Adéla Brings Two Prima Singles and Her Swaggerina to The Tonight Show

Adéla treats pop stardom as a subject to be studied, and her debut album Prima reads like notes from the seminar. The Slovakian singer and former ballet dancer built her record out of reference points she is happy to name: the spoken-word R&B of “Nicole Kidman,” the Cyrus-indebted chorus of “Ain’t In LA,” the production choices that make both songs slow-roll rather than sprint. On Thursday she carried that syllabus to The Tonight Show, her first late night appearance.

She sat for an interview with Jimmy Fallon before performing a medley of the two singles. The conversation made the method explicit. Adéla told Fallon she developed her American accent by studying Hannah Montana and old interviews with Fallon himself, a debt she had already logged on Prima’s opening track, “KGB.” Then she taught the host her signature move, the swaggerina, and got him to attempt it on air.

It was a well-planned debut: a performer presenting her influences as part of the act instead of hiding them, and using the talk segment to show the machinery behind the songs rather than just promoting them. The medley leaned hard on choreography and persona, which is consistent with an artist whose appeal rests on knowing exactly what a pop star is supposed to do. Whether that translates into a career longer than one album cycle is the open question Prima leaves behind.