"Cut Ties": A Conversation with Kiana Ledé

September 11, 2025

Interview by Imani Dominique Busby (@imani.dominique)

Photography by Rod Doost (@roddoost) and Imani Busby

Kiana Ledé has carved out a space as one of R&B’s compelling voices, pairing raw honesty with unapologetic confidence. From her early start in Arizona to navigating the music industry, she has harnessed the power of boundary setting and the embraced strength that can come with independence. Her journey reflects both resilience and reinvention, with music that embodies self-assurance while inviting listeners into stories of love, loss, and growth.

Could you please tell us a bit about yourself and your introduction to making music?

I'm Kiana Ledé and I am a bad bitch from the desert.

I've been in dance class, musical theater, performing arts groups, and pageants since I was four years old. I ended up in LA with my first record deal when I was 15 and just worked hard from there.

I went from being on a record label to then getting dropped and was dropped for two and a half years. That's when I started making covers called “Soul Food Sessions,” and those started going off. Then I got onto a show called Scream at the same time and got on another record label and then was able to have some more success from there. And now I'm not on a record label, I'm on my own with a distribution company called BMG, and being an independent artist, still being successful and having a good time making R&B music.

That's incredible. And what a wonderful story and progression that you've had so far. You started more as an actress and then transitioned into music. How do those creative worlds overlap for you now? And have they challenged you differently? And is there an overlap with that background?

I think the overlap is being connected to emotion, and they're both just creative, very creative industries, with very creative, talented people. But my experience with acting is so different from music. I feel like acting is just a lot more structured, and I do well with structure.

I do well with structure, so it's nice not having it be like the wild wild west. And I feel like I don't know anything about acting in the acting industry. So it's fun because I feel like I'm guessing on what the next move is and what's the right thing to do. But that gives me so many more options to be creative. And I love working with directors. I like having direction. So it is nice to have just a more structured environment but still be creative.

Being from Arizona, would you say that the city, the environment, has influenced your sound?

Honestly, Arizona is just such a big space. There's not much around. Being in the desert creates a lot of space for you in your mind and in your environment to be able to listen to whatever music you like and maybe explore other genres. Something for me is I listen to so much R&B music, but I also listen to John Mayer and Sara Bareilles and Norah Jones.

I was interested in all different types of music because there was so much space everywhere and because there was nothing to do. But it also shaped some of my visual creative stuff because I grew up riding dirt bikes and camping. I love nature and I love thrilling things. Roller coasters and horror movies are some of those things that might get your heart rate up a little bit. Because horror movies are my favorite, I decided to incorporate it into Cut Ties. So it actually probably did inform my visual creativity.

Cut Ties is such a wonderful album. One of my favorite songs on the album is “No Stress.” Is there anything that you can share about the creative process and the inspiration behind the project?

I actually did something different. For the first time, I started with the visual, the character that I wanted to portray in my next two phases. I just really wanted to incorporate that horror and gory, the craziest version of myself. There's a story in Cut Ties being told, starting with being in love and things being happy and going well. And then you see the turning point, and you see me start to reflect on the relationship and how fucked up it was and how much I don't give a fuck. But sometimes I can be... I wouldn't say I'm petty. I know a lot pettier people than me. However, if you fuck me over, I have no problem cutting you off. I feel like that's something that maybe not a lot of people knew, how good I am at cutting people off. When I get fucked over, I cut people off. That's what Cut Ties is about. You see that character really start to switch. We'll see what the next phase is.

I love that approach and narrative. I feel like that's something for sure, even for me, it's something that I'm working on as well in terms of boundary setting and whatnot. I feel like it does...

Kiana Ledé

Good for you!

Imani Busby

Yeah, every day getting a little better. :)
I feel like your perspective is something that will and has resonated with a lot of people.

In a recent TikTok, you mentioned that sometimes you feel like you're in a toxic relationship with the music industry. But thrn something will happen that shifts the course and encourages you to continue working towards being in music and continuing. Outside of the cosign from Alicia Keys that you'd mentioned in the video, are there any moments that come to mind of something or someone that gave you that extra push and encouragement to keep going?

Oh, tons. One of them is going on tour with Jhené (Aiko). I feel like constantly, if I'm not performing, I constantly go through this cycle in my head of like, maybe it's time. Then I get a call that Jhené wants me to go on tour, and she's my favorite artist in the entire world.

Between Jhené and Alicia Keys, it couldn't get more deep into my soul than them. So getting any recognition from them is amazing. I think another one is when I got dropped from the label and I was working on the covers, it was a year of doing these covers, and I was like, “Whew, maybe…” Me and my mom went to beauty schools, like beauty schools, to try to figure out what my next step was going to be, which was going to be doing makeup as a backup plan.

As soon as we started touring the schools, I got Scream, which is funny because I had just crashed my fourth car at that point. My parents were like, “Good luck finding a car.” I was like, “Okay, what am I going to do?” Then I got the TV show at the same time, too. It was another moment of like, “Okay, I guess there is something good happening here.”

