Melodic Magazine had a chance this week to sit down and chat with R&B and alt-pop sensation UMI. Her story is an inspirational one of growing into her musical gifting.
Her career began when her covers on YouTube and Soundcloud started getting flagged for copyright strikes. She took it as a sign from the universe to start releasing her original music, which laid the foundations for her hugely successful career so far. In her nine years of professional music-making, she has released three LPs, four EPs, and a broad collection of standalone singles. Her soulful voice and introspective lyricism have endeared her to diverse audiences around the globe.
On her newly released studio album, people stories, UMI is sharing the stories of her fans, friends, and loved ones in ways that only she can. Read along as we get to know more about this sweet, gentle soul and the heart behind people stories.
Thank you for sitting down to chat with me today, it’s great to meet you! people stories feels like your most personal project so far. What inspired you to center an entire album around other people’s stories, as well as your own?
The whole concept started when I was in Amsterdam three years ago, on tour with my last album, and after the tour, these fans [took me out to dinner] and we had this delicious Thai food and they were telling me about their stories. We had mango sticky rice, which turned out to be all of our favorite food. They told me how they had eaten like five plates of it on their first date. And while I’m eating it, it all clicks, and I’m, like, “Oh! I want to write a song about them and call it Mango Sticky Rice, in dedication to this moment that they shared with me.”
And it made all this inspiration flood back into me, because I had just poured so much of my story into the last album, and I feel like it takes time for an artist to accumulate enough self-experience to then put out a body of work. I think the industry pushes you to constantly talk about yourself, and so I had this moment where I was like, “Wait, I don’t have to talk about myself, I can channel other people’s stories through me and use my storytelling abilities to tell the stories of the people.” So that’s what inspired me.
You’ve also shared that people stories is about accepting the darker colors of life. Can you share a moment where that lesson really hit home for you?
I think making this whole album I faced some of my deepest shadows. I wanted to quit music so bad when I was making this album, and I think it’s because I had to confront so many of my doubts, my fears, my pain as I was moving through music. I think our deepest passions are our biggest teachers, too. I used to be scared to sing in front of people and put myself out in front of people. Because I love music so much, it pushed me to overcome those fears.
So I was overcoming a lot of fear while making this album, and when I was in therapy just sitting with myself, I was learning that the more capacity I have to hold my darkness, the more capacity I have for joy, too. And I feel like I was reaching my ceiling of emotion because I didn’t let myself go into the dark emotions all the way, and accept that as a part of myself. I think I reclaimed more of my darker side to then have more self-love and empathy. And so I’ve just been enjoying life more because of that. Not much has changed, it’s more just that my relationship to myself has changed.
people stories includes ambient sound from your home studio and interludes of audio from your therapy sessions. Why was it important to keep those imperfections on the record?
Yeah, there’s so many things I kept in the album that are still not perfect. I recorded most of the album at my house, and you can hear the AC going, the dog’s barking, the street traffic. I did not sound treat my place. I don’t have fancy speakers; whatever equipment I have, anybody could buy. And I did that on purpose because when I tried to go to the studio, I was like, “Everything’s just too perfect. How can I make a story about real life when this doesn’t sound like real life? This sounds like makeup and filters and curation.” So I stripped that all back. But to even allow myself to strip that back required me to let go of the fear. Like, “What if this doesn’t perform as well because it doesn’t sound perfect? What if people drop me because I didn’t make a project they wanted?” So many layers of fear, I also had to let go to just let myself be myself.
You’ve always blended elements of R&B, neo-soul, even bedroom pop and lo-fi. Are there ways in which you feel like you’ve pushed those boundaries even further on people stories?
