Since Cobrah’s entrance onto the music scene in 2018, she has made her own distinct mark on the industry by transcending expectations. Cobrah quickly curated her persona and sound, characterized by hooky, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and beats tailored for the dancefloor. She also became synonymous with her gothic, latex-heavy aesthetic, inspired by the underground fetish community. Working as a teacher by day, Cobrah began doing her first gigs at private fetish parties by night. Fast forward to today, and she is now a Swedish Grammy awarded artist and is getting ready to do her first show at Coachella. But first, Cobrah is ticking off another big career goal – releasing her debut album.

Although Cobrah has her primary audience in the United States, and that’s where she plays most of her shows, she still lives in Stockholm, Sweden, where she plans to stay for the foreseeable future.
“I really like to travel; I think that’s one of the biggest perks of the job, but I love living here. I’ve tried to move away from this place many times, but I come back every time. The more I work abroad, the more I miss Sweden and long for it”.
From the start, Cobrah has been working with her trusted collaborators Isac Hördegård and Hannes Roovers, and the duo also helped her debut album, Torn, come to life. The collection follows her latest EP, Succubus, which arrived in 2023 and earned Cobrah her first Grammis award for Electronic/Dance of the Year.
“It felt really good. I don’t really work in Sweden a lot, so I didn’t expect to win. But I don’t think it affects my music writing too much. It’s always an honor to win an award, but you shouldn’t let it affect you as an artist, I think. You’ll be a worse artist if you change or adjust to people’s opinions”.
Succubus saw the artist embody different folklore demons. This time, Cobrah is ready to turn the spotlight towards herself. Having transcended the limits of her brand, the most radical thing left was to turn inward.
“I was longing for a different type of connection with people who listen to my music, and wanted the writing to reflect who I am on a personal level. The conversation around what I do and my expression has been very politicized, and I’ve never really spoken about myself. I wanted to change the conversation, and I think I did that with this album.”
The project has been a long time coming – first, the pandemic got in the way, and then, as she went from being an independent artist to signing with a label, they encouraged her to focus on another EP instead. But in hindsight, Cobrah feels the timing ended up being just right.
“I’m happy I get to make my debut now because you can never do it again, and I’ve had so many more opportunities now to do what I want for the album that I wouldn’t have had five years ago. I would have rushed it more if not for these circumstances, but I don’t think it would have been a better album”.
Torn took two years to make, and another one to put all the visuals together, the longest Cobrah has ever spent on a project. The first song she wrote was the titular track, and she knew immediately that it would also be the name of the album – a subconscious pull towards transcending into a new self.
“The album is about the duality and the growing pains of being really vulnerable and also being very brave in exploring new things. It would have been easy not to challenge myself and to be really comfortable in what I built and stay in that lane, but I’m always enticed by what else I could do. I think this entire album is about transcending. It’s about evolving and opening up”.

The album started to take shape in Paris in 2023, where she stayed in a villa with her producers – a time that inspired Cobrah to take her creativity in new directions.
“It was a turning point in my artistry. We were writing these songs with housey beats and repetitive lyrics, the core of my sound, and I just felt really unchallenged. I felt like I couldn’t make an entire album writing only this type of music. It was just not exciting anymore, and in Paris we really started to experiment”.
The feeling of stagnation came after she felt her sound had been too established. In an interview with NME from earlier this year, she explained the need for a shift: “I’m over myself, I’m ready to move on. If the world has caught up to what I’m doing, then I’m clearly not doing the thing I’m intended to anymore.”
“People would come up to me and say, ‘This sounds like a Cobrah song,’ and it wasn’t even my song. I don’t want to do a song that sounds like a Cobrah song. When I came up with the sound, it felt really challenging; it’s a very specific thing, and it takes a lot of time, energy, and creativity to find that. But then once those pieces are in their place, I don’t want to make the same song over again”.
The longer format gave Cobrah the chance to explore a wider variety of songs, and the album even includes a few ballads. It’s a wider range that’s new to Cobrah, a sentiment that also echoes the album title.
“It feels torn because it has this duality: on the one hand, there are songs that dig very deep, and on the other hand, there are fun, party-oriented tracks. So it varies quite a lot. The making of the album was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, where the more I experimented, the more I got lost in my own experiments. It was a very torn process, both emotionally and sonically as well”.

