Good Time Girl

Watching INJI perform to a sold-out crowd at the El Rey Theatre—one bouncing so hard it might trigger tremors in neighboring venues—is a spectacle in itself. Flanked by two athletic male dancers, she channels Madonna’s Blonde Ambition era with her own bold flair, turning the volume up to eleven. The result: a performance that’s fun, electric, and utterly exhilarating.

Inji Gürün never planned on being a pop star. When you talk to her, you sense it instantly—a kind of accidental magnetism, a sharp intellect wrapped in joy, and a deep understanding of musical structure paired with a total disregard for genre boundaries. Her journey from classical pianist and business student to viral sensation and electric live performer is the kind of modern origin story that reads like fiction. But Inji, with her signature blend of bouncy beats, feminist bravado, and entrepreneurial savvy, is as real as it gets.

“I wasn’t someone who went to a lot of shows before I became an artist,” she admits. “I always thought concerts were places you jumped and screamed. So when I started performing, I wanted to recreate that.” That intention is baked into everything she does—from her tour name, “A Tour You Can Scream Along To,” to her remixed, DJ-style live sets that defy the conventions of a typical singer-songwriter show. Her performances are not passive experiences; they’re a workout, a catharsis, a party, a rave!

Born and raised in Istanbul, Inji studied classical piano and jazz vocals, sang in choirs, and pursued music as a side project. Her plan was linear: study business, work in finance, and eventually launch something entrepreneurial. But when two friends in her college dorm asked her to collaborate on a track, something unexpected happened. The result—her first release—went viral. “It was totally out of nowhere,” she says. “I needed the universe to slap me in the face and say: ‘You’re a musician.'”

Still, she didn’t abandon her business mind. In fact, her career reflects a dual fluency: one foot in creative chaos, the other in calculated strategy. Her setlists are built with precision, blending EDM-style transitions with live instrumentation. “Almost every song has an adjustment,” she says. “I mix them into each other like a DJ set, but with a band. There are longer intros, more instrumental parts, things you can dance to. Then, toward the end, it gets more organic, more space to talk between songs.”

She is a student of rhythm, of resonance. Watching her on stage is a little like seeing the ghost of pop’s past and future inhabit one body. Think Madonna—an obvious influence, though Inji didn’t see her live in concert. “There weren’t a lot of shows in Istanbul, but we had a DVD of Madonna’s tour, and her music videos,” she says. “That’s all I watched. Maybe she’s somewhere deep in me.”

That early exposure to pop mythology runs parallel to another defining force: her feminist consciousness. It pulses through her lyrics, her visuals, her presence on stage flanked by powerful male dancers. It’s not posturing, it’s instinctual. “I was just heartbroken and petty in college,” she laughs. “I wanted to scream and shout, so I screamed a lot of feminist lyrics.”

And yet, her creative ethos is rooted in sincerity. She continues to write music as though no one will hear it. “I have to imagine that because I’m anxious,” she says. “The better the music is, the more people hear it and judge it. That’s scary. So to make something good, I have to forget the audience exists.”

Her collaboration with Nile Rodgers, the legendary producer and guitarist behind Chic and countless disco hits, is a testament to both her ambition and the serendipitous nature of her path. The two met filming an ad campaign. Rodgers took an interest. When Inji later sent him a song—”Forever”—inspired by him, he agreed to work on it. “It was surreal,” she says. “I love disco, and he’s the embodiment of aging with confidence and joy.”

The track reflects her evolution: her first organic, funky, disco-inspired piece, layered with Rodgers’ signature guitar riffs. “We kept it simple—vocals and guitar as the star,” she explains. “It didn’t change much from my demo. It was smooth.”

For someone so early in her career, Inji has a rare self-awareness. She acknowledges the seductive pressure to conform, especially in Los Angeles, where she now works with top-tier producers. But she resists defaulting to the formula. “The songs I like the most are the ones that sound like me,” she says. “The ones I wrote when I pretended no one would hear them.”

This tension between purity and polish is a recurring theme in our conversation. She speaks with admiration for artists like Charli XCX, who pushed boundaries during the pandemic, creating without waiting for permission. Inji is trying to do the same.

“Right now, I’m in that nerve-wracking post-tour moment,” she confesses. “You’ve made something, presented it, and then overnight, you’re expected to create something new. So I write every day—even if it’s just four lines of a rap. I freestyle. I make country songs, techno. Just make something. Get it out.”

Her process is devotional. She journals obsessively, longhand. “Typing doesn’t do the same thing,” she says. “There’s something about physically writing that makes ideas stick.”

Her ambitions are expansive yet grounded. She wants to play festivals (her first run is this year), collaborate with fashion designers (she’s already done a collection with a Turkish brand), and keep experimenting. Style-wise, she’s gravitating toward Maison Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Rick Owens—designers who make clothing that, in her words, “turn heads.”