out to the UK at aged 16 to continue her musical education at college and university, later graduating with a BA in Commercial Music. As she began to grow as an artist she slowly began to move away from Jazz and enter the trap pop world with her debut track being a cover of Post Malone’s global hit Rockstar which garnered a lot of attention from his fanbase which saw the track get over 400,000 streams as well as a lot of love from the music community.

Since then she hasn’t stopped her pursuit of world domination with her performing for the fashion crowds at London Fashion Week, playing at multiple UK music festivals and opening for Rag’N’Bone Man, Hopsin, Talib Kweli and The Hebaliser to name but a few. She even performed at SXSW on the Viceland Bus, wish we could’ve seen that live but honestly she’s been doing it all!

She’s also released a string of singles that will leave you pondering the complexity of your relationships with tracks like Hoes having a slick rhythm to it whilst the atmospheric production builds up the emotion of the piece as Bliss’s vocals deliver a raw vulnerability that is enthralling from start to finish. Then you’ve got her latest number We Only Live Once that has raw emotion behind the lyricisms of the piece with certain moments catching you off guard with the pain they convey and the journey they take you one as Bliss explains, “‘We Only Live Once’ is one of those records that takes you on a journey of realisation that love is the most powerful feeling in the world and sometimes it makes us act out of character, but at the end of the day, we do only get one shot at this thing called life, so does it even matter?”

In short Òlah Bliss is a force to be reckoned with, she creates music that centres around the good, bad and ugly, touching subjects most artists wouldn’t even consider going near and offers a fresh perspective into the modern complications of relationships. She’s an individual in the truest sense of the word and we had the pleasure of sitting down with her to discuss her career in music, her dream collaborations and what is next for the rising star.

Let’s go back to beginning how did you get started with music?

Well I’ve always sang so I did my first competition when I was 5 years old and then I just kept doing things like that before moving to England. Actually back home I was doing a lot of Jazz events and Jazz evenings and then came to England, went to music college and Uni. I’ve just always been around music, it’s all I’ve ever done! I don’t remember doing anything else.

I’m actually intrigued how did you go from the Jazz sound to your current trap pop sound as it’s quite a big leap isn’t it?

Yeah, I don’t know actually! My biggest inspiration is Bjork so growing up I was listen to her music whilst doing a lot of self trained Jazz and I guess I just progressed. You know how as you grow older your taste in music changes and you have different influences and stuff, so I guess I don’t even know. I just make songs now, I don’t really think about the sound I just develop my own music.

Your most recent releases like Hoes and We Only Live Once have been heavily focussed on the complexity of modern day relationships. I was wondering what inspired you to be so honest about these experiences and how they effected your songwriting?

I always say this, men will be the death of me. I feel like I hate men but I love them so much it annoys me, it annoys me so much. Like I love you guys but…

Don’t worry no offence taken, trust me when I say this I agree that men are dicks.

Yeah 100%, I mean women can be dicks too and I’ll be completely frank, I’ve done some messed up shit myself and I’m a female so you know whatever. I feel like I’ve always had an interesting relationship with men from when I was very young til now when I’m an adult and it’s always effected me. What I’ve found is that men will go to so many lengths to sleep with a girl. I mean they will say the maddest shit! I remember just chilling with this guy and he was saying the most to me and I was like dude if you wanna hook up just say it. Who says that women are just looking for relationships all the time, but for some reason guys think that we’re not up for hook ups because we’re just thinking about a relationship, kids, our future, like no bro that’s not what we think about we are also dogs!

You know I think through my experiences with guys, I had some fucked up situations, the drama just comes to me, I don’t know what it is! But with all the stuff my friends tell me, especially my girlfriends, sometimes they’ll say things and I’ll think ‘oh my god you’re so naive’ and I just decided that maybe if I make music about the real shit and just show another perspective not as many people will get hurt. Whether people are listening to me I don’t know!

You’ve also performed live opening for acts like Rag n Bone Man, Hopsin and Talib Kweli to name a few, so what would you say has been your most memorable moment performing live so far?

There are quite a few I’d say, I think it really depends on what kind of show you’re playing. Sometimes the big shows are not the most exciting ones, sometimes they’re amazing, I think it really depends on the crowd but when you’re opening for big artists there’s always that pressure, you’re just an opening act and nine times out of ten people won’t know who you are so you need to find the balance between doing you but warming up the crowd for the main event and that’s been a very hard thing to do. They’re are a couple of support shows I’ve enjoyed, I opened for The Herbaliser who I grew up listening to and I opened up for them at the Jazz Cafe and I was just the supporting act but everyone was asking for an encore which was amazing.

I know we’re stuck in quarantine and can’t go to live music gigs right now so I thought we’d go back and reminisce about what some of your favourite moments you’ve ever experienced at a live show were?

Recently I went to a Slipknot show, not entirely my kind of music, I used to listen to them a lot when I was a teenager, I know a lot of the song but it was sick and I kept looking at the clown. I just kept thinking he’s so weird, I love it and he threw a drumstick and I caught it! I was someones plus one and caught it then everyone around me was just looking at me with the stick and then I just heard someone whisper ‘hide it, hide this stick because someone will steal it.’ So I hide the stick and am like ooh where’s the stick. Another one is James Blake at Latitude Fest. It was the first time I’d seen him playing live, I was in the crowd and I just heard this oomph, the bass was so crazy and I just stood there and couldn’t move because it was so perfect. The energy levels were mad!

What is your song writing process? Do you have any rituals or things you do to get yourself into the songwriting headspace or does it just come out whenever you get an idea for a track?

If you could collaborate with any artist dead or alive who would it be and why?

Oh my god don’t do this to me! Ty Dolla Sign, James Blake and Michael Jackson, I would love to work with him but that would be some weird save the world track with all the profits going to a charity or something, that’s the only thing I can see with MJ. I would actually love to work with xxxtentacion. School Boy Q too, random I know but I just love him! SZA too because she’s so amazing with her writing and harmonies, I think we could make magic! Òlah Bliss and SZA produced by James Blake!

If your music was a colour what colour would it be and why?

Red, because it’s filled with emotion and sometimes it comes from a negative place, all of my music comes from hurt so definitely red. It’s also the typical cliche love thing, you know but red is also my favourite colour. I don’t have many red clothes but I just love red, it just makes me feel safe and I’m an emotional being and it makes me feel like I can be all up in my feelings.

What’s next for Òlah Bliss?

I’m planning on becoming an international sensation! I think every artists dream is for their music to be heard, it’s not necessarily about what comes from it that’s not what we aim for it’s just about getting your music heard by the masses. The best I can do is release music that I love, music that can resonate with people because it resonates with me and just write about what about what I’m going through and my struggles, not just about love because life isn’t just about relationships and being caught up in your emotions because there is some real shit out there. I think I really want to write a lot about my artists struggles, friendships and family stuff and I think I’ve finally matured enough to write about that stuff. So that’s what I want to do and then the world domination, then get rich and help people with that.