Manchester, Jamaica · reggae · soul

Lila Iké

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Reggae revival with an R&B ear — a warm, conversational voice over rhythms that never rush to make their point.

Born Alecia Tameka Grey in January 1994, Lila Iké grew up in Christiana, in Manchester parish, Jamaica, and attended Manchester High School before enrolling at Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville. She later tried university at the University of the West Indies but left to pursue music, moving to Kingston to build her career under a stage name drawn from the Nigerian name Ikéchukwu, meaning power of God.

Her music sits within the reggae revival while drawing openly on R&B and soul phrasing, with a relaxed, conversational vocal delivery over unhurried one-drop and dancehall-influenced rhythms. In 2017 she signed to Protoje's In.Digg.Nation Collective, the label and camp through which she first reached wider audiences.

The EP The ExPerience, released in 2020, collected several of the songs that established her, including Where I'm Coming From and Second Chance, alongside earlier singles such as Biggest Fan, Gotti Gotti and Sweet Inspiration. Her writing tends toward the personal, self-doubt, romance and self-determination, rather than the overtly topical.

She toured Europe in 2019 and opened for Protoje on a US tour that year. The same period brought a spot on BBC Radio 1Xtra's Hot for 2020 list and a Vice profile naming her among Jamaica's promising new reggae artists, alongside Koffee and Chronixx. Her debut album, Treasure Self Love, released in August 2025, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Reggae Album, and she performed at the 2026 Grammy Awards.

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