Adla brings 'Nicole Kidman' and the real Chappell Roan to L.A.'s Fonda Theatre

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Set us as preferred It was only Adéla’s second headlining show in Los Angeles — and she was only about 20 minutes into it — but the ascendant pop star already had an apology she needed to get off her chest.“The next song that I’m gonna sing is a little bit awkward,” she said Thursday night at the Fonda Theatre.“So I’m gonna need y’all to bear with me as I explain why I made a song called ‘The Baddest Bitches Ain’t in L.A.,’ OK?”Added Adéla: “Please don’t boo.”To be precise, the song in question is titled “Ain’t in L.A.” — a woozy banger from the 22-year-old’s buzzy debut album, “Prima.” But you took her point: Here she was in front of a hyped-up crowd that included Chappell Roan and members of the girl group Katseye, and what she was about to tell us is that true coolness lies elsewhere.Based on her assertion that the Hollywood dream machine is “all a lie,” “Ain’t in L.A.” looks back with scorn at Adéla’s experience as a first-round flameout on “Dream Academy,” the build-a-band reality series that documented Katseye’s creation under the watchful eye of the K-pop kingpin Bang Si-hyuk.

At the Fonda, Adéla recounted moving here from her native Slovakia and working alongside the show’s other contestants to “try to become pop stars together,” she said.“And guess what? That didn’t work out for me.But it did for them.” She peered up at the venue’s balcony.

“Shout out to y’all,” she said.Except now it’s working out for Adéla too: Thursday’s show was the first of two at the Fonda behind last month’s release of “Prima,” whose title nods to the singer’s background as a ballet dancer; in addition to “Ain’t in L.A.,” which has more than 190 million streams on Spotify, the album has spun off a second hit in “Nicole Kidman,” which ...