Central Eastern Europe is a strange place for the rest of the world. Little is known about these parts, besides a vaguely Communist history, badly imitated Slavic accents, and Adidas tracksuits. In fact, despite separating more than thirty years ago, it’s not uncommon to hear people still refer to these lands as Czechoslovakia. That is all changing rapidly, thanks to a pink-haired firebrand artist named Adéla Jergová.
In the battle for Gen Z’s pop princess crown, a bold new contender has entered the arena. Adéla’s blend of Britney-esque pop and choreo, Billie Eilish-inspired introspection, and Charli XCX club sensibilities is striking a chord with listeners globally. Her debut album PRIMA dropped this week and is charting extremely well for a humble singer/dancer from Bratislava.
Adéla famously got her start initially through failure. As a participant on Netflix’s Dream Academy, Adéla failed to garner viewer votes early on in the season. As a matter of fact, she was widely disliked and far from a fan favourite. The winners of that series went on to form Katseye. This actually proved to be a blessing in disguise, as Adéla’s solo career is blazing a whole different trail.
Katseye has been thrown deep into the gears of the music industry machine, churning out easily digestible viral tracks with dance breaks for an average listener age that has caused some pearl-clutching. The group has been worked so hard by their notoriously overbearing HYBE/Geffen label that even so early in their career, up to 50% of their members have taken hiatuses somewhere along the way.
By contrast, Adéla blew up on the scene with her fiercely independent release, The Provocateur in 2025. Eschewing the global brand of K-pop that Katseye is spearheading, replete with nonsensical lyrics and hyper-kinetic visuals, fans instantly fell in love with the edge and grit displayed on tracks such as “Superscar” and “DeathByDevotion”. The album art alone was such a strong hook that any association with a Netflix pop factory series was almost instantly forgotten.
Fast forward to her debut album PRIMA, released a year later, and a strong narrative undertone to her songs reveals another reason why Adéla’s music has resonated so strongly with listeners worldwide.
On tracks such as “KGB”, “Therapy” and of course “Ain’t In LA”, Adéla’s identity as a Slovak girl growing up in post-Communist Central Eastern Europe is front and centre. In the same way that Czechs and Slovaks in the 60s and 70s had to smuggle in Western artists on cassette tape to learn the evil ways of capitalism, so too did Adéla absorb the pop influences of Madonna, Mariah, and Ariana as a means of escape.
“Call-call me the K-G-Bi*ch
Call-call me the K-G— ah
I’m like a spy, I studied this shit,
call me the K-G-Bi*ch”
The tongue-in-cheek treatment of the Communist regime on “KGB” is a perfect new-generational appropriation of her home country’s history. Revealing in interviews that she taught herself English by watching Hannah Montana, there is a genuine story of struggle, alienation, and yearning for something more that is in stark contrast with the vacuous lyricism of many other pop artists today. By using this kind of localised imagery, Adéla has created a platform not just for all the girls spending time with their babičky, surrounded by concrete paneláky, but for all listeners around the world who dream of escaping their everyday reality.
This kind of Slavic cultural iconography has already shown up in other ways in pop culture recently. A$AP Rocky’s sartorial use of the headscarf and his track “Babushka Boi” comes to mind (he is also currently on tour around Europe). My Chemical Romance have also used imagery reminiscent of Soviet-era aesthetics on their current world tour of The Black Parade (one Ukrainian fan even realised that the postcards distributed at the concert were of Moscow…awkward!). However, these treatments have been largely cosmetic, without any authentic substance behind them.
Adéla is doing it differently. Whether it’s using her Russian-trained ballet skills, explaining how to swear in Slovak, or proudly repping all the baddest bi*ches from around the world, it’s strangely charming to see a Slovak girl at the top of her game on the global stage in the pop/alt-pop world.
In an age of AI-fuelled algorithmic slop, there is no competition for real stories. It’s refreshing to see an artist like Adéla shining through in all her hot pink glory. Of course, not all pop music has to be deep, but with her new worldwide success and representation of Slovak culture, maybe people will finally stop calling it Czechoslovakia after all these years.
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Text: Kevin Loo
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