The Comeback WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR: Kreesha Turner at NXNE
Photo courtesy of artist
As someone who grew up listening to Don't Call Me Baby, I found it surreal to see Kreesha Turner take the stage at Cassette for NXNE. After stepping away from music for almost 10 years, she returned with the same magnetic stage presence that made so many people fall in love with her music in the first place. Blending songs from her new album with fan favourites, Turner had the crowd singing along from the very first chorus, proving that this wasn't just a nostalgic return; it was the beginning of an exciting new chapter.
Turner first emerged on the Canadian music scene in the late 2000s with her debut album Passion, quickly becoming known for her blend of pop, R&B, and reggae influences. With hits like Don't Call Me Baby and Bounce With Me, she became a staple on Canadian radio before stepping away from the spotlight. Now, she's back with new music and a sound that reflects both where she's been and where she's headed next
“This is the project I’ve waited over 20 years to make.”
While many know Turner for her early pop hits, her new music takes a different direction. With a soulful, jazz-inspired sound, she's created something that feels both fresh and authentic.
Post-NXNE, I asked Kreesha a few questions about returning to music, beginning her new era with her album Utopia. Here’s what she had to say.
SYNT: This was your first show in a while, and you've been stepping back into the music scene recently. What was going through your head before you walked on stage?
KT: Honestly? Nerves. Real ones. This was my first full set in over ten years, and the band and I only had time for one rehearsal before the show, so part of me was quietly wishing we'd had just one more. But beyond the logistics, there's always something I try to do before I perform, which is to ground myself. I have a practice of getting still before I go on so that what the audience gets is my authentic self. Not the character we create and present to the world, but actually me. Because there's a version of performing that's armour, and a version that's surrender. I've spent a long time learning the difference, and I wanted to walk out there in surrender. The nerves were there. But so was that intention.
SYNT: The crowd seemed locked in from the start. What was the vibe like from your perspective up there? Was there a moment during the performance where you thought, "Okay, I'm really back"?
KT: There were actually a few moments. The very first one hit right away. The opening song "Bounce With Me" and the crowd just singing along immediately, that energy coming back at me from the first note, I thought, okay, we've got this. That was the first exhale. But then the third song was "Utopia," my upcoming single, and that one I was most nervous to perform. Not just because it's technically demanding and the high notes can be difficult to hit when adrenaline and nerves are running the show, but because of what the song means to me personally. If I think about it too much, I cry. So once I made it through "Utopia" with no tears and all the notes in place, I felt this wave of confidence just open up. And then later in the set, "Black Magic." I just love performing that song so much. I feel so grounded in it, so fully myself. It always gives me a second wind. By that point, I wasn't thinking about the ten years away anymore. I was just there.
SYNT: You've been in music for a long time, but this feels like a new chapter. What made now the right time to come back and release a new album?
KT: Life made it the right time, and not in a gentle way. In 2023, I experienced a devastating personal loss, and after 15 years in Los Angeles, I came home to Edmonton to be with family. From there, I set off on my first-ever solo travel experience through Southeast Asia. Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, South Korea, the Philippines. And it was specifically in Bali where I found music again. I had genuinely forgotten how much I loved it, how much it was part of me. Bali gave it back. So the timing wasn't planned or strategic. It was just life bringing me full circle to the thing I was always supposed to be doing. I felt like I had to lose everything to find myself right back here. That feeling doesn't wait for the right moment. It just arrived.
“There’s a version of performing that’s armour, and a version that’s surrender. I’ve spent a long time learning the difference, and I wanted to walk out there in surrender.”
SYNT: Utopia is coming out July 24. What's the story behind this record, and what was your inspiration in making it?
KT: This is the project I've waited over 20 years to make. It's rooted in jazz, which is my first musical language, what I was trained in, but my vocals are neo-soul, and my writing and storytelling style is contemporary. Thematically, it moves through love, ego, loss, and what comes after. What you find when you finally sit with yourself and get honest. As for "Utopia" specifically, that song starts in a dream. It opens in this soft, protected world, almost like a lullaby. But underneath that beauty, it's about something really personal. The feeling that the world I grew up believing in, the one my dad created for me, didn't match the reality I eventually had to face. It's about that moment of reckoning. Which is why it means so much to me, and also why performing it live without falling apart is its own kind of challenge every single time.
SYNT: Is there a song on the album that feels especially personal or represents this era of your life the best?
KT: If I'm being really honest, the song that represents this era of my life is probably "Delulu." It's about accountability. For all the hard things that happened to me, the things I couldn't control, there was still an element I could control, and I had to be honest with myself about that. I had to take off the convenient lens of naivety and stop hiding behind it. That song is me holding myself responsible, choosing to move forward in my intuition and my self-trust, and committing to never again giving my power away. I am stronger and wiser because of everything I have endured. And this time around, my destiny is in my own hands. That's why I'm making the music I want to make and doing everything my way. "Delulu" is where that declaration lives on the album. It's the moment I stop being the victim of my own story and become the author of it.
SYNT: A lot of people still know you from "Don't Call Me Baby." How has your relationship with that song changed over the years?
KT: It feels like a song from another lifetime, and I mean that in the most tender way. When I hear it now, or when I perform it and I see the look on people's faces, that flash of recognition, that "oh my god, I know this one," it fills me with joy. Genuinely. To be able to give someone something that brings them nostalgia, something that takes them back to a moment in their own life, is a gift I feel honoured to carry. My relationship with the song has softened over the years. It used to feel like something I had to live up to. Now it just feels like a chapter. A real one. A chapter I'm proud of.
SYNT: When you play "Don't Call Me Baby" now, does it bring you back to that moment in your career, or has the song taken on a new meaning for you?
KT: Both, honestly. There's always a flicker of that moment. 2009, Canadian radio, a version of me that was navigating all of this for the first time. That flicker is real, and I don't try to push it away. But what I feel most when I sing it now is gratitude. Gratitude that it still connects. Gratitude that people kept it with them all these years. The song hasn't changed, but I have, and maybe that's what gives it new meaning. I'm not the same person who wrote it, and singing it now as someone who has lived so much more, lost so much more, found so much more, it lands differently in my body. It's sweeter somehow. Less about the moment it came from and more about the fact that it lasted.
SYNT: For people discovering or rediscovering you through NXNE, what do you hope they take away from Utopia?
KT: I hope they feel something. That's really it. Not a genre, not a category, not a career comeback narrative, just a feeling. This album was made from the most honest place I've ever created from, and it moves through real human experiences: ego, love, loss, the world you thought you lived in, and the one you actually do. If someone walks away from this record feeling seen, feeling like something in the music named something they hadn't been able to name themselves, then I've done what I set out to do. This is the most real version of me that has ever been recorded. I just hope it reaches the people who need it.
