Iniko Sings With The Wind of Change

Dressed in an airy white - their favorite color, as it reflects light and radiates energy - Iniko sat with us for a small talk under the trees on the shoreline of Lake Geneva in Montreux. A couple of hours later, their performance on the Lisztomania stage felt like a catharsis, a journey through space and profound emotions - awe, pain, rage, love, hope. Because out of all the things they can do (and truly, there are many), Iniko’s greatest power is their empathy, the connection they can form with their audience. All of that shines through when chatting with them about touring, queerness, and the revolution that’s coming. ‍

The interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can watch the filmed interview on our Instagram and TikTok.‍

Gio: You've been on the road for a couple of months now with The Awakening Tour. How has it been?‍

Iniko: It's been tiring. I want to be like “Oh, it's so much fun!” but I think it's less fun and more fulfilling. It makes me feel full knowing that I'm able to travel all across the world and spread this message of knowing self, understanding self, reimagining yourself. But then at the same time, I think, as a person who is chronically ill and I think by being queer too, it can be rather tiring. I’m moving a lot and people misgender me. I'm not in a space where I will just correct a stranger because I've been in this situation before and it was a whole thing that I don't wanna have to experience again. Thankfully, I have people with me who are really diligent about that, so I usually don't have to correct them. But yeah, I wanna be honest with you, touring is no joke. You have to prepare yourself mentally to literally open yourself up to hundreds, thousands of people, and it's a different energy every night. ‍

Gio: How do you keep your energy when all these different energies are coming to you?‍

Iniko: That's a good question. Well, I self-medicate with the earth, with myself. I try to spend time with my partner as well. And also, rethink my music, and make new music. I'm always trying to see what can come next. These are the ways that I ground myself if I'm not able to have a free day, and we don't really have a lot of them. But I'm still excited because I’m visiting places I've never been to before. So I think that is what is fueling me.‍

Gio: You've been working on your album for five years now, how has it evolved? Has your tour nourished new perspectives on it? ‍

Iniko: We named the tour after the album, The Awakening. Initially, the album was supposed to come out a little bit earlier, but we weren't able to release it at that time, it just wasn't ready yet. We still wanted to give people an inkling of insight into what they would be experiencing on the album. On the tour, I perform most of the new album, so it's just a bunch of new music! It's been really fun as I only have just a couple of songs out. It's always really refreshing to be able to perform new art and new music and to get to see how people react to it. And the great thing is that when I perform it live, that's the live version, but that's not the album version. So when the album comes out, it'll still feel new, it'll feel familiar but new at the same time. So that's kind of how we've been incorporating the album into the tour while also putting in some songs on there that people know.‍

Gio: What do you hope people will get from your performance tonight?‍

Iniko: For this show, honestly like any other show, I am hoping people will wanna be open, whatever that might mean to them. I hope that they will be open to the message of universal truth, which I mean is the fact that we are all human no matter how we choose to be, and how we choose to show up in the world. At the end of the day, we all bleed the same blood, the same color red. This on top of us is our skin, literally like a gaming skin, and we should be able to change it, move it, and rearrange it how we see fit. I want people to understand that, because that message is the underlying message for every conflict, every war, every genocide. If people were able to see people, not for what they think those people are, but what those people say that they are. Wow! I think that the world might implode like rainbows and flowers! So that's really my message for this tour.‍

Gio: Your last single, “Armor”, has been really resonating with the sociopolitical situation across the globe. Under your videos, I've seen people commenting that your music was accompanying the new age of Aquarius, and you talk yourself about a shift in the lyrics. Do you believe change is upon us? ‍

Iniko: This gave me goosebumps… The wind just started blowing too! 

Yes, I think change has been on the way for a really long time now. It's been bubbling. In the age of Aquarius, there are many truths being revealed that have always been there. People's eyes are finally opening and now we have to take a step in a direction that we might not have ever seen before, or at least they don't want us to think that we've seen it before. But in every revolution, this is what has to happen, things have to be torn down. They have to be broken in order for flowers to push through. In order for real change to push through. That is a big part of my music and it's also a big part of me. I want people who are marginalized - queer people, trans people, Black people, brown people, people who have experienced oppression, microaggressions - I want them to know that this world has always been ours. We are a very important part of it, the strangeness of it, the weirdness of it, the parts of it that have always, again, been there. So yes, change is definitely afoot and I can't wait to continue to see it unfold.‍

Gio: Talking about that, do you have any book or media recommendations to grow, politically or spiritually?‍

Iniko: That's a really good question. I'm neurodivergent, so I take in information visually a lot better. There are a lot of short-form content creators who are doing really amazing work. I’m thinking of Donnell McLachlan (@donnellwrites), Tysir Salih (@red_maat), and Eman Mabrouk (@ms.emanmabrouk).

If we're being honest, social media is the reason why the revolution is happening, because we are able to see what is going on. We've never been able to have that connection to people who are far away. So the fact that we're able to see it now plays such a big part. Social media is simply a medium. It's a way to get information out there. It's the same way that I've been using my music to reach people who are like me. I would just tell people to turn my story notifications on because I'm always posting stuff there. Also, in America, they're doing a lot of bans on books, so information, at least in book form, is becoming harder to access. That's why I say online spaces might be your best bet.‍

Gio: The final question is something that is really bugging me right now, something I think about a lot in my practice as a writer. How do you think the media should talk about queer artists, especially BIPOC queer artists? How can we find a balance between invisibilization and essentialism, tokenism?‍

Iniko: That is a big question. Honestly, I want people to understand that we're just people. Our queerness is not just a singular facet, it is multifaceted. Queerness is not simply an identity, it is a way of being. Like you, I'm just existing here. In my existence, multiple things are occurring. So talk to me like a person, you know. The part that can get sticky is like, you know, “So let's talk about your gender, let's talk about your identity, when did you know that you were this?” Wow. Can we talk about my favorite book? Can we talk about my favorite color? Can we talk about my stuffed animals collection? 

I do think we're special, but at the same time, we're humans. You don't have to question us as if we're this anomaly, this new thing, because we're not new. We've been around since the dawn of time. We've been around since before colonization and we'll continue to be around after. So I would just say to people who want to learn more about queerness that you gotta do your own research. We aren't books, we aren't libraries, we're people. I don't think people realize that it can be really exhausting having to explain who you are, because who I am is not fixed. It changes every day. So the answer I give you today might not be the same tomorrow. And sometimes I don't want to talk about that. Sometimes I just want to talk about my music, because not all of my music is about me. A lot of the new music that I've been creating is about everything around me. It's about being in love, it's about being angry, it's about sadness, it's about being overwhelmed. We are multifaceted, and I would like people to see that.

‍