New Music Friday can be a lot. That's why every week we cut it down to the songs you need to hear for PLAY, our new music edit, and deliver a new cover feature to go alongside it. This week... Ego Ella May.
For many artists, the pursuit of perfection can be crippling. The best artists, though, recognise that true perfection is impossible. The real magic comes from the journey and the process of creation - just finding your way and letting the creativity flow. It's a liberating process that British Nigerian singer-songwriter Ego Ella May has embraced on her brilliant second album, 'Good Intentions'.
The record is a vision, self-driven by Ego and her musical philosophies, as she ramps up her already immaculately mastered musical intuition, rooted in jazz, soul, and resonant lyrical storytelling. "I've gotten more into co-producing more and actually steering the ship," she says, describing some of the differences from her critically acclaimed 2020 album, 'Honey For Wounds'. "I didn't really feel confident. I was kind of doing it with my first album, but I wasn't confident enough to really own it and expand. I think with this album, that's something that I definitely wanted to do more. It's been really exciting, and it's just kept things fresh. It means that I have pushed myself in that avenue, and I'm really proud of what's come of it."
That freshness can be found in a collection of songs full of insidious grooves that burn themselves into you, imploring you to either dance, reflect, cry - but most importantly, feel something. Feeling and connection are the purer emotions. You can hear it on tracks like the lead single 'What You Waiting For', where Ego is instinctive and reactive, embracing the moment and making her presence felt.
It's been six years since her debut, but that period has allowed Ego to grow as a performer, writer and person, allowing her to realise her musical vision on an album that is unhurried and incredibly assured. "I think I just kept growing in confidence," she says. "The more you do something, the more, hopefully, you just become more comfortable doing it, and you sort of trust yourself more on your journey and what you're about in the music industry. I'm very intuitive, and I think I definitely lead with that more so now, whereas in the beginning, maybe I was more of a yes girl. But I think as I've grown older, I'm very comfortable saying if somebody isn't right, or it isn't aligned with me; I just won't have it. It's that kind of energy."
One thing Ego simply won't have is any pressure to play the social media game, driven by a desire to create buzz or viral moments. It's not because she's lacking in personality. She's super smart, creative, funny and knows exactly what she wants. Instead, it's a desire to completely immerse herself and her artistic world in her music - what the music means and what she is trying to say. "It was just to trust myself, move in alignment and not feel a rush or like I need to be doing loads on TikTok or doing trending stuff," she says of her vision for this album. "It was just trusting that whoever's meant to hear it will hear it, and it will do what it needs to do without me being super gimmicky and feeling like I have to depend on these social media outlets that I don't necessarily care for."
"I just wanted to have fun with this album"
Once Ego reached that acceptance, freeing herself from expectation, the music flowed organically. It wasn't necessarily easy - "second album jitters are real," she admits - but the principal desire to simply push herself to make the best music she could on her terms was the guiding light for the album. "I started out making it at this residential studio in Bath called Real World," she says. "I'd been for a couple of days, and it was just really nice to just hang out with my band and eat together. It was just nice. We'd go on walks together. It was lovely, and I feel like from that point I knew that, obviously, we were starting work on this album, but there wasn't real pressure."
"I just wanted to have fun with this album. I want to make music that I really like, and I want to push myself. I don't want to worry about the outcome. It's not about that. This album, for me, was just about making music that I really liked, with people that I really liked," she beams.
As a songwriter, Ego is very perceptive. "I'm always influenced by lots of different music and conversations that I have with my friends or my family, or if I'm eavesdropping," she says of her creative process. "I think that's just how I form my songs in general - from just being an active listener of music and also being an active listener in communication with my friends."
One of her main enduring influences - and a pulsing heartbeat once again on 'Good Intentions' - is her deep love of jazz. A love of a form that allows musical expression and a disregard for that tediously endless search for perfection. "I've always loved jazz music," she smiles. "It's just such a freeing genre. A lot of jazz vocal musicians that I listen to just go all over the place with their vocals. It's like vocal acrobats, and I just find it such an interesting thing to listen to. It's not about perfection. You know, there are so many songs that I listen to, and it's like, oh, this note's quite flat on this one, it doesn't quite work - but it's not about that. It's just about being super free with your voice. And actually, I try to take that on with this album. I didn't want to do too many retakes or comping this vocal. I really wanted to just be like, no, this is how my voice was at the time we were recording this song. It's not perfect, and actually, that's okay. So I don't actually think this album is the best vocally - maybe it's not. I didn't want to make it perfect, or have to do 20 takes to do this. It was almost like treating it live."
The album title most clearly highlights Ego's philosophy and her artistry in 2026. "It's my intention for life," she says passionately. "That's what that song is - it's my intention for everything. In the chorus, I say, 'We don't know where the road will go, just keep those good intentions'. You just have to trust that things will be fine. Keep those good intentions. We don't know where the road will go - that is literally life, isn't it?"
It is indeed life, and Ego is determined to live it creatively her own way. "I don't know what's gonna happen with this album," she ponders. "I don't know if it's gonna flop. I don't know if it's gonna fly. The only thing I can control is my intention. I have to keep the intention that the right people will hear this project, and I don't need to be making up dances on TikTok in order to achieve that. My intention is for people to hear the music. That's what I can control." ■
Taken from the April 2026 issue of Dork. Ego Ella May's album 'Good Intentions' is out 20th March.
