By Kuya Allen
When I asked Ellise where the shift in Sexxxtapes was coming from, she didn’t hesitate.
“I think Sexxxtapes feels really special to me,” she said. “A big part of that is the fact that the song concepts are so different from anything I’ve made in the past.”
Known for her haunting yet romantic sound and visuals, our Dark Pop star Ellise is pulling her inspiration from a new source for her upcoming project.
“Growing up as the oldest daughter and oldest girl in a big Middle Eastern family, and then also just growing up inside both societal and industry standards, it kind of made me too embarrassed, or feel too shameful, to really talk about sexuality,” she said. “Experiencing being sexualized by the industry, or even inappropriate behavior in the past, I’ve always been too scared to say anything about it. It almost felt like this isn’t something I should be talking about. Like this isn’t for me.
I’d let other artists talk about that and stay in my box of what I talk about, which is being sad and being in love and getting my heart broken.”
But the beauty in Ellise's body of work is her ability to confront those internal fears, and spin them into something new.
“I’ve never written about this subject matter before,” she said. “It just felt like it was time. And I’m so happy about that because it’s removed a lot of the embarrassment and secretiveness I used to feel around these emotions. Even just the idea of sending the song to my mom, with lyrics like, 'this is my song, I just watch our sex tapes, baby baby,’ definitely took her aback. But I feel like there’s power in that. Being a woman and singing about sexuality, so many men do it for you, you may as well do it yourself.”
That power is what makes this era feel different. For Ellise, it’s not about shock value. It’s about taking ownership of her narrative. She’s not rebelling against her upbringing. She’s expanding it.
“My mom is super supportive,” she said. “She’s definitely traditional Iraqi, but she gets it. She knows I’m an artist and she knows I want to express myself. I have a huge family, aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone’s heard it. It kind of feels like I’m normalizing things within my family, because no one else has ever really put themselves out there like that. It feels like I’m opening certain doors that haven’t been opened before. And that feels good.”
It’s not lost on her what that means. Being the oldest daughter in a Middle Eastern family comes with a kind of inherited responsibility. She is learning to carry it differently now.
“The next generation of my family, I don’t ever want my daughter, if I have one, to feel the same shame I felt growing up around sex and love,” she said. “Making the music I’m making now has built a more honest and open relationship between me and my mom. It’s made us talk about things we never talked about before.”
That honesty didn’t just change her family dynamic, it changed her creative process. For most of her career, Ellise’s writing has come from pain. “Even before I started making music professionally, I always wrote when I was really sad,” she said. “When I feel my worst is when I want to make the most art. Every other project I’ve done came on the heels of a breakup or a breakdown.”
But Sexxxtapes came from a new place.
She started writing it right after finishing Pretty Evil. She was still carrying pieces of that heartbreak, but she was ready to move forward. “I was still in that sad space, but once I wrote Sexxxtapes, I realized, wait, I can make music about something other than heartbreak. That song unlocked the entire era in my head.”
From there, everything shifted. “I felt really good and empowered and super ready to keep making music,” she said. “The heartbreak was finally far enough in the rearview that it wasn’t affecting me anymore. I think that’s why everything came out so different.”
Different, but still deeply personal. That thread of vulnerability remains, even if the tone has changed.
“I love to put out music about emotions that nobody wants to talk about,” she said.
“Like that obsession you get when someone you want wants a different girl, and now you hate her just for existing. Or Sexxxtapes, when you’re just a simp and watch the sex tapes back even though the person isn’t in your life anymore. I love writing about those embarrassing, taboo emotions. And I love that people connect with it, because I know we’ve all felt that at some point. None of us talk about it, but we’ve all felt it.”
That’s the heart of her connection with listeners. Beneath the dark pop aesthetic, there’s a rawness that feels both intimate and universal.
“I have a song on Pretty Evil called Valentine,” she said. “It’s basically a letter to the girl my ex cheated on me with. I was so embarrassed to release it, because I knew everyone in real life was going to hear it. But I’m so glad I did. When you write something that specific, people connect differently. The songs that are the most honest, the most uncomfortable, those are the ones people end up loving the most.”
Now, with Sexxxtapes complete and a tour ahead, Ellise sounds lighter. “I think this project helped me a lot mentally,” she said. “It pulled me out of that sad place. I can’t wait to perform it live. It’s going to make everything feel bigger and more fun.”
Her earlier work was rooted in heartbreak. Sexxxtapes comes from liberation.
“My only purpose in life that I've found so far, is literally to put out my most pure emotions that aren't just the ones that are easy to talk about” she said. “That’s the through line in my career, to be the one that talks about what no one else wants to.”
To me, Ellise showcases a lot of bravery in how she moves as an artist. A trailblazer within her own family, but to a lot of other fans out there as well. Someone who always found the beauty or "cuteness" in what most fear, someone who is able to create from her own darkness.