Blend

I was listening to your new album and it was so amazing.

Oh thank you! 

Of course! So lets start at the top, when and how did you start making music?

I've been interested in music ever since I was a little kid. I always wanted to take piano lessons, I wanted to learn how to play all the instruments honestly. But my mom and I traveled a lot when I was a kid, and I can't really travel with a keyboard. I mean, I could but that’s a lot for like nine year old.

Might be just a little heavy. 

Exactly! But I was really adamant about playing something so when I was 12 years old she got me a guitar and I started really learning from there. We were living in Berlin at the time and I just started teaching myself on YouTube, learning the basic chords. During that time, around 8th grade, I also joined the choir program which was my first introduction to singing. One thing led to another and I just knew that music was something I wanted to do seriously. 

Even in elementary school, we had those big colored Macbooks and during free time we could choose Imovie, Garage Band, or Text Edit and I always ended up making little beats on Garage Band. Once I got older and was in high school I began to start writing songs and making demos to show to producers so they understood the sound I wanted. And honestly no one really got what I wanted so I just continued to learn and develop my personal sound. Eventually I got Logic, a mini controller and a keyboard, put those together, put something on SoundCloud and one thing led to another.

It really all just fell together, that’s great! You mentioned living in Berlin, did you move around a lot? Where are you currently based?

New York is my current base, things are beginning to pick back up so who knows what the future holds, but I’m very settled right now. It feels like it’s always been my base, but that also isn’t true because my mom and I did a lot of traveling when I was young. My mom really just wanted to be like a traveling gypsy, and that always changes when you have kids, but she honestly did the least amount of settling down possible. I was raised in Miami till I was six and then we moved to New York and were just supposed to be there for the summer. When 9/11 happened the traveling kind of halted so she put me in school here because she didn’t want me to fall too far behind. 

We ended up moving to India when I was nine and we were only supposed to be there for six months but four years later we were still there. In between that we went to Nepal for a bit, Thailand for six months, and then we ended up moving to Berlin because my mother is German. I had been homeschooled for all of our traveling in Asia so she wanted me to finally be settled for school as I got older.

That’s so amazing, to have experienced all those different places so young. 

It was amazing in hindsight but back then I hated it. I was like, I do not want to live here, we were only supposed to be in India for two years, but it's been four. All I wanted was to go back to New York so I ended up coming back here for 2 years. My mom had a tough time getting her green card, so I moved in with my Godparents when I was 14. Then for my junior and senior year I went back to Miami and then finally once I graduated and my mom had gotten her green card I moved back to New York and I’ve been here ever since. 

Wow.

I know! It was a lot of traveling, and I love it now, but also now after COVID I just feel like I need to get out of New York. I need nature and trees! 

You have so many amazing sounds and samples on your album, how did all of the traveling you did growing up inspire your sound? If at all. 

Yeah, I mean there has definitely been some inspiration from my traveling. Music is always about what you've experienced. I feel like for the most part, drawing inspiration from life is what  artists do in general, regardless of what type of art they do. I’m always drawing inspiration from my life, like with my first EP, 3:33 AM, that was really about me dealing with the loss of my mom. I wanted it to encapsulate the kind of person she was, and I mean she's German if I didn't put any German folk music in there, but she was obsessed with India and probably would have lived out the rest of her life. So with 3:33 AM, I really wanted to utilize that sound of the time we spent together there and all of the sounds I fell in love with when I was a kid there. The traditional singing and, you know, classical tabla playing all that stuff. Music from all over the world was such a prominent part of my childhood I feel like it really helps in explaining who I am as a person and as an artist. I am never going to try to make a traditional Indian piece, but that was such an important part of my life I want to utilize and respect those sounds within my own music.

Also living in Berlin I have always loved Berlin techno and house music, we didn’t spend much time in Brazil but my mother was always listening to Bossa Nova. She was obsessed with Stan Getz so I take a lot of from that as well. I always wanted to go into the Bossa Nova vibe with those kinds of sounds. 

Absolutely, you’re drawing inspiration from your life and almost honoring that time and those experiences you had in those places. 

Exactly. And that’s been a crazy thing about the pandemic too. I think this is the longest I’ve ever gone without traveling. It’s definitely been a be careful what you with for moment. I remember sitting in my apartment like, ‘if I could just get a few days! Not having to go anywhere or do anything!’ This was definitely not what I meant by that.