The visual aspects of Cobrah are equally a big part of her artistry. Besides curating her own looks, her music has been featured in campaigns for Jean Paul Gaultier, Mugler, Lancôme, and Viktor & Rolf. For her shoot with The Forumist, she continues to explore her uniquely characteristic world.
“I’m really into the extremes of fashion and the body. I’m always in the tightest corset or I have hooks through my face. I just like to really push myself into doing these crazy things, it excites me very much”.
To reflect the more personal songs on her new album, Cobrah elevated her aesthetic to center herself, a vision based in nude colors that feels restrained compared to her past eras.
“First, I thought I was being boring because I wasn’t exercising all the skills in the toolbox, but it was also the point to be very present and to not transform all the time fully, but to stay as one person”.
The multidisciplinary identity of Cobrah reached a new peak in 2024, when fans of hers were equally delighted and surprised to hear her music featured in Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2024 film Kinds of Kindness – a move that introduced her to a new audience of listeners.
“It was such a cool thing. I’ve seen it many times, and I think the song fits really well into the movie. I think it gives the song some new life; it’s nice when music can live on in other spaces, like in fashion or a cool movie, rather than just on an EP or a streaming platform. Seeing it brings me to life as an artist”.

Talent: Cobrah

Team Credits:

Photography by Marcus Ohlsson at Lalaland Artists
Styling by Ana-Marija Knezevic at Liganord Creative Services
Hair by Erika Svedjevik at Lund Lund
Make-up by Igna Alonso at Lund Lund
Set Design by Aron Heinemann
Production and Special Thanks to Samuel Åberg
Digi-tech by Lucas Lantz
Retouching by Coda Studios
Photography Assistants: Hermine Werner and Majken Jacobsson Sjöberg
Styling Assistant: Lotta Michels
Set Design Assistant: Ivan

Fashion Credits:

1) Catsuit by Charlie Le Mindu Skins SS26. Shoes by ABRA.
4 & 11) Corset by Viola Lahger. Bra and thong by SKIMS.
6) Dress by Dilara Findikoglu. Bra by Aubade. Waist shaper by SKIMS. Shoes by PLEASERS.
7) Dress by Morph Studio. Shoes by PLEASERS.
10) Body by Tribal Hotel. Underwear by SKIMS. Shoes by Balenciaga. Tights by Capezio.

“Falling or flying is how I’ve felt the past few years” says Jorja Smith, the English singer whose enchanting vocals have put a spell on the world of contemporary music since the 2016 release of the Project 11 EP.

‘Falling or flying’ describes not only the way Jorja Smith has felt lately. It is also the title of her upcoming second full-length album, following the internationally praised Lost & Found, a laid-back R&B record that hit the shelves in 2018. The title of the new album, Falling or Flying, due for release at the end of September 2023, seems to be derived from a great deal of self-contemplation on the part of the singer. “I can’t tell if I’m doing good or bad sometimes, if I’m okay or not. Also, if you know me, I don’t have an in-between either. Falling or flying sounds like growth to me, it’s just the next chapter.”

As this next chapter of the Jorja Smith story unfolds, it is rewarding to take a step back and ponder the changes that have occurred since her last release. Her sound has gone through a clear transition, audible primarily on the single ‘Little Things’. But what has happened to the person behind the heavenly voice in the five years that have passed?

“Well, the songs on Lost & Found were mostly from when I was 16 to 18 years old. Like, there are two I wrote at 20. This album, the songs are me now, at 25/26. So naturally I have matured and was becoming a woman in the process. My music right now is me stepping into womanhood. It’s the first time I’m really releasing a whole body of work which I am also living in.”

When Smith lists the artists that were the most influential to her way into music, the DNA of her own creations is somewhat explained: “Amy Winehouse, Damian Marley, Mos Def/Yasiin Bey – I had these on rotation at 15/16 when I used to come down to London in the school holidays. I saw Yasiin Bey at a concert a few years ago, which was magical.”

Through the years, Smith has worked with a number of our time’s most notable performers. Nigerian marvel Burna Boy, grime giant Stormzy, and dancehall dandy Drake, just to name a few. But, when asked about her dream collaboration, there is only one name Smith mentions: “Frank Ocean”.

