Jordan Adetunji: ‘Everything has moved so fast, it’s hard to appreciate it’

For a glimpse into the creative world at the core of Jordan Adetunji’s latest mixtape A Jaguar’s Dream, look no further than the music video for ‘Dirty Diana’. With dimmed lights, sultry bedroom rendezvous and a rapidly flickering sequence of bird’s-eye view camera shots, the visualiser perfectly captures the intensely moody, ‘sexy drill’ atmosphere cultivated across the Belfast vocalist’s 10-track project.

“We wanted all the visualisers to have a life together,” the 26-year-old tells me. “Everything is like a dream from my brain — it’s all the same concept — and there are shots in ‘Dirty Diana’ that mirror the ‘305’ video because those tracks have a similar sound.” This joined-up visual representation of Adetunji’s rapidly growing collection of hits — from last year’s viral, Grammy-nominated breakout single ‘Kehlani’ to this year’s polished, purposeful ‘305’, a collaboration with US rapper Bryson Tiller — reflects the cohesive sound he’s landed on. A dense, futuristic kind of melodic R&B that suffocates you with intense kick patterns and heavy, lingering keys, his is a unique vibe with roots in US club music, hyperpop and drill.

By packaging this mix into tidy, bitesize chunks and building hype for it on social media — he dropped ‘Kehlani’ teasers on TikTok before he’d even finished recording the track — Adetunji amassed a huge global following during 2024.

Between the release of A Jaguar’s Dream and his last project, 2023’s Rock ’N’ Rave, his progression has been monumental. ‘Kehlani’, his biggest single to date, recently went platinum, having racked up over 370 million Spotify streams and spawned a remix featuring the US pop star it was named after. Adetunji signed a landmark deal with 300 Entertainment and Warner Records UK, received a nomination for Melodic Rap Performance at the Grammys, and has now been included in Rolling Stone UK’s Future of Music list for 2025. By the time you read this, he will have headlined Rolling Stone UK’s Future of Music showcase at London’s OMEARA alongside Chloe Qisha and Pozer.

Shooting his digital cover to mark that achievement, Adetunji seems at home. We’re under a railway arch in east London, the city where he lived until the age of 10, when his family moved to Belfast. The UK capital is as noisy as ever, but Adetunji isn’t phased by the intermittent rumbles from the train tracks above us. Posing against a matt purple backdrop, he stands tall, wearing a black leather jacket and suit trousers with shimmering silver chain patterns swirling between lower thigh and shin. Grinning widely now and then, as fellow melodic rap artists like The Weeknd play from a speaker, he has the relaxed aura of a man who has quickly become used to this kind of attention. Even in the middle of his changing world, which is unrecognisable from just a year ago, his manner is gentle, chilled, laidback.

“Everything has moved so fast, it’s hard to appreciate it,” he says, reflecting on a whirlwind 12 months. “But sometimes I get flashbacks or if I get a quiet moment to think, some things come back, and it feels amazing. I know at some point I’m gonna sit down and think about all the amazing things that have happened so far.

“When I first heard about the Grammy nomination, I thought it was just a prediction list,” he continues. “It was crazy — I was in the studio at the time, and my phone was going off. Once I found out, I called my mum, and I don’t think she believed me at the time! She was so shocked and excited.”

It seems Adetunji is always busy when these landmark moments come rolling in — when his idol Kehlani reached out to him about recording a remix of his explosive breakout single about her, he was in the middle of a club, and quickly started scrambling to find the right instrumental file to send her. Primarily, these snapshots are a reflection of his work rate. He grafted hard to put A Jaguar’s Dream together, endeavouring to build a coherent narrative across the tape.

“I’ve tried to take the sound of sexy drill — based around R&B-style vocals with a different kick pattern, a different tempo — and evolve it, showing respect to the people that started  [it], while also putting my own style or wave on it,” he says. “I really had to make sure that the tracks all matched. Every song on there marries each other somehow. They all kinda blend into each other. That was just a big thing that I sat down and tried to make happen as much as possible, without forcing it.”