I’m really interested to know where you kind of see your music falling genre wise? Is there a genre that you want to experiment with more? What is your thought process around that been?

That's a tough question. Honestly, I don't know. There's definitely accents of R&B, I think that's probably the most prominent sound, but honestly it's, it's always changing. I've been dabbling a little bit more like the hip hop world, especially with this album. My sister used to call it tribal soul. I kind of went with that for a while and then my sound kind of changed a little bit. I've been saying it's like alternative R&B with some house influence and then there's also a bit of rap singing thrown in there. What do you think it is?

Oh my, I mean, you start off the album with one with this crazy sample that, when I was listening to it, it was kind of R&B meets soul-gospel sound. It was such a powerful opening to the album I was like, okay I see what's happening. And then as I listened to it the sound just continued to evolve and surprise me. Then to end the album with Event Horizon, there were these wild bass lines blended together with this angelic violin. I think the album takes you on a journey through genres but nothing ever feels out of place. It’s such a, dare I say, journey, I was immediately wanting to know what you classified it as. 

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it, because honestly I've been having a tough time with that question myself. I also haven't played it enough for people or asked that question. It's kind of hard to describe what genre this album is because I kind of go all over the place. But thats what I love about it, I love that there's so many different types of genres and sounds. This album has been four years in the making, ever since I started doing this professionally. Honestly I think that what really keeps the sounds together even though they’re all so different, is my voice. The music goes all over the place but my voice is always staying the same. 

It makes me think, you were nominated for the Grammy for best engineered album and from what we’ve spoken about it seems like you have a very hands on approach with your music. I feel like your voice and you having a strong hand in the production also aids with the album having a cohesive feel to it. 

Yeah. I mean I was involved in every single song except for actually one. I feel like because I am self taught I tend to like to go to producing on my own, because if I work with other people all of a sudden I feel out of place. Something special about this album though is that I actually did a writing camp with my team at this house in Ohio. I feel like before this I had been such a solitary artist that this really helped me come out of my comfort zone, but also allowed other people to help me take my album to the next level. 

That sounds so fun!

It was amazing. There was one night where we broke off into teams and each team had 25 minutes to write a song. At the end of it I actually loved what we had come up with, and I feel like because I was looking at it as this game the pressure to make something amazing fell away and I was left with something, kind of amazing! 

When it was over I was listening to everything on the way to the airport and getting super emotional because I never thought I would have that kind of experience. It took a few days to get comfortable but once I did it was just magic. 

Experiences like that are so priceless. 

Absolutely. I wouldn’t trade that for the world. 

I'm really curious to know, when do you feel like a song or an album is finished? When do you feel like you can finally close a project, release it, and start working on something new?

I don’t think I ever really think of something as done. I mean I have been working on this album for years now and I could work on it for years to come. Even once I had something in it never really feels done, I can always find something I would like to have improved on or changed after the fact. I got lucky with this album though, I really had people on my team who understood the importance of waiting and sitting with the songs. We were actually supposed to put out the album last year and I am so grateful that we didn’t because there would be a few songs on it now that wouldn’t have been had we released it when we were originally supposed to. 

I'm excited to see what’s next for you! Can you give any hints?

After the album comes out we have a bunch of shows set. Hopefully with COVID we will be able to still do them! In terms of new music, I am slowly but surely beginning to think of some things. I feel like because I have been working on this for so long it’s going to be hard to focus my brain onto anything else. Right now I’m just trying to stay focused on the release and then the shows! 

Well I am so excited to see what comes next! This album is going to absolutely kill it. 

Your mouth to Gods ears. 

I’ll do my best to make him listen! 

Outfit 1:

• HAT - NINA RICCI
• DRESS & SHOES - MELITTA BAUMEISTER
• TIGHTS - FALKE
• EARRINGS & BRACELET - UNCOMMON MATTERS
• RING - BALENCIAGA

Outfit 2: 

• DRESS - ISABEL MARANT
• SHOES - DSQUARED2
• ALL JEWELRY - ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

Outfit 3: 

• TOP & NECKLACE - AREA
• PANTS - MIU MIU

Outfit 4:

• DRESS - KENN PANN
• CORSET - HEIKE
• EARRINGS - BALENCIAGA
• SHOES - GUCCI
• BANGLES & FINGER CAPS - L’ENCHANTEUR
• SPRING CUFF - UNCOMMON MATTERS
• NECKLACE - ANNIE COSTELLO BROWN