Enya announces surprise Southern hip hop mixtape

Enya has revealed she is moving away from her ‘Orinoco Flow’ to experiment with the type of triplet rap flows you might hear on the streets of Atlanta on a forthcoming mixtape, ‘Old Red Moon’.

Inspired by the US’ Southern rap scene after an eye-opening trip to Magic City, the lead single ‘Waka Flocka Flow’ is a trap-styled cover of her beloved 1988 chart-topper, featuring Lil Yachty freestyling around the “sail away, sail away” refrain.

Other track titles include ‘Doneballin’’, ‘Celtic Crack Clan (feat. Quavo)’ and a diss track directed at the Catholic church, 'Solidarity with Shuhada' Sadaqat', which samples her late compatriot Sinead O’Connor.

Enya hasn’t released an album since ‘Dark Sky Island’ in 2015, but hints she had something coming have filtered through over the years, including her sister Moya saying new music was in the works in 2019 — though the stylistic pivot has shocked many.

The full mixtape drops via datpiff this week, with Enya revealing she was inspired by another musical left-turn which recently bewildered the music industry.

“I’m like the anti-André 3000,” she said in a press release. “While he’s been inhaling incense and performing felatio on flutes, I’ve been racking up Cash Money streams and booty-shaking to Bubba Sparxxx.”

Addressing anyone who may be sceptical about the pivot, the Donegal-born artist said: “It's like this though, I'm tired of them closed minded folks. It's like this: Southern Ireland got something to say, that's all I got to say."

Fee Stax is Mixmag’s cross-culture correspondent