PRIMA finds Adéla turning ambition, desire, insecurity, and her unlikely road to stardom into a confident debut built to make people remember her name and do the same.
Released on September 4, PRIMA is the debut studio album of 22-year-old Slovak singer Adéla, following her EP The Provocateur (2025). Across 11 tracks and roughly 31 minutes, the record moves through dance-pop, hip-hop, R&B, electronic production, and slower ballads while keeping Adéla’s personality firmly at the center.
That personality is impossible to miss. Adéla makes no secret of wanting pop stardom, embracing the attention, glamour, big performances, and ambition that come with it. On PRIMA, she sounds determined to reach that level rather than pretending success is simply something that might happen along the way.
Her confidence becomes easier to understand once her background comes into focus. Born and raised in Slovakia, Adéla spent years training in ballet and learned English partly through watching Hannah Montana. She later turned toward music, bringing the discipline of a dancer into a career she had imagined long before the wider public knew her name.
Many listeners first saw her through The Debut: Dream Academy (2023), the HYBE x Geffen competition that eventually formed KATSEYE. Adéla was eliminated after the first mission, long before the group took shape, but her exit ultimately pushed her toward a solo career where she could build something around her own personality instead.
That history makes the title PRIMA feel especially fitting. The word means “first,” while a prima ballerina refers to a leading dancer, linking Adéla’s past to her goal of reaching pop’s highest level. She has described the album as the first step toward becoming her own version of a “prima ballerina of pop.”
Instead of presenting that journey as one clean inspirational story, PRIMA lets ambition share space with sex, loneliness, jokes, romance, homesickness, and insecurity. It sounds like someone trying on several versions of adulthood at once, which might be the most believable thing about an album made at 22. The songs below make the most sense through those different sides of her.
Songs That Want The Spotlight
“KGB”
“KGB” is the introduction Adéla needed. Over pounding electronic production, she turns her upbringing, immigrant experience, work ethic, and self-taught English into an intentionally ridiculous statement about how thoroughly she has studied pop stardom. Adéla herself has described the song as a way of introducing her story and sense of humor to a wider audience.
The controversial title draws from the history of the Soviet security agency, which affected the region where she grew up. Adéla uses that history for dark humor rather than admiration, and the music video explicitly distances itself from the organization and Russia’s actions against Ukraine.
What makes “KGB” work is its hunger. Plenty of singers want success, but Adéla makes wanting it part of the entertainment. She sounds like somebody who has already done the homework and is now impatient for the exam to begin.
You want a popstar with a big bra for them big hits
I wanna pop off so these big mouths can’t say shit
I was, like, eight, working the nightshift to learn English
I’m like a spy, I studied this shit, call me the K-G-Bitch
“Nicole Kidman”
If “KGB” introduces the student of pop, “Nicole Kidman” introduces the celebrity she hopes to become. The song came from a night when Adéla attended a Golden Globes event, dressed up, looked at herself, and felt like the Australian movie star.
The resulting track turns Nicole Kidman into shorthand for old-fashioned star power with modern control. Its hip-hop-inflected production moves at a cooler pace than some of PRIMA‘s bigger club moments, allowing Adéla to enjoy the fantasy rather than rush through it.
Movie references to Moulin Rouge!, Babygirl, and other Kidman projects add to the joke, but the central idea is bigger than celebrity cosplay. Adéla wants to decide how the public sees her before the public decides for her. That self-awareness makes the track smarter than its glamorous surface initially suggests.
Every single night
I pray that my tits are sittin’ right
Moulin Rouge, my corset is so tight
Babygirl in control, I feel like Nicole
“I’m The Man”
“I’m The Man” takes control out of the celebrity world and puts it inside a relationship. Produced by Cashmere Cat, the song reverses familiar gender expectations as Adéla presents herself as the person comfortable taking charge.
The clever part is that she does not reject femininity to establish authority. She wants both.
The song argues through attitude rather than a speech that confidence, success, and traditional ideas of who should lead a relationship do not always need to line up.
It is one of PRIMA‘s cleanest demonstrations of Adéla’s appeal. She likes pushing against expectations, but she would rather make the challenge catchy than turn it into homework.
