‘AIN’T IN LA’ BECAUSE SOMEONE’S GOT TO HOLD IT DOWN IN SLOVAKIA
words by FRANCESCO PIZZUTI
Everyone who’s grown up wanting to work in an artistic profession has dreamed of moving to cities like LA, New York, London or Paris. The supposed cultural capitals of the world where dreams become careers. But lately, the internet, in a quiet decentralisation of culture, seemed to be pushing back against that idea by highlighting the material influence of the margins.
This is exactly the conversation ADÉLA enters with her latest single, Ain't in LA; a song that also jumpstarted the TikTok trend of people showing how they unapologetically hold it down in smaller, less “culturally relevant” cities. The song and the trend tap into a much larger conversation, one that feels incredibly relevant in an age of easily accessible cultural and visual appropriation.
This internet discourse, while starting as a meme, begs much deeper questions: Where does culture really come from? Who makes it and who gets to claim it?
On Ain't in LA, ADÉLA reflects on the mythology surrounding Los Angeles while refusing to treat it as the sole centre of artistic legitimacy. She acknowledges the city's influence, but also reminds us that what made Los Angeles culturally significant in the first place was the people. Immigrants. Outsiders. Dreamers arriving from somewhere else, carrying different histories, aesthetics, languages, and ways of seeing.
“She shares a room with her younger brother
Clothes secondhand from her best friend’s mother
Cut ‘em all up, yeah, she got her own style
Madonna on the wall next to Destiny’s Child”
images courtesy of UMG RECORDINGS, INC
The world's cultural capitals have always depended on the margins to exist because culture is nothing without forward movement, and that can only truly come from outside.
A young girl with very little money but an endless love for larger-than-life pop stars dreaming beyond the place she was born. That desire to reach further feels deeply human, and it is precisely that distance, between where you are and where you imagine yourself, that produces the most interesting art.
images via @meantobe_ and @obeijodapantera on Pinterest
Culture doesn't come from fitting neatly into the centre or having everything handed to you. It comes from people’s want and need to express experiences that have been ignored, misunderstood, or dismissed. To make oneself visible. Yet that’s easy to forget when art and entire visual and cultural registers get consumed in the name of cool and repurposed carelessly by people who have nothing to do with the material conditions that produced them.
But uniqueness can’t be appropriated.
“All of the girls in them unknown cities
You’re so unique and your face so pretty
Don’t look like anyone, you’re not just anyone
I’d rather be a nobody than to be like everyone”
image via @morganlbruns on pinterest
What’s cool and desirable somewhere almost always belonged to someone who had to venture out. Someone making music in a place that offered no industry. Someone dressing differently in a town where standing out came at a cost. Someone creating from the margins because there simply wasn't another option.
Ultimately, Ain't in LA is a celebration of every small-town dreamer. It reminds us that no city will make space for us if we don't first make it for ourselves. So, whether you leave or stay, what truly makes a bad bitch is existing on your own terms even when nobody is there to recognise it.
“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.”
via @adela and @_ellishasummer on TikTok
