Nia Archives Returns With Emotional Junglist — A Genre Reimagined

Nia Archives started her career with a student loan and a debut single. Six years later, she's opened for Beyoncé on the Renaissance World Tour, earned three BRIT Award nominations — the first jungle artist in history to do so — and collaborated with Jorja Smith, Fred Again and Jamie XX. Emotional Junglist, her second album out now via Island Records, is the record that earns every bit of that trajectory.

It is, as the title suggests, a study in contradiction. Jungle's DNA — the skittering hi-hats, the thudding basslines, the relentless forward momentum — sits alongside something far more exposed: vulnerability, heartbreak, the particular disorientation of your mid-twenties. "To be an Emotional Junglist," Nia has said, "is to feel everything and nothing all at once. It's to be calm yet chaotic, sane yet manic." The album doesn't just describe that state — it inhabits it.

Calm Yet Chaotic

Written throughout 2025, Emotional Junglist moves across fifteen tracks with a confidence that belies its emotional weight. "Vertical" opens with 90s electronica nostalgia and skittering hi-hats that frame a honeymoon period of romantic infatuation. "Danger" arrives as a hedonistic manifesto delivered like a nursery rhyme — flirtatious, X-rated, disarmingly catchy. "Boys In Blue" takes a punk-pop approach to the end of a relationship, subversive and sharp.

The standout collaborative moments earn their place. "Get Me Down," featuring Jorja Smith, is atmospheric and thudding — a summer song with weight behind it. "Tender," with Sampha, is something else entirely: a masterclass in vulnerability that showcases Nia as a vocalist in a way the dancefloor tracks don't always allow. "Almost Always" sits alongside it in that register.

"Dance With Me 2Nite" may be the album's most ambitious track. Co-written with Ethan P. Flynn (FKA Twigs, David Byrne), Julia Michaels (Lady Gaga, Sabrina Carpenter) and finished with Arctic Monkeys collaborator James Ford, it flirts with dewy-eyed indie pop over a psyched, syncopated beat that never loses its footing. It's the sound of an artist refusing to be pinned down — and pulling it off.

The Story Behind the Artist

Bradford born and Leeds raised, Nia Archives' route into music ran through gospel at church, local pirate radio and a bedroom obsession with breakbeats. Her debut single "Sober Feels" arrived in 2020, self-funded on a student loan. A string of critically acclaimed EPs followed — Headz Gone West, Forbidden Feelingz, Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall — before her debut album Silence Is Loud established her as one of the most important voices in contemporary British music.

The critical establishment followed: The Guardian, Pitchfork, British Vogue, Mixmag, The Face, British GQ (Man of the Year honoree, 2024). Fashion came with it — CP Company, Chopova Lowena, Burberry, Dior, Nike, Corteiz. But Nia's most significant work has been curatorial as much as artistic: her Up Ya Archives project, and most recently a co-curation of "The Music Is Black: A British Story" exhibition at V&A East, which explored jungle's evolution, East London pirate radio and the DIY infrastructures that shaped a genre.

The Emotional Junglist

Emotional Junglist arrives at a moment when jungle is experiencing genuine cultural re-evaluation — and Nia Archives is the person most responsible for that. She didn't just revive the genre; she extended it, bringing a songwriter's emotional precision to music that had historically prized energy over introspection. This album is the fullest expression of that project.

The new video for "There Goes Ma Head" — a B&W one-take directed by Ivana Bobic, shot in a dark club with the camera toggling between Nia's POV and the ravers around her — captures something of what makes her so watchable: she is simultaneously inside the experience and observing it. That's the emotional junglist position, exactly.

Emotional Junglist is out now via Island Records.