Sometimes I wanna switch position
I make the big decisions
I like a boy who listens
Nod your head if you agree
“Boys”
“Boys” is less interested in challenging men than laughing at how annoying they can become on a night out. Its club-ready production pulls from the sleek, flirtatious pop of the 2000s, while its conversational energy feels like overhearing friends exchange stories in the bathroom between songs.
The track works because the men are almost beside the point. The real energy comes from the women talking, dancing, and enjoying themselves while unwanted attention keeps interrupting the plan. Adéla turns irritation into something playful enough to dance to.
I came to dance, just me and my girls
I see ’em starin’, it’s nothin’ new
I’m in a trance, this beat is so good
They’re closin’ in now, I knew they would
Songs That Let Attraction Get Messy
“Red Bottoms”
The bravado begins to soften with “Red Bottoms.” Here, luxury footwear becomes a useful image for the anxiety underneath something beautiful, expensive, and carefully presented.
Adéla wonders what happens once another person gets past the polished exterior and discovers everything more complicated underneath. Teen Vogue described the song around the question of whether someone can still love you after seeing those difficult inner parts.
That insecurity gives PRIMA an important second dimension. Adéla spends so much of the album confidently asking to be seen that “Red Bottoms” becomes more affecting when she starts worrying about what being fully seen might actually mean.
I’m like my red-bottom soles
You can’t wear me out too many times
Too many times
‘Cause when the red starts to go
Will you love what’s on the other side?
“Hitachi”
Then comes the album’s biggest emotional fake-out. A song called “Hitachi” sounds as if it should belong among PRIMA‘s funniest sexual tracks, but it becomes one of its saddest.
The title refers to the Hitachi Magic Wand, yet the song focuses on a relationship that has lost its physical intimacy. Adéla misses feeling wanted and remembers when affection once came naturally, turning an intentionally provocative reference into a surprisingly vulnerable portrait of rejection.
The arrangement gives her voice unusual room to breathe. Adéla has explained that the song begins largely through layered vocal harmonies before moving toward piano and strings, making it a showcase for a singer often associated more immediately with choreography and attitude.
“Hitachi” may have PRIMA‘s most attention-grabbing title, but the joke never overwhelms the heartbreak. That contrast makes it one of the album’s best surprises.
Baby, yeah, we couldn’t even stop to turn the lights off (Touch)
Now you’re sleepin’ next to me with your clothes on
Oh, I wanna get back, wanna get back how it was
You used to wanna turn me on, wanna turn me on
Just like my Hitachi does
“Fantasize”
“Fantasize” follows naturally from that emotional distance. When somebody no longer feels fulfilled in a relationship, the mind starts looking elsewhere, even when acting on those thoughts would create another problem.
Adéla approaches that uncomfortable territory without pretending to be morally spotless. The sleek, sex-positive track recognizes desire as something that does not always follow the rules people set for themselves, while still admitting the contradiction behind it.
That lack of self-righteousness helps. PRIMA rarely asks Adéla to become a role model who always makes the sensible choice. Sometimes, being 22 means knowing better and continuing to fantasize anyway.
Lately, I’m lackin’ a sense of reciprocity
In your passion every night
Excuse my distraction, I’m findin’ other people
Strangely attractive
“Starving Artist”
“Starving Artist” makes questionable attraction much funnier. The song finds Adéla returning to someone whose financial situation is hardly impressive, but whose appeal apparently survives all practical objections.
Rather than romanticizing struggle, she treats the situation with a wink. This is not a grand story about loving someone despite poverty. It is about knowing somebody is probably a bad idea and temporarily deciding that chemistry has won the argument.
The relaxed hip-hop pulse helps sell that attitude. After the emotional weight of “Hitachi,” “Starving Artist” gives the album permission to become unserious again without making the relationship songs feel disconnected.
Hey, do you still got the same apartment?
No bed frame? We can do it on the carpet
Nothin’ in the bank, but you’re making deposits
Eat real good for a starvin’ artist
“Marijuana”
“Marijuana” compresses infatuation into less than two minutes. The song compares the intoxicating pull of a new person to getting high, letting attraction move quickly from physical interest toward exaggerated fantasies about what the relationship could become.