Smith talks about music almost as something that found her rather than the other way around. Her relationship to the art form strikes you as perfectly natural, as nearly meant to be. The world may change drastically around you, but some things remain the very same. The love of music is, for Smith and surely for many others, one of those comforting constants. “Music has been in my life since I was born,” Smith explains. “My parents constantly played music in the house, in the car, I’d be listening to everything, even music that wasn’t played for me. Walking in the street and catching a snippet from someone’s open window or car door. I sang everything, too, everything I saw I’d just sing about it. I learned to play the keyboard at eight and that’s when I started to write songs at the keyboard and also play covers.”

What happens to such an apparent gift with time? “Not much has changed since then, apart from stopping playing the piano when I moved to London,” Smith assures us. “I’ve picked it back up now. Also, I work with producers rather than just myself. When I’m writing, making a song. I just sing and whatever comes out comes out and we go from there.”

Today, she’s back in her Midlands hometown of Walsall, and has her hands back on the keyboard as well. A lot has obviously happened since Lost & Found, both for Smith personally and for her as an artist. The awards and praise have been lavished on her, raising the question of how the subsequent expectations affect her.

“I wish I didn’t, but I began to care too much about what people thought and also be super affected by it. Since moving back home to Walsall, I’ve got a balance now and care less. Before I put music out and at the early stages I only really cared about what I thought. Ha ha.”

The weight of expectations created from years in the limelight at least hasn’t dimmed Jorja Smith’s musical curiosity. Where ‘Little Things’ might have been played at a 1980s Madchester rave as well as at a 2023 Glasto after-hours party, the latest single ‘GO GO GO’ serves up a pop chart immediacy within its go-getting, glittery energy. Smith is certainly no stranger to creative diversity: “I’m always experimenting, if I hear something I love, I’ll just sing to it.”

So, with this desire for experimentation in mind, in what way has the process of making Falling or Flying been different from the creation of Smith’s previous work? “I started from scratch with this one and made it with DameDame, who are my friends. I learned so much about myself in this process.”

To conclude the interview, we ask a question that is inherently difficult to answer: where will your music be 10 years from now? “Oh my God, I don’t like looking into the future too much. I just want it to be loved dearly and still played and discovered.”

The hope of being “still played and discovered” shows both Jorja Smith’s characteristic humility and her love for the music she makes. The act of discovery is essential for any great lover of music, and Smith epitomizes this. Whatever changes the world will have gone through when Falling or Flying turns ten, it is safe to say the importance of music and creative experimentation will most likely (and hopefully) remain.

Talent: Jorja Smith

Team Credits:

Photography by Nick Thompson
Styling by Jordan Kelsey
Words by Filip Lindström
Hair by Paula McCash
Makeup by Grace Sinnott
Produced by Alexandra Oley
Fashion Assistants Zoha Khan and Grace Thompson

Special Thanks to Ananya

Fashion Credits:

1) Top by Dilara Findikoglu. Earings by Ananya
2) Coat by Ferragamo. Vest by Magda Butrym. Briefs by Uniqlo. Boots by Nii Hai. Earrings and necklaces by Ananya
3) Coat by Magda Butrym
4) Jumpsuit by Nina Ricci. Bra and knickers by What Katie Did. Shoes by Magda Butrym. Earrings by Ananya
5) Jumper by Miu Miu. Knickers by Fruity Booty. Tights by FALKE. Earrings and bracelets by Ananya
6) Top by Dilara Findikoglu. Corset stylist’s own. Tights By FALKE. Earrings By Ananya
7) Jumper by Miu Miu. Tights By FALKE. Earrings and bracelets by Ananya
8) Cardigan by Miu Miu. Earrings and necklaces by Ananya. Stockings by What Katie Did
9) Coat by Magda Butrym. Bikini Top by Nii Hai. Shorts by Christiana Hadjipapa. Socks by Uniqlo. Boots by Leo Prantham
10) Dress by Cult Naked. Earrings by Ananya
11) Shirt and tie by Luis De Javier. Corset by Dilara Findikoglu. Shorts stylist’s own