Definitely. I’m so proud of myself for this album. There’s some very experimental stuff on there. I really challenged myself to make it experimental, but also easy to listen to and understand, and that’s also a challenge in itself. But there’s songs like my favorite, “RAIN RAIN,” which is just banjo, my voice, and an 808. Who’s done that? A banjo and an 808?? It’s just so cool. “IT’S BEEN A WHILE,” where it just opens up with claps and guitar, “GROCERY STORE” is super psychedelic and reggae-inspired, but outside of that, there are songs that are 80s pop-leaning, there’s R&B, and neo-soul. I think just the fact that I put all those in one project is very bold and very UMI. And to me, that’s also really pushing what it means to be a black girl.
We’re so multi-faceted, there’s so much to us that people don’t get to see often.
Yes! Especially on a global or commercial level. It always seems like there’s just one dimension of being black that people want to see, and I don’t think it’s true, but it feels true sometimes when you’re in it. That was also one of the fears I had to let go of: “Am I black if I [do things a certain way]? Will I still be accepted?” That was something I’m really proud of, and overcoming that allowed me to make this album. That’s why I think this is the most bold I’ve been, because I’ve let those fears go more.
And what also pushed me to [challenge genre boundaries] is that to me, it’s not about sticking to one sound. It’s about the feeling; it’s a consistent feeling you’ll always receive from the music. Because I’m using all these diverse stories, it was important for me to have diverse sounds to reflect the diversity of the human experience and of my fans. My fans are not just one type of people or one gender identity. It’s so fluid. So, the album represents the fluidity of me and my fans. It’s scary, but I think the world is more fluid than ever. So, somebody’s got to push and represent that in music. So, that’s my hope.
Absolutely. I’ve seen a couple different projects come out this year, where it’s not any one thing at all. There’ll be 100 different genres in 12 songs, and it’s so exciting. Because I wonder how many people have wanted to do that in the past but felt like they couldn’t because their label put restrictions around them or something like that. So, that’s very bold and admirable.
Thank you! Also, V-Ron is the executive producer of the album, and she produced every single song, played almost every single instrument, and I think having a female producer on the album also has helped shape the sound so beautifully. As women, the way we feel music is different from the male ear. It’s just who we are. We breathe differently, we see and we feel differently. Having her help me lead the sonics on people stories made so many things I couldn’t do before possible. She just feels music so deeply that she’s helped me access sounds that I really don’t think anyone has created. I think more representation of the female ear is the future of music. Like, we have not tapped into what women can do in music, so we’re like, “Oh my god, everything sounds the same,” and it’s because we have yet to dive into this whole other side of people, so it makes me excited!
We always get the negative connotation of women being more emotional, but we need to tap into that.
We need to, exactly! Yes! Yes, you get it.
You have also described yourself as a Storyteller for this record. How do you go about balancing telling your own story and incorporating the stories of others?
That’s such a fun question! I love this question. There’s a couple ways I let myself be embodied in the album. I interwove interludes from my therapist while I was making the album, and so I wanted people to just understand where my headspace was and also [realize that] if UMI can share her therapy sessions with the world, you can tell your friend that you’re not okay. You can really open up and it’s safe!
I wanted to go all the way to the edge of vulnerability. There are songs like “RAIN RAIN,” that one is my story, and then there’s “SAFE ROOM” which this songwriter by the name of Diane Warren wrote for me, as my story and the story between me and my fans, so I think those two are really interesting. At first, I was like, “I’m only keeping songs from people.” But girl, I was being too rigid, you gotta let yourself flow. I’m including a few moments where it’s just me, and letting people reflect back to me.
We talked a bit earlier about confronting your own darkness and letting that flow into your music. Were there any revelations that you had about yourself during this process?
One thing I’ve learned is that I love to freestyle, and freestyling is one of the easiest ways for me to channel music. Like, almost every song is a freestyle. For example, “SOMETIMES,” the opening track of the album, is a freestyle itself, and we rerecorded the vocals. The lead single, “RIGHT/WRONG” is a freestyle, too.