Its brevity actually suits the idea. New attraction can feel enormous before there is enough information to justify it, and “Marijuana” disappears almost as quickly as that first rush arrives.
Placed after several songs about complicated relationships, it also sounds almost optimistic. Adéla may have spent the previous tracks worrying about desire fading or wandering, but she still believes somebody new can make everything feel exciting again.
Playin’ Nirvana, ride you in your Honda
I like how you look at me like I’m the next Madonna
Now you wanna, now you want it harder
I’m like, ‘I think I like you like you like marijuana,’ ‘juana
Songs That Look Beyond The Pop-Star Fantasy
“Therapy”
“Therapy” is where the shiny surface finally gives way. Written and recorded while Adéla was sick and juggling touring, recording, and other commitments, the song strips the production down while using heavy vocal processing as part of its emotional effect.
The thoughts arrive almost like fragments from an exhausted mind. She moves between frustration with the music industry and the pain of being thousands of miles away from her younger sister, making success suddenly feel less like a prize and more like an exchange.
That makes “Therapy” essential to PRIMA. Without it, the album could simply be the story of somebody having fun on her way upward. With it, Adéla admits that getting closer to the life she wanted also means missing parts of the life she left behind.
I wanna move my mom out here
But I don’t have that kind of money
So I have to talk to the people that I have to talk to
They are old white men, and they’re so annoying
But they hold the keys to my future
“Ain’t In LA”
That realization leads perfectly into “Ain’t In LA,” the album’s strongest possible closing statement. The song was inspired by photos of Adéla’s teenage mother in Slovakia standing in front of Western pop-culture posters that her grandfather had brought from Germany.
From there, Adéla widens her story into encouragement for people who grow up far away from the places usually associated with fame and opportunity. Los Angeles may be where she built her career, but the song rejects the idea that talent, beauty, ambition, or interesting lives somehow originate there.
Its large, celebratory production makes the message feel communal rather than sentimental. Adéla’s signature song does not tell listeners to abandon their hometowns for Hollywood. It suggests that the people worth discovering are already everywhere.
That is also why “Ain’t In LA” works so well after “Therapy.” One track admits what leaving home can cost, while the next refuses to treat home as something lesser simply because leaving once seemed necessary.
Maybe tonight, we don’t gotta run away
It’s all a lie, the baddest bitches ain’t in L.A.
Enjoy the ride, I know that you might wanna escape
It’s all a lie, the baddest bitches ain’t in L.A.
PRIMA Feels Like A Beginning, Not An Arrival
PRIMA works because Adéla does more than introduce her sound. She introduces a personality that feels confident, funny, ambitious, insecure, provocative, and homesick all at once. That mix keeps the album from feeling like a carefully polished debut with nothing underneath the surface.
The influences are easy to hear, especially the glossy pop and club music of the 2000s and 2010s. Still, Adéla rarely sounds like she is simply copying the stars she grew up watching. Her humor, theatricality, relationship stories, and willingness to make herself part of the joke give the album its own character.
That is also why Dream Academy now feels more like a starting point than the defining chapter of her career. Not becoming part of KATSEYE gave Adéla room to build a solo identity around choices that might not have fit comfortably inside a group. PRIMA shows how valuable that freedom can be.
The album is strongest when Adéla pushes beyond confidence and glamour into something more personal. Songs like “Red Bottoms,” “Hitachi,” “Therapy,” and “Ain’t In LA” reveal the doubts, sacrifices, and homesickness behind the pop-star image, while tracks like “KGB,” “Nicole Kidman,” and “I’m The Man” show how naturally she commands attention.
For a debut, PRIMA already gives Adéla a strong foundation. The next step is seeing how far she can push the stranger, more emotional, and more adventurous sides of her music without losing the sharp pop instincts that make these songs so immediate.
The title may mean “first,” but PRIMA does not feel like a tentative first attempt. It feels like the opening statement of an artist who already knows the kind of pop star she wants to become and is only beginning to show what that could look like.
PRIMA by Adéla is now available on all major music streaming platforms. Share your favorite PRIMA track in the comments below!
Sources: Netflix, Teen Vogue, Adéla’s Instagram, Adéla’s Spotify, Adéla’s YouTube, Universal Music Canada, Vanity Fair
