Spider

Jennifer Osakpolor Irabor (born ), known professionally as Spider, is an Irish musician born in Tallaght, Dublin, Ireland. Spider moved to London aged 18 to study at BIMM University; after being railroaded by male producers into releasing synth-pop under the name Jenn, she paused making music for a couple of years as a result of disillusionment, and subsequently released alt-pop under the name Spider. She is a member of Loud LDN.

Life and career

Early life Jennifer Osakpolor Irabor was born in Her parents played Nigerian gospel music and chart hits; and spent time operating multiple Stan Twitter accounts,

"I remember being so gassed about Halsey because she was half Black. It was the most white-passing, like, crumbs, but I was like, thank god! [...] In my head, I thought there didn’t seem to be a lot of us in the scene, so that really motivated me to be there as a Black woman and make that type of music. I remember going into my dad’s room at 1am, like, ‘I think I’m gonna make alternative music because there’s not enough Black women in it’." — Irabor talking to Dork in July 2023

Career By the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, she was severely depressed, and lockdown forced her to confront her feelings; adopting the stage name Spider after spiders began appearing in her room on the grounds that they were a sign to resume being creative. One of the first tracks she released after returning to making music was "Water Sign", The track went viral online in spite of blogs declining coverage; by April 2023, the track had been liked over 160,000 times on TikTok. "I'm Fine! I'm Good! I'm Perfect", was written following an emotional breakdown on her twenty first birthday; which was written about her experiences of poor treatment by a partner. a collective of London-based women and genderqueer musicians founded in May 2022.

Shortly after taking a break from TikTok, she entered into a session with Earl Saga, who she had met via industry connections she had made following the success of "Water Sign". After taking the view that music should be used to make radical statements, she wrote "America's Next Top Model", a music video for the song was released, in which Irabor dances while ignoring white men screaming at her. detailed her contempt for her friends' clout-chasing ex-boyfriends, which included "America's Next Top Model" and "Growing Into It". She then supported Blackpink on their Born Pink World Tour. In November 2023, she released the single "Straight Out the Oven", a song which queried her desires to be conventionally attractive and for toxic men to validate her, and announced a third EP, An Object of Desire, which contained her take on her experience of objectification, desire, and intimacy as a young adult who had grown up in a Catholic environment. followed by An Object of Desire in February 2024.

Artistry In an April 2022 interview with Notion, Irabor noted that Spider was predominantly inspired by Lorde, Halsey, and Taylor Swift, specifically citing Swift's way with words, and noted that she gravitated towards artists with thriving online communities. In April 2023, NME described her works as "alt-pop". In July 2023, Dork attributed her brashness to going viral during the pandemic, and therefore not having to perform live until later, which meant she had longer to develop confidence in being herself on stage.