Then I got the covers, had over a million views, which was a huge thing. Now, it's not as big, but it was a huge thing back then. I think because I've been doing this for so long, I get exhausted a little bit more quickly, and I get even a little bit more in my head because I've been working in this industry for so long. When these things come around, it means maybe even more than it did before.

That's a very beautiful response, thank you for sharing that. I have been obsessed with “Mad At Me” for two years. Is there anything that you can share about the song and the process behind it?

I love that. It's funny. Well, it started off with the sample, and we built the song from there, which was very true to me at the time. I'm an Aries. I believe in the fact that I am such a bad bitch. But I ended up cutting ties with some of the people from that era. So it was, I would say, funny that that song was so important to me and so important to a lot of people. It's so funny when people say, “Sing Mad At Me!”, I'm not even clocking it because all I'm thinking about is they want to hear “EX” or they want to hear “Wicked Games.” So when people say, “Mad At Me!” I'm like, “Oh, perfect.” But it takes me back to that time, and it makes me think about the fact that I don't talk to a lot of people from that time.

But they can't be mad at me.

There you go. With the music that you make and with it all being tied to things that are happening in your life, do you ever listen back to albums to get into the headspace of like, “Oh, this is what I was thinking or feeling at that time,” or do you just let it lie and keep pushing forward?

Sometimes I listen to stuff from the past, but it honestly makes me emotional, if I'm being completely real.

Those were different times in my life. It was before I was going to therapy and before I was on medication. My life is very different from that time. So of course, there's feelings of nostalgia that come up, but there's also a lot of really negative things that happened that are attached to those songs. So sometimes those feelings come up when I'm performing, and it gets really hard for me to sing, but it's also really healing when I sing them that I try not to listen to them as much.

How did it feel to be performing at Some Kinda R&B festival?

It was so much fun. Hearing the audience ask for songs that I have never sung before in my life was amazing. It made me feel like there were some true fans in the audience. I felt that energy on stage, which is always really important for anybody who's performing.

It was an incredible performance. Definitely, the audience was very responsive as well. In terms of planning out your set and your performance, I feel like there was definitely a lot of storytelling involved. Is there anything that you can walk us through? Any of the elements that you had brought on stage such as the mirror. Is there anything that you can share about how you put that performance together?

I think the visual part of it is probably the most important. Oxblood is my color. Oxblood and white, creamy is my color. I'm obsessed with oxblood and burgundy, and I'm only going to be incorporating it more and more because it's such a beautiful color. It gives sexy, but also a little bit evil, maybe. It has the word blood in it, so that's very important.

But the mirrors are such a huge part. There are two reasons that they're up there. The first one is obviously gore. From my music video in “Natural,” I'm singing to myself in front of a mirror with blood everywhere. It's a preview of me killing my partner that fucked me over. Then also there's a lot of things that are different in my life from my last album, including people that I cut a lot of ties with. There's blood. Those relationships are dead. We had the mirrors for grudges, and “Grudges” now has been killed.

It's like a new era. New life, new era.

Amazing, I love the visuals and their meanings. Oo does that includ the mic as well? Like what's on — is that the strings or the intestine?

(Laughs) The intestine, that's so good. They do look like intestines. That's so true. Sure, we could say that. But the cover of Cut Ties is me being completely tied by all of these ropes, and the ropes equal my commitment to these relationships and my loyalties and how it's actually affected me and held me back in my life. I brought the ropes onto the stage.

Do you have a favorite song that you've released and one that you'd recommend that people listen to if they haven't heard it?

That's hard. There are two. I have options for you. One is “Natural” because it's just sexy and it's lovey. When I'm in love with somebody, I want to do everything with them. And that's for if you want to feel sensual. And the other one is “Out of Luck” because I love the sample. It's one of the best songs ever created. And it is really based on a true story. I want people to feel like a bad bitch when they listen to it. I want them to feel empowered and like they're worth anything in the world. So, yeah, there are two options.

What is a message or theme that you want your listeners, your fans, to take away from your work?

That it's okay to cut people off. I've had this thought over the last couple of years... Just because the people that you love and respect might have relationships with somebody who's really toxic, that doesn't mean that you have to have a relationship with them.

I really value my friends and the time I spend with them. I don't ever in my life, again, want to feel like my loyalty comes before the respect that I deserve from the people around me. Whether that's a partner, whether that's a working relationship, or just a friendship. I'm done doing that. I will spend no time on that ever again in my life, and we're going to cut ties together.

Are there any upcoming drops, videos, shows, anything that people should be keeping an eye out for?

I'm working on something for the Cut Ties anniversary, which is on Halloween, very on brand, and it's going to be really special. I can't wait to show it, and hopefully, everything works out perfectly for me to be able to put it out there.

It’s very excited to hear about the anniversary and all that’s upcoming. That's amazing. Do you have any last thoughts?

Go listen to Cut Ties.

Absolutely. Thank you again so much for speaking with me. It was really wonderful to learn more about your music and to chat. I appreciate you making the time.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

St.Catherines, ON

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1 comment

The most underrated artist ever but I’m not that upset because I kind of want to keep her to myself 😉

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