Rivkala is no ordinary musician. She takes to the stage in great button eyelashes, a prim pencil moustache, and a 1920s flapper-cum-cabaret-cum-businesswoman wardrobe. And her music is just as impossible to pin down as any one thing. Winner of the Youth Music Awards Music Video Award for Chess and part of Youth Music’s Next Gen programme, she released her debut EP, ‘Crushed Velvet’ in 2025 to widespread acclaim. Since then, she’s performed solo at the BBC Proms, collaborated with jazz heavyweights the Joe Webb Trio and Theo Croker, and has been described as pushing neo-soul to new heights, with worldbuilding that holds a mirror up to the performativity in all of us. Born Rivkah, a Hebrew name meaning 'to connect,' she's added the Yiddish term of endearment, 'la,' to make it her own.
In this conversation, Rivkala lets us in on her creative process, her musical influences from Amy Winehouse to Erykah Badu and the music of her Jewish heritage, klezmer, Eastern European Jewish folk music. She talks about how she’s shaped her unmistakeable stage persona and how music has become an outlet and a platform for thoughts on power, politics and important social issues, jumping off from her politics and sociology degree at Newcastle University. And of course, she celebrates the diverse and tight knit musical community in Newcastle Gateshead – the venues and musicians who’ve been part of her music career so far.
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Music Lives Here is a podcast from The Glasshouse and your invitation to hear from the musicians that make this place feel and sound like home.
In each episode, presenter Frankie Jobling sits down with a different musician to hear all about what music means to them, their love of the North East, its people, its places, its history, and most importantly – its music.
We're going to be hearing from classical conductors to hip-hop artists, nu folk singer-songwriters to stoner metal headbangers, all with the unique connection to The Glasshouse and to the North East.
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Music Lives Here is a Loftus Media Production.
Producer: Jacob Dabb
Executive Producers: Debbie Kilbride, Jo Rowntree
Music: Chad Rogers
