Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Now a listening party. This year, R&B singer-songwriter UMI returned with her 7th project in seven years, which is amazing when you consider she just turned 25 last week. That said, she did pick up a guitar at age seven. As a young adult, she'd upload to YouTube and SoundCloud her versions of cover songs, sometimes Japanese pop songs she would translate into English. She learned the language from her mom. UMI's well-received 2022 debut studio album, Forest in the City, was about self-discovery and complicated relationships, including one of the artist's most listened-to songs on Spotify, say i'm ur love. Let's take a listen.

[MUSIC - UMI: say i'm ur love]

Alison Stewart: Now this year a new EP dropped in January and it's called talking to the wind. It's an independent release. A Pitchfork review said, "UMI bounces both bravado and vulnerability in these four succinct to love songs. Talking to the wind is out now, and UMI is here with us today. Hi, UMI. Welcome to All Of It.

UMI: Hi. Nice to see you.

Alison Stewart: So nice to see you. I wanted just a little bit of biography for people who don't know. You're originally from Seattle, you're based in LA now, and I mentioned that your mom taught you Japanese. Was it a formal teaching? Is she a teacher? Was that just from being around her?

UMI: Both. My mom's a teacher, but she never put me in her classes. She would bring homework back home from the school she went to. A lot of my Japanese came from watching Japanese animes, TVs, reading books. It was more of a passive learning experience, I would say. Even to this day, she only talks to me in Japanese, only texts me in Japanese. I think things like that have helped me keep the language up.

Alison Stewart: Well, this explains why in one of the tracks on the EP, it's just so fluid. You go back and forth between English and Japanese. I actually want to play that for folks so we can talk about it on the other side.

[MUSIC - UMI: happy im]

Alison Stewart: UMI, how do you think about writing lyrics? We saw how you just wove back and forth between Japanese and English in the last 30 seconds.

UMI: A lot of my lyric writing is color association. If I hear a song, and this song to me was very green, I'll kind of go into my own memory book and be like, "What was a green memory I had, or words and syllables that feel green?" Then I'll pull from that to write my lyrics. Then when I wrote this song, I wrote it all in English first, but I just didn't feel like I completely expressed myself. I thought, "Why don't I go back and try Japanese?"

I feel like what I love about writing in Japanese is that it allows me to use a different part of my brain and a different way of forming my sentences to express myself. I was like, "I got it. I fully expressed what was on my heart."

Alison Stewart: Your dad was a drummer and a DJ is that right?

UMI: Yes, that's right.

Alison Stewart: What kind of music did he play around you that influenced you?

UMI: He played a lot of neo-soul. I just remember him playing Sade back to back to back to back to back while I was playing in the backyard. That's one of the most vivid memories. He had a lot of hip-hop mixes. I remember he had a whole DJ room with all these mixes on tapes that he would do. He was also in a gospel band. When he played the drums, he would play drums for gospel groups and gospel songs.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's so right. It's so funny you should say that. We started our show today talking about the new PBS series about gospel. The four-part docuseries about gospel music. Oh, that's interesting. Did you have any connection to the gospel music on either a spiritual level or just a musical level?

UMI: I was in the gospel choir at my dad's church when I was younger. I just remember I would be so bored at church, but when I went and sang in the choir, I had such a good time. I'm five, I don't really know what's happening, but when my song came on, I remember feeling very meditative. Ever since I was younger, I felt this association between music and singing in a very spiritual experience and how that can really transport you into a different world as you're singing.

Alison Stewart: I want to hear Japanese gospel music now from you.

UMI: That would be really cool. I could definitely make that. That's a really great thought. I feel like it probably exists, but I'm curious to see if anyone who's mixed heritage has done that.

Alison Stewart: It might be you.

UMI: It might be me.

Alison Stewart: Maybe the world's been waiting for you.

UMI: I might be talking about myself.

Alison Stewart: My guest is UMI. The new EP is called talking to the wind. As I mentioned, you were uploading songs to SoundCloud or to YouTube. When you first started covering music, what kind of songs did you like to cover? Then how did your taste evolve?

UMI: That's a lovely question. When I first started making covers, I would try to do the most obscure covers as possible. I remember one of my first ones was 7/11 by Beyonce, but I did it acoustic. Then I started doing K-pop covers because I really liked K-pop when I was in middle school and high school. I would do K-pop translation covers. I would take rap songs and turn them into acoustic songs.

