For London artist Qendresa (pronounced chen-dre-sah), 2026 has been the most important year of her career so far. In January, she found herself ringing in the new year in the Bahamas, where she was part of a writing camp for Drake’s Iceman album trilogy. Her unexpected friendship with the Canadian rapper first blossomed when he posted her track “Tearz” on Instagram. “I couldn’t believe it was real,” she says from her Brighton seafront apartment. “We started talking over DM about music and it felt like speaking to an old friend – really natural and organic.” 

Their messages soon became a back and forth of music recommendations and tracks they’d been working on. “Looking back, I didn’t realise he was reaching out to collaborate. Then a few months later we got the invite to go and work on the Iceman albums — or album, at the time, we didn’t know there were going to be three.” In May, Drake surprised fans by dropping three albums at once: ICEMAN, HABIBTI and MAID OF HONOUR. Qendresa contributed to a number of tracks – many of them unreleased. On HABIBTI, she features on “Slap the City” and provides backing vocals on “Gen 5” and “Fortworth”. On MAID OF HONOUR, she’s credited on “Stuck”. 

Since the albums came out, Qendresa’s monthly listener count jumped from “under a million to over six million,” she says. “My monthly listeners have gone up a lot, but the new fans are on the same wavelength as me and my fans. They’re people that are genuinely intrigued and interested in what I’m doing. I love organic fanbases — loyal, organic fans who aren’t there because of any kind of hype, [but] because they believe in what you’re doing and enjoy listening to what you’re making.” 

She recently gave her newfound fanbase a warm welcome by releasing new music. Her latest project, which dropped last week, consists of a new single, “Besitos”, and its accompanying B-side. The former marks her first venture into reggaeton. “It’s a love song to Mexico,” she says. “It has a fun, playful, whimsical vibe. It’s not serious but it touches on serious things like attachment issues.” Then there’s the B-side, “Gave Myself 2 U”, which is dripping in the artist’s sexy, signature 80s sound. “That one is sensual and heartbreaking. I’m hoping people are going to cry. That’s my dream. No offence, but I do want people to cry to one of my songs.” 

Though she can be heard speaking Spanish on “Besitos”, Qendresa was born to Kosovo-Albanian parents and raised in Kilburn, north-west London. Her name, which means resistance or endurance in Albanian, points to the country’s history. “In the 90s, there was civil unrest in Kosovo,” she explains. “We were under Serbian occupation and they were beginning to commit a genocide against our people. Now, if you go to Kosovo, a lot of people and places are named Qendresa.” While it’s a common name in Kosovo and Albanian, she often has to correct people’s pronunciation. Luckily, she doesn’t mind – it allows her to share Kosovo’s history every time someone comments on her name. 

Her parents migrated to London in the 80s, where she grew up with two younger brothers. She wasn’t brought up in a creative household, but her parents always supported her love of music and tried to persuade her to play piano. However, her tomboyish tendencies got in the way – she much preferred being outside, getting mucky or playing football. “My parents could see that I was never going to do anything traditional,” she says. 

At college she studied fashion and fine art, but even creative subjects couldn’t keep her engaged in education. At one point her mother convinced her to try out hairdressing, but she only got paid £3 an hour and quickly lost interest. At the same time, Qendresa and her friends were discovering the city’s rave scene. They’d sneak into Fabric once a month and go out dancing to drum and bass, jungle and UK garage. “I was raving to drum and bass when I was 15-years-old,” she says. “That impacted me massively, because from then on I knew I wanted to be a part of this.” 

She was less interested in becoming a global artist, and more concerned with being part of London’s music scene. “I felt good listening to that music [drum and bass, jungle and UK garage], knowing it was our music,” she says. “Then grime took over my life. I was completely obsessed. It gave me energy, it gave me motivation. Hearing a London voice, speaking in the accent we speak in, being interpreted and understood on a world stage. It meant something because all we knew was American artists, or big artists like the Spice Girls.” Today, she talk-sings proudly through a thick west London accent on tracks like “Don’t Stop” (“Yeah bitch I'm from London, but my mum's Albanian,” she sings). 

Hearing a London accent on a world stage – it meant something because all we knew was American artists

After working in retail and a series of agency jobs, she started DJing at 24. This led to a four-week course at the London Sound Academy and subsequently, gigs at restaurants like The Ivy, Sexy Fish and Annabel’s. Eventually she landed her first Boiler Room set, followed by an NTS show. Between gigs, she was writing, recording and learning how to sample for herself. In 2020, she released her debut EP, Midnight Request Line, before dropping her acclaimed debut album, Londra, in 2024. 

Surprisingly, despite her love for the capital city (and naming her album after it), Qendresa moved to Brighton three years ago. She misses London, but it doesn’t feel like the same city she grew up in anymore. “I miss London when I’m in London,” she says. “People think gentrification is just fancy new builds, but it’s the whole mood. London has changed. The cost of living and people not being able to afford the city that they grew up in, the road they grew up on, that breaks a city. That breaks the mood of a city. It never used to feel this way.”

The version of London that shaped who she is as a person and an artist might not exist anymore, but its memory and impact lives on through her music. With a little help from Drake, Qendresa is taking Kilburn (and Kosovo) to the world.