Ama is out with the Lou and in with the new.

The artist formerly known as Ama Lou is dropping the latter part of her name as she steps into what she’s calling a fearless reset. 

“I was quite a rigid person, or I had developed a lot of rigid traits because of how I grew up or environments that I had kind of developed personality traits to deal with,” Ama told Blavity in a recent interview. “But I’m not actually a very rigid person. I like to be free-flowing, and I think that after my last album came out, I realized that I had outgrown a lot of things and a lot of systems I had built to deal with things, and they weren’t working for me anymore. They were just giving me anxiety. I think that now, I’m a lot less structured but a little less rigid.”

Why this shift has been a personal one for her

The British R&B singer-songwriter and producer first gained prominence with her debut EP, DDD, released in 2018.

But overall, she has been immersed in her artistry since the age of 11, and as she continues to evolve, so does the way she shows up in the world.

“I feel like the person that Ama Lou was up until the release of the last album, I’m not that person anymore,” Ama said. “I feel like I’ve completely changed. And people always say that as well, people who’ve known me for a long time. They’re like, ‘You’re so different now.’ Just because I was known for being rigid, and I had my rules and the way I lived. And I just don’t really like that anymore. I think that I used to live a lot in the future, and I live a lot more presently now.”

As someone who was raised in London with a Guyanese background, Ama also opened up about the influences that her household had on the way she shows up as an artist.

“My parents were very free, for lack of a better description,” she said. “We were always encouraged, or just allowed to kind of do whatever, not whatever we want. In a discipline sense, my dad is a very Caribbean father — but just in a sense of what we wanted to do for our lives, our parents always gave us the responsibility for our lives very early.”

Ama added, “[They were] like, ‘You can do whatever you want. You just have to work hard at it. And whatever you do and your actions, you have to hold the consequences for them.’ I didn’t have a parent who was pushing me to do anything, just having the freedom to experiment and the space to be ourselves. I was a very fiery child, and I don’t think that was ever stumped out. Obviously, as I’ve said, discipline, and I have manners, but my parents gave us a lot of worldly education and a lot of space to be creative and not pressured. We weren’t ever pressurized to do things that we were, you know, quote, unquote meant to do. We were kind of left to our own devices on that.”

On working alongside Brent Faiyaz 

Ama joked that having friends among her peers, like Tyler the Creator and Brent Faiyaz, is the ultimate cheat code. But on a more serious note, it has also helped shape her sound and the vulnerability that shows up in songs like “Need It Bad.”

“When we made that song, he obviously shows up to the plate first, he’s on the song first, his round is first, and so I think I just wanted to match him on that and do my own version of it,” Ama said. “I think that a lot of people were like, ‘Whoa, where the hell is this coming from?’ I said, ‘Girl, I’ve always been that girl,’ like no one ever gives me the opportunity to say anything. Like, come on!”

“It was really just the opportunity,” she continued. “I had not made those kinds of opportunities for myself. And it was perfect timing, and being able to match Brent in that way and then express that very specific, intimate scenario, feeling, that some of us, or all of us, have. I just did my own version. No one helped me write that. This is me too; I also have this feeling.”

Signed to Faiyaz’s ISO Supremacy (which stands for In Search of Supremacy), an independent creative agency and record label spearheaded by the R&B star in 2023, Ama noted that his support began long before then.

“I’ve been friends with Brent since 2019,” she said. “I’ve known T (Tyler the Creator) for damn, bloody hell, so many years now, like when I first came to LA. And so these people that you see supporting me usually are my friends as well. It creates a different environment when you really are friends with someone, you already have that internal trust. And so I feel like the music that’s made or the projects that are made or anything that you collaborate on is just that much sweeter or more aligned.”

What to expect from Ama moving forward

As Ama continues to step into this new territory — with the decision to drop Lou from her name and hit the reset button on how she’s showing up, not just as an artist, but as a human being — she wanted to remind us that this is all her.

“Even with ‘Need It Bad,’ there’s a lot of assumption around influence, around the change, you know? ‘Her label’s making her be more feminine,’ and it’s like no, I’ve always been this girl. It’s just that whenever I showed up to perform, I put on the jeans. I put on the tank top,” Ama said. “I had a more, like, I guess, stoic persona. But I think people are going to have to accept that people are super multifacted, and actually, this is not a change. I’m just revealing the rest of my personality, or even that I have a personality, because who knows?”

“I think because I’ve had a career, there’s a lot of preconceptions about me, or people hold Ama Lou in their heart or their mindset in a certain way, and they want her to stay like that. And that’s fine. All of that work still belongs to her in that way. People grow up. People associate and then disassociate from feeling aligned with an artist and their work and different projects.”

Additionally, Ama will join Ella Mai as the opener for her Hearts On Deck Tour starting in July. Her new single, “So…” dropped May 1.