When X Marks the Woman’s Spot: The truth behind Adela’s “Ain’t in LA”

Years ago, her dreams waited backstage at Dream Academy, a reality TV game show by HYBE Entertainment and Geffen Records featuring aspiring trainees competing for a spot in the girl group now known as “Katseye.” Today, Adela has performed at Lollapalooza 2026, with her solo debut, “Prima,” set for release next month. No group debut. No reality TV show victory. Just Adela—and her own success.

Although her story is one of many examples of Hollywood’s rapid ascent toward fame, Adela’s rise to stardom from an ordinary Slovak girl to becoming a rising pop icon is far from typical, a theme notably explored in her singles leading up to “Prima.”

In her latest three-minute single, “Ain’t in LA,” Slovak singer Adela, formerly a contestant on the reality show Dream Academy, not only put her country on the map—she stuck a GPS pin on the dreams of women whose skills and passions supersede their place of birth. 

About the Song

Released on July 23, “Ain’t in LA” serves as the closing track of her upcoming album, “Prima.” Sonically similar to Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” (2013), Adela likewise talks about a distinct version of autonomy and self-empowerment: success beyond geographical disadvantage.

Inspired by her mother’s bedroom wall of pop culture posters, the song traces its roots to Cold War-era censorship of Western influence in communist countries, particularly Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), where she traces her lineage. Adela recalls that her grandfather, who worked in German mines, would smuggle these posters to her mother, inspiring “Ain’t in LA.”

However, the song goes beyond retelling a personal narrative—it is a critique of the music industry’s preference for Western female artists over equally talented women from other countries. The music video furthers this commentary as she sings, “She’s taught her dreams don’t live at home,” while striking exaggeratedly provocative poses, reflecting the unrealistically Western expectations placed on women pursuing success.

In stark contrast, the video also features four kids in traditional Slovak attire, known as kroj, a transgender woman, and women of color. This video shows various “unorthodox” women dancing freely to the tune: a display of triumph over rigid expectations. 

She adds, “All of the girls in them unknown cities, you’re so unique and your face so pretty… I’d rather be a nobody than to be like everyone.” Adela then closes the music video with a bold statement, standing atop a pile of trophies in an oversized black trench coat, her shiny red hair spilling out from beneath the hood: simply Adela embracing her own “prima” without the need for Western glam.

Notably, Adela previously explored similar themes of outgrowing her origins in another song entitled “KGB.” Nodding to the Soviet-era “Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti” or the  “Committee for State Security,” this single focuses on her unlikely rise to stardom, likening herself to a spy whose trajectory to success was silent but powerful. 

“Just a little European girl, was plotting on my rise,” she sings. “I was, like, eight, working the night shift to learn English,” highlighting her struggle as a foreigner carving out her spot in pop music. “I’m forward, I’m foreign, forgive the way I say this, I’m pretty important.”

Previously, other pop artists have also mused about the same plights, such as Lorde’s “Team,” Rina Sawayama’s “Love Me 4 Me,” Laufey’s “Letter To My 13-Year-Old Self,” Jade’s “Angel of My Dreams,” or even Lana Del Rey’s “White Dress.” 

While Adela’s song celebrates a more optimistic, status-quo-breaking vision of success, “Team” finds celebration within struggle, recognizing the shared reality of many others facing similar circumstances. “We live in cities you’ll never see on-screen. Not very pretty, but we sure know how to run things,” she sings in the chorus, finding strength in their shared experience of overcoming adversity.

Meanwhile, “Love Me 4 Me” is a more direct reclamation of power. Similar to “Ain’t in LA,” Rina Sawayama accepts that she does not belong, but with this comes an ignited sense of self, as she sings, “Every time I let you in my mind, you find remedies, but you can’t fix me; you can’t win, so goodbye.” The song almost feels like an older sister to “Ain’t in LA,” a prideful but classy departure toward solidifying one’s identity beyond expectations.

In contrast, Laufey’s tear-jerking closure to “Bewitched” takes on a more somber tone. “Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self” reflects on the struggles Adela shares, albeit from a much younger perspective. “I’m so sorry that they pick you last, try to say your foreign name and laugh. I know that you feel loud, so different from the crowd,” she sings, wistfully reminiscing about how these past experiences built a more confident, secure version of herself: the same persona Adela exhibits in her song.

While these songs tackle personal challenges and growth, “Angel of My Dreams” and “White Dress” both view those experiences in the rearview, as if reflecting over the costly price of present success. “You only care about money, sellin’ my soul to a psycho. They say I’m so lucky,” Jade sings, lambasting the greed of the industry; on the other hand, Lana reminisces on the pre-fame freedom of living without fame, “When I was a waitress wearing a tight dress handling the heat. I wasn’t famous, just listening to Kings of Leon to the beat. I felt free ’cause I was only nineteen; such a scene.”

Intrinsically, these five songs tie back to the grim reality that Adela presents: barriers have long existed for women seeking success in the music industry, and sadly, many are rooted in an unchangeable yet unfavorable twist of fate.

Beyond the music industry

Unfortunately, pop music is not the only avenue where women face location- and gender-based discrimination.

Angelina Jolie’s 2013 Academy Awards acceptance speech after receiving the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award encapsulates it best: “I have never understood why some people are lucky enough to be born with the chance that I had, to have this path in life, and why across the world there’s a woman just like me… only she sits in a refugee camp, and she has no voice.”

Sade’s “Pearl” (1991) speaks to the same reality: “There is a woman in Somalia scraping for pearls on the roadside… I don’t know what she’s made of; I would like to be that brave.” Two different women—the author and the muse—yet two distinct realities. In a way, Angelina Jolie’s speech attests to the enduring truth of Sade’s account, which remains relevant in the face of persistent discrimination against women worldwide.

Presently, girls in Afghanistan continue to face secondary education bans under the Taliban’s rule, a challenge that remains an essential part of Malala Yousafzai’s global advocacy for girls’ education. 

In Africa, particularly in Somalia, Guinea, Mali, and Egypt, over 90% of women have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), largely due to sociocultural taboos. However, it is also practiced across many continents. Whether it involves the selective removal of the clitoral glands, the abnormal restriction of the vagina opening, or other non-medical alteration of a woman’s genitalia, this harmful practice is often associated with conservative cultural views on sex and childbirth. This not only jeopardizes a woman’s experience of childbirth but also contributes to long-term psychological harm among survivors. 

In the Philippines, women’s lack of bodily autonomy underscores pressing concerns regarding privacy, maternal healthcare, and resource accessibility. When location dictates a woman’s shot at life, then who decides the lucky draw?

Often, neocolonialism, which is defined as the indirect control of a more developed state over a less developed country, gets a say. 

         “Ain’t in LA” is littered with Western aesthetics: the gold chains, the lyrics about puffing smoke, and the overtly sexual (though satirical) portrayal of women, all of which create the notion of Western superiority. It sends the message that one’s cultural identity, especially when foreign, must be masked by a Hollywood facade, precisely the idea the song rejects—a woman does not deserve to be limited by her birthplace. 

Today, “Ain’t in LA” has sparked cultural conversations across social media, even inspiring a new trend where women from “lesser-known” areas of the world would highlight their “niche” place of origin, showing that the “baddest bitches” can come from anywhere, even places that Los Angeles’ whitewashed Hollywood standards fail to recognize.

Still, the question persists: With Adela’s new song and pop music’s own wave of feminism, will women’s fate remain gridlocked by geographical coordinates? Or will Hollywood finally expand its map?