So what I learned about myself is that if I can focus on just opening myself up, then the whole song comes through, and songwriting is actually very easy for me. And I think I started to trust my abilities even more through writing this. [I realized] I really do have a gift! I don’t wanna say it’s not normal, but I think to freestyle something like that definitely is a gift and a superpower, and so, things like that made me not want to quit music. This really is something special that I have, it deserves to be shared.
I think the second moment, we spoke on it earlier, but just the power of the feminine was something that meant a lot to me. Working so intimately with V-Ron on the album [taught me that] there really is something special to the feminine ear, and the world really needs to hear it. It was just really deep and profound, and very radical to me, just to hold that boundary that this album will be made by a female producer. I knew going in that only a female producer can express what I have to say. And then to see that happening in real time was a eureka moment of “Oh! The world isn’t stuck, music isn’t dead. We need to just evolve.” That was really powerful for me.
How have you seen your spirituality evolve throughout your career and specifically throughout the making of people stories?
Wait, I love this question. No one’s asked me this question ever. Something that I’m so excited about with this album is my aesthetic, my image is shifting a little bit where in the past, the way I was embodying my spirituality was very angelic and fairy-like and very natural, wearing a lot of white and just it was very flowy, and that felt so true to me, and I love that.
But I realized I was kind of painting this good girl of myself, where I wasn’t letting myself embrace my darkness and shadows. What I wanted to do with this next album was to represent the grungier, messier, realer side. Every time I do a makeup look, everything’s smudged. I always tell my makeup artist, “Don’t make it perfect, don’t make it clean. Make it look like I just rubbed my eye.” And with my hair, I just wanted to make it as big as possible. I keep telling them, “don’t make it perfect, make it wispy and out there!” And the style of my clothes is grungier and more gender-fluid, too. The whole point of that for me is embracing the grittier, messier parts of life.
Spirituality doesn’t have to be this perfect, glowing, beautiful thing. You can be in the messiest, dirtiest city, you can be drunk as fuck, eating a hamburger from McDonald’s, and you can still feel connected to God. I really challenge myself to let God’s spirit be everywhere and in everything. That’s how I feel like my spirituality has shifted. It’s become more free, and less tied to perfection. And that’s something I hope people take away, too. Also, I express myself through my videos and through the show, and this show is UMI really going there. I’m learning that Spirit is anywhere I want to go. I think that’ll help break boundaries of religious programming and spiritual programming that I’ve also had to undo for myself, to then feel God anywhere. That, to me, is true oneness with yourself.
Was there any particular song on people stories that felt the most difficult or cathartic to write?
I think I’ve talked about this song a lot, but “RAIN RAIN” was so necessary for me. I didn’t even intend for it to come out. It was really for me. One day I was having one of those difficult mental health eras. I would wake up happy for a little bit and then I was spiraling and digging myself these mental holes, and I was getting so sick of it. I woke up one day and it was raining on top of all that, and I spiraled into a panic attack. And I was just so frustrated with myself, because I was aware I was doing it, but I hadn’t built the habits to not do it yet, and that in-between stage can be so frustrating and discouraging.
I remember V-Ron was at the studio, and she was working with a country producer and making a lot of country music at the time. And so I was like, “I don’t know what you’re making. I need to come over right now and get this off my chest.” So I drive over, I’m crying like, “I hate my life, I wanna quit music.” I get to the studio and it’s just full of banjos and 12-string guitars, all these folky instruments. So I said, “Can you just get the banjo and play some R&B chords and I’m just gonna write how I feel today.” And that’s what I did! And since writing that song, every time I feel that way, I play it and it gives me hope. I got out of this once, I can get out of it again. Every time I listen to it I think, “UMI you did that! I’m so proud of you!”
And do you view this new album as a new chapter for you musically?
Yeah, I would say it’s a new era. I feel like I’ve arrived at the station finally. I’ve just been on the train, not knowing where I’m going but I love making music, so I’m making it. And now I know the destination and where the train is headed! This is the first time I’ve made a project with a very clear destination and a deep arrival to myself.
