Akriila throws open the doors to her gloriously messy musical multiverse

F rom her music alone, you might not register Akriila as a Beatles fan.

The genre-bending Chilean rapper and singer’s catalogue is breathlessly eclectic and digital: she broke out in 2023 with a trap mixtape, ‘001’, and followed up a year later with a noise-perreo-grunge-drum’n’bass mesh of a debut album, ‘Epistolares’.

You can hear bedroom alt-pop and indie rock in her latest singles – which include ‘Suave’, featuring digicore star Jane Remover .

It’s this elasticity and energy that make Akriila one of the most exciting emerging artists right now.

But when NME catches up with the 22-year-old, she’s excited for her maiden trip to the UK, and is hoping to take her dad with her.

“He is a Beatles fanatic,” she smiles.

Her new album makes her admiration of the Fab Four even clearer: its title ‘Lucy Miró Al Mundo Y Notó Que Está Girando, Es Mi Segundo Disco’ nods to both ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ and George Harrison ’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. (Its English title is ‘Lucy Looked At The World, And Noticed That It’s Spinning’, leaves off the literal explanation on the end: “This is my second album.”) And while it’s not quite hit the level of Beatlemania yet, Akriila has built a swooning, loyal fanbase of her own, selling out her first-ever US headline tour – including three back-to-back dates in New York – in July.

Her fans have also embraced a slogan of sorts from ‘Epistolares’: “Hot gays listen to Akriila.” The artist, affectionately known as Akrii, has been open about her queer identity, sporting a tank top stamped with the word ‘LESBIAN’ in past press photos.

“[Representation] is important because it’s who I am,” she says.

“When I was growing up, songs were only about women talking about men and men talking about women.” When she first heard the music of queer artists, she felt a greater sense of belonging, and is happy that ‘Hot gays listen to Akriila’ has catalysed the same sense of community for her fans.

“It’s playful and catchy.

I love it.” Akriila on The Cover of NME.

Credit: Lo Harley for NME ‘Lucy…’ is set to catapult Akriila, now an Atlantic Records artist, to a new level.

Speaking over video call from a small village in Switzerland, where she’s just visited the museum of visionary Alien artist H.R.