London-based musician and visual artist Lilith Ai moves in circles of powerful women: her Riot EP comes with a riot grrrl-inspired fanzine that she created in collaboration with model Georgia May Jagger, and she's a member of the Fight Like A Girl collective that also includes punk band Skinny Girl Diet. The EP, out now, moves between rough, hardened soul and melodic rock protests. Title track "Riot" falls into the latter camp, with a hook that screams for riot, riot, revolution, illustrated in the video by a bare-knuckle fistfight with an unexpected outcome.
"'Riot’ is about frustration and rebellion," Ai told The FADER via email. "I was living in a shitty hostel when I wrote it and I really needed some freedom. My pal Smyth wrote the riff and I did the lyrics and melody pretty fast. Later that day I was on the bus from his yard texting him the lyrics and the whole thing was finished that day."
Watch the "Riot" video above, and scroll down to view extracts from Ai's book of the same name. The four-track EP, with the accompanying 148 pages of illustrations by Ai and photographs by Jagger, is out now.