I think it’s probably ‘cause my frontal lobe developed, I really think it’s that simple. So, yes, it’s a new era that marks an embodiment of my femininity and embodiment of my power. But it’s also very fluid because it’s not the end. I’m already working on my next album right now, so this UMI already feels like a past version of myself that the world gets to see now, but I sat with her for three years. So it’s fluid because I’m already flowing into the next stage. I’m really happy [people stories] is coming out now because if I waited any longer I probably wouldn’t have put it out. I would feel like I’ve grown too far from it, so it’s good that it’s coming now, before I feel too distant from her.
That’s something so cool about music. It feels more fluid to you because you’re actually living through these experiences. It can also come across in a different way to people who are consuming the music. We see the albums come out one after the other, so it feels like a new era. But you get this unique experience of both living and flowing through it and also releasing it in chapters.
I love that, you said that perfectly. And my manager Michelle says artists live in the future, and we’re just pulling the future into the now and helping people evolve into new ways of seeing, thinking, and creating through art. So this is me two years ago and now it’s fully embodied. I pulled it in, and now I’m like pulling the next thing into the now.
I really love that, because consuming music, you listen to it and just cognitively, the brain thinks, “this is what’s happening right now.” But remembering that these are stories from a different time in your life is very cool. As a listener, that’s how I’m going to frame listening to people stories. I’m excited to hear it with all this context.
Okay, so just to pivot the next couple of shows that you have coming up in New York City. How are you hoping to bring People Stories to life on stage?
There’s two main live experiences I’m curating. One is the release events I’m doing, one in LA, one in New York like you said. I call them experiential parties because you’re gonna be able to experience the concept of people stories through storytelling. For example, I’m going to have an open mic portion where people get to come on stage and pull a card with an intimate question about their life and they’re gonna share their story with the crowd and the crowd is gonna have a moment to interact and talk amongst themselves. So, you’re gonna leave the experience with me having a deeper understanding of yourself and the people around you to then remember our Oneness.
Right now I’m also curating and building out the tour that’s starting in the fall. I don’t want to reveal too much, but I will be interweaving a lot of fans’ stories into the show. Maybe you’ll see yourself at the show or hear yourself at the show because I’ve been collecting and archiving a lot of fan stories for a while. You can expect to get to know my humanity more, and through that, understand yours more.
We talked a little bit earlier about your struggle with stage fright, and I’m curious to know, does the level of performance anxiety change based on whether you’re singing about somebody else’s story versus your own?
Actually, my anxiety level shifts when I’m singing someone else’s song versus my own song. Something about singing someone else’s song is easier for me. I don’t know why, but when it’s my own song, I have an expectation of how good it’s supposed to be and how I’m supposed to sing it. Singing someone else’s song, it’s my interpretation of their music, so it doesn’t matter.
After my last tour with Jhené Aiko, I feel like I got whatever was left of my stage fright out of my system because it was so high-level and intense. It was like I was being trained to hold more confidence. But I’m still a little bit nervous because I know I’m gonna take myself to the edge of my freedom on stage. My challenge with this next tour is, if I want to do a cartwheel, I’m doing a cartwheel. If I need to cry onstage, I’m gonna cry onstage. There’s going to be no walls and barriers, so I’m nervous to go there. This is actually something I’ve talked to my therapist about, because once you go there, if someone has a judgment, they’re literally judging the truest, purest form of you. And I think I’ve been putting up walls. If somebody judges my performance, it’s okay, because they didn’t really see me. And that was not real protection, but I’m taking all that off. So I’m very nervous, but I’m excited, too.
That’s definitely a big deal to really strip it all back and say, “This is the deepest, truest form of UMI that you will ever have seen.” I think folks are hungry for authenticity and realness, especially in such an inherently spiritual environment as live music performance, So, I think it’s going to land really well. I think people are going to cry right with you and cartwheel right with you.
Oh, I think so, too. I see it. Thank you for reminding me, that actually helps a lot.
People Stories is available to stream wherever you listen to music.
