“I was really considering opening a smoothie shop at this point in my life,” reveals UMI, as she expands on why she explored the idea of quitting music only a few months before the release of her new record. The ascendant songstress, woman of serene sweetness, and the artist behind the new introspective album, and her most expansive work to date, ‘people’s stories,’ holds space via a transcontinental call discussing capitalism, AI, the value of surrender, and the unfolding of ‘people’s stories’.’
Greeting with the most soothing morning voice, UMI resets upon her return from New York. Onto discussing intricacies that can make or break someone’s morning, UMI right away praises the act of meditation: “The first thing I like to do is meditate, which helps me to not go into intrusive thoughts when I first wake up,” she tells Noctis Magazine in what is set out to be an insightful conversation, and one of my favourite interviews.
For someone like me, for whom the advised stillness of meditation is somewhat foreign territory, UMI lays it out on how to tackle the act without intimidation: “First of all, having the mindset that learning to meditate is like learning to ride a bike or something. It’s not something you are going to be good at at first. So if you’re trying to be good at it going in, you’re just going to be frustrated with yourself. Accepting that it’s going to be a journey of learning something, but it’s something that’s worth learning because it’s going to bring a lot of peace into your life, I think, is a good mindset to have.”
With the initial education about Buddhism and meditation after completing the World Religion Spirituality course, it wasn’t until the end of high school, when UMI found herself in a desperate need of a mental pause, she explains: “I was like, I’m so anxious all the time, I’m way too young to be anxious,” and within the length of a 10 minute guided meditation Youtube video, she confesses to crying her eyes out, “I had never experienced quietness in my brain before.”
For anyone who is craving a slow-down, UMI suggests it’s easiest to follow a guided meditation. “I have this app called Medallion, and you can find all my meditations that I’ve made and recorded”. While I make a mental note, UMI shares her yearning, “in my vision of a beautiful world, meditation is something we’re all taught at a young age so that we can have the skills to understand how to be a human being. “
As UMI’s digital footprint extends to the peak days of SoundCloud, I’ve conducted a deep dive into her social media, but it was her second Instagram account, which she uses to open up through vulnerable captions. Around two months prior to the release of ‘people’s stories,’ UMI shared an image of a guitar saying, ‘I think I will quit music.’ Curiosity struck, and UMI unveils her honest thought process behind her state of mind: “My first single ‘Hard Truths’ is all about that, what is the point of doing music if it can almost feel like a hamster wheel sometimes, where you have to balance doing what you actually want to do and then doing what is commercially successful and feeling scared that if you do what’s true to you, it’s not going to work. Then if it doesn’t work, no one’s going to care about what you do.”
She continues: “I’m feeling very unhappy about it when I could just open a smoothie shop, or I could just work a nine-to-five job, and take my vacation days, and just not feel so responsible for what I do. Especially when you’re an entrepreneur or you’re self-made, it feels like there’s no roadmap. I think after letting myself want to quit, I came back to knowing that this is what I’m supposed to do, so I can’t quit, and I won’t quit,” she firmly reiterates.
For any industry, all self-made people face the entanglement of carrying the pressures and responsibilities on their own shoulders. Understanding the frustration of it all, UMI also encourages surrendering to the lack of control; she concludes, “I sometimes feel like the more you believe in yourself, the more frustrating it can get sometimes, because you know how amazing you are. Especially when you’re an entrepreneur or you’re self-made, it feels like there’s no roadmap. It’s going to happen on its own time, so you have to surrender. I think also at that point in my life, I had to learn to let go of control and realise that you could be doing everything and you’re still not in control. So I think I’m learning to accept that, which also helped me not give up.”
Using her platform, UMI also offered her two cents on the state of the music industry in one of her posts saying,”making art within capitalism can be really difficult; art is here to break molds.” She develops this thought and the eternal conflict between authentic art and commercial demand set by capitalism. UMI elaborates: “Me and a lot of my peers and a lot of people in the industry are trying to find a way to continue to stay soulful and make meaningful art that connects to people, but it sometimes feels that type of music doesn’t matter right now and it’s hard to cut through all the sound and noise while making this type of art.”
Realising the current climate of oversaturated and repetitive soundscapes, UMI shares the sentiment of ‘having to survive’ and ‘holding on’ through this wave, where authentic music is an anomaly. Knowing patience is the key, UMI describes it as ‘a soul-crushing time’: “You can’t rush an artistic journey. You can’t manufacture good music, and because of that, you have to be patient. Patience is something that people often hesitate to pursue because they don’t get a direct return on their investment. I think that can feel soul-crushing, because you feel like something’s wrong with you.”
As creatives, we hold on tightly to our seats in the face of the creeping reality of AI, and authenticity is all we have at the end of the day in this current epidemic. The natural question centres around how often UMI was asked to compromise her art and fight for her vision, “so many times,” she quickly replies. Flipping through all the instances, she shares an example of the industry’s manipulation that society is often oblivious to. “When I was with my old label, I was dropped from the label; the label really wanted me to be something that I’m not. They were telling me I need to be more like Doja Cat, or I have to wear more pink. I’ve never experienced that before in my life, because I thought it was just a story people tell about the music industry.”
Consequently, UMI talks us through the inner turmoil this has caused: “You get to a point when you’re like, do I sell my image so that I can keep making a living, and not be a broke artist? Or do I believe in myself and trust that I’m protected and I’m guided. Authenticity works. However, authenticity will definitely take you on a journey that truly helps you trust yourself.”
She expresses gratitude to her mother, who instilled in her the importance of self-belief at a young age. UMI passes on her wisdom: “My mom’s philosophy has always been, if you know where this path is going to take you, take the other path. Take the less-travelled path. Take the unknown path, do the unknown thing. She really helps me stay true to myself, and she embodies my higher self. When I talk to her, I feel like I get the same guidance I would if I sit in meditation and ask myself questions.”
While on tour in Amsterdam, UMI had a career-changing fan encounter that inspired her new album, ‘people’s stories.’ A fan who met her partner at UMI’s concert invited her to a Thai restaurant, UMI tells the tale: “While I’m eating the mango sticky rice, it all clicked. Wow. I want to make an album about other stories. I’m going to make a song about them and their love story. I’m going to call it mango sticky rice, and I’m going to make a whole album doing this. This was the origin story of the whole album.”
Often described as the sound of ‘a warm cup of soup,’ UMI’s vocals are the gentle stroke of angelic talent, and the listening experience of ‘people’s stories’ accompanies you on a voyage through a diversity of sounds, soul, R&B, pop, and folk, delivering various versions of UMI, capturing the essence of the human experience. She explains how the album and its concept contributed to the record being ‘a patchwork of all these different stories’: “The way I make music is I’m a color person, so with ‘Mango Sticky Rice,’ I instantly feel orange and red. So then, the music has to sound orange and red. But then I make a song like ‘Familiar Friend,’ and to me, that’s that feeling of the story of anxiety and learning how to let go of anxiety. It was very blue, green, and purple to me. Every story and every song had a different colour and a different sound. I think that’s a reflection of life.”
‘people’s stories’ is a 15-track deep dive into the universal feeling of what it means to be human, and it turns out we all encounter the same question marks and debates. UMI confirms, as she found herself in more of the stories than none, and used them as ‘a permission slip’ to hide behind other people’s trajectories: “I definitely had to bear my heart because the unique learning experience from this was, no matter how specific someone else’s story is, I find myself in their story. But I would say the album gave me a moment to pause and not have to collect my own stories because I’m starting now to work on my next album after this. It’s about a lot of the things that I went through during the past two years of collecting other people’s stories that I got to build up and collect.”
Using the Discord platform, she would ask her fans to share their stories, ranging from their first heartbreak to their psychedelic experiences. From a fan perspective, there is nothing more inclusive than having a chance to inspire a song for your favourite artist. Working on this record enabled UMI to reaffirm her value for her fans: “My fans are, in a way, family and community, and they’re actually real people. That’s the other thing, going back to capitalism and music, I don’t like the idea of just selling, selling, selling music to people. They’re actually people who have lives and connect to music. People are very smart and emotionally complex. I feel like the only way to expand humanity is to make art that matches the capacity of people. This album has really helped me realise my fans are actual people and they actually go through the same things I do. That’s why we connect.”
Once listed as a dream collaborator, ‘people’s stories’ includes a track featuring her friend 6lack, ‘Hard Truths.’ As I admire the nostalgia creatively digested in the MTV 2000s-inspired ‘Right Wrong’ music video, it contributed to UMI’s healing experience.” One of my favourite things about that video is that I got to be the girl that I used to watch on MTV. And this whole rollout, I feel like I got to be that girl for myself,’ she proudly emphasises.
As UMI marinates in the feeling of self-accomplishment, we had to bring up SoundCloud, a place where she ultimately became the one to watch. “I wouldn’t have a career without SoundCloud,” she admits, ” I got copyrighted for doing covers, that’s what pushed me to start putting my original music up online.” A nudge from the internet universe, which officially kick-started her career. She adds, “But I do miss the SoundCloud days where people felt excited about finding a song; now it feels like everything’s fed to you a little bit. Back then, it was about being mysterious and elusive; it was fun.”
From start to finish, speaking with UMI has been, above all, an honour and a call-out to the industry to value authentic artistry, and to us all, to never stop believing in ourselves. With her tour announcement, UMI sets out her intentions straight: I’m so excited for what’s to come. One main thing is now taking the music and turning it live, I’m excited for people to see a more unhinged and unprotected, less shelled version of me. I feel like in every album, I’ve always been the greatest embodiment of myself, but it’s also like, how much of yourself can you be at 18, at 21, at 22? You have to go through life to expand into yourself in a very authentic way.”
With the first show of her world tour in Salt Lake City taking place at the end of October, UMI will also arrive in London’s Islington Assembly on April 22nd. “Now, I’m less and less and less afraid to be myself and more and more and more hungry and more and more and more bold,” UMI confidently advertises. And rightfully so. What can you expect besides a once-in-a-lifetime music event? UMI is a reason why it’s worth believing in personality and talent still existing in the era of fabricated, AI-generated capitalism, and Noctis vouches for the rarity of UMI.
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Words: Karolina Kramplova
Photographer: Joseph Collier