Beyond the fact that the tape starts with ‘Kehlani’ and closes with ‘Kehlani (Remix)’, there are callbacks and connections throughout. ‘Options’ mimics the latter track’s booming kick pattern, while ‘Bitter’ finishes with an intense collision of synth noises and brisk legato vocals that then seem to re-emerge at the peak of ‘Dirty Diana’. Given the way Adetunji has expanded on the sound he broke through with, it’s not a huge surprise that the project has gone down so well with his fans. “The reaction has been amazing — people love it,” he says. “It’s not what a lot of people were expecting, which I really wanted. I think people felt like I was gonna make ‘Kehlani’ 100 times rather than going further down the R&B route. It’s interesting to keep people on their toes.”

Across A Jaguar’s Dream, keys are essential in dictating the mood and often adding a darker edge in the background. These can be heard with the rising chords in ‘Bedroom’ or the tense climax of ‘Dirty Diana’, structured around luxurious, glittering synths.

The mixtape was produced largely by consistent collaborators like J Rick and Take A Daytrip but also benefited from Adetunji’s vision of “incorporating and bringing in newer people and different sounds to help inspire me”, such as UK heavyweight producers Chase & Status.

As well as bringing in fresh voices and perspectives, Adetunji has a vision of how he plans to grow and develop his sound. “I want to keep my formula of always writing down the rawest thing, but I don’t wanna force or rush anything or record when I don’t feel like recording,” he says. “I’m always in the studio making new stuff, but recently I’ve just been doing it for vibes more, and doing whatever comes most naturally. I’m feeling the freedom to just create freely, which is so important to me.”

The idea of moving through different creative phases is what gave the mixtape its name, with Adetunji as the ‘jaguar’. He says, “It means a big deal to be able to constantly move through different spaces, take what you’ve learned, and conquer each space. I’ve always been good at learning new skills really quickly.

“Going forwards, releasing more music, putting out more videos and visuals, and meeting more people is really important to me,” he continues. “Allowing them to see into me as an artist more is really exciting. Going out and touring, I feel like people are gonna understand me as a person — many people haven’t really heard me speak before. And to connect with the fans who have been supporting the music for so long is important. I used to be so active in that when I first started, but I went off it a bit once things got a bit bigger. I definitely wanna get back to that.”

Since we spoke, there have been plenty of opportunities to connect with fans. Adetunji recently performed at a sold-out run of European dates (London, Paris, Amsterdam), before he jetted off to the States for shows in the likes of LA, Chicago and New York.

The tour’s structure shows his undeniable appeal to US audiences. The intoxicatingly lavish, club-driven melodic rap sound he’s been building is perfectly suited to fans of artists like Travis Scott, Lil Durk or Lil Baby, and he’s adeptly tuned into this connection. The fact that he recently worked with the latter artist on his song ‘Options’ underlines the extent of this journey. “Lil Baby was one of the first people to reach out to me after I made ‘Kehlani’, so that was amazing,” he says. “I got to shoot the video with him in Miami, which is a place I’d always wanted to go to, and it was just how you imagine it to be. It lived up to the hype.”

Despite all the jet-setting, the US appeal and the viral success, there’s a reserved quality that remains integral to Adetunji’s artistic identity. As he notes, his personality is still a mystery to many fans, and for all the portrayals of partying, sex and hedonism, his most recent project is still largely centred around the insular experience of sitting in a bedroom building beats and writing lyrics. That hyper-active, flashing music video for ‘Dirty Diana’ neatly conveys this message by starting and ending with a simple overhead shot of Adetunji sat at a desk with a pen and pad, scribbling away. There’s a sense that, for him, everything becomes clearer when he’s at home, creating music.

“I made everything from my room,” he says, in a measured tone. “I started with ‘Kehlani’ from my room, and because ‘305’ and ‘Dirty Diana’ had a similar sound, I wanted to show that story of making it in my bedroom. It made sense for them to all live together — everything is linked.”

Taken from the April/May issue of Rolling Stone UK, which is out on Thursday, March 20. Pre-order your copy here.

Photography: Ryan Saradjola
Styling: Holly Macdonald
Fashion Assistant: Aaron Pandher
Grooming: Ephraim Onyebule at Carol Hayes Management using Sunday Riley and Philip Kingsley
Makeup: Yolanda Dohr