Everything would be on my guitar. All the covers would be guitar-based. I would say over time, my taste in a way, it's the same because I still feel like I have a very broad music taste where I listen to all different types of music. I enjoy singing all different types of music, writing all different types of music. I don't think that's really changed about me since I was younger.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to the first track from the EP, from talking to the wind. This is why dont we go.

[MUSIC - UMI: why dont we go]

Alison Stewart: UMI, why did you want to open the EP with that track?

UMI: I feel like the song to me is really inviting. The whole song itself is about leaning into adventure and spontaneity. For example, if my friends are like, "UMI, do you want to go on a road trip next week?" Why not say yes? Why don't I go do it? I feel like it's this invitation for adventure and something about that felt like a good way to open the song as if like the whole EP is an adventure that I'm inviting the listener into. I think that's the layers of what led to that decision.

Alison Stewart: My guest is UMI. The name of the new EP is talking to the wind. We'll have more with UMI after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is UMI. Her new EP is called talking to the wind. We're having a listening party for it. UMI means sea or ocean in Japanese, yes?

UMI: Yes.

Alison Stewart: The EP is talking to the wind and the previous release was Forest in the City, but you grew up in cities. Seattle. You live in LA. How is nature important to you and your musical practice, if it is, given all the nature imagery?

UMI: Yes, it's all over my music. It's so important to me. I grew up in Seattle, a place where I feel like you don't even have to think about being in nature to just be immersed in it at all times. When I left Seattle to go to LA, it deepened my appreciation for it because in LA I have to seek it and be very intentional about my connection with it. It almost deepened my awareness of how interconnected I am and we are as people to nature.

I just love talking to nature, which is why I call the EP talking to the wind because I spend a lot of time talking to the elements in meditation, talking to the wind, talking to the trees. There's a lot of wisdom to be received from nature. I just feel very inspired to use the canvas of nature to express my thoughts because I think there's a lot of simple wisdom that nature helps to express.

Alison Stewart: Are you someone who sets aside time to write, or are you the person who's always jotting something in their notes app or pulling out a Moleskine to write down notes?

UMI: I'm that girl. My note's page on my phone is crazy. I always have my journal on me, ideas flowing throughout all times. I feel like I will schedule time to do sessions, but a lot of the time it'll be spontaneous, and I'll just be like, "I need to go get this. I need to write this down. I need to go record this right now," out of nowhere, which is fun for me. I like that.

Alison Stewart: What do you do when you hit writer's block, if you've ever had it?

UMI: Oh, yes, I've definitely had it. I don't really worry much about writer's block because I see creativity as a cyclical cycle where there's times where you're creating and there's times where you need to go out into the world to download enough information and stories to then express. When I get writer's block, usually I'm just like, "Oh, yes, I've been in the studio for too long. I need to go live." I'll go on a hike, I'll go hang out with a friend. I'll go take a trip somewhere and just take an inspiration.

Alison Stewart: Yes, you hear artists sometimes new artists who try to write their second album on tour and have a really hard time because they're in the thick of performing and they're not really having interactions outside of their universe of their performing and going from city to city to city to city.

UMI: I agree with that. I feel like it's one thing to finish a project while you're on tour where you already did most of the creative expressing and downloading, but to create an environment like that, I personally, I think that it could come here and there but the consistency might be difficult and I could understand why.

Alison Stewart: When did you decide you wanted to pursue this professionally because you were off on the college path for a little while?

UMI: Honestly, I've known that I wanted to do music since I was little. I've been writing songs since I was four. My form of play when I was little was music. I would build little studios in my room or pretend to perform to my sisters. It's always something I've known. Even when I went to college, I didn't even go with the intention to graduate college, I went with the intention just to get my foot in the door and get to LA somehow.

I just have really bad stage fright and a lot of anxiety around performing, so it was an interesting relationship I had with music because it was something I love so much, but it's also scared me the most out of anything. I took a lot of years just practicing, getting comfortable doing open mics every week, and saying yes to scary like opening slots for shows and stuff. Now, I'm in a place where I feel really comfortable when I look back and I see that. Interesting how your passion will drive you to expand as a person. At least for me, it has.

Alison Stewart: I wondered, was the uploading of videos on YouTube and SoundCloud, did that help you with your stage fright? Was that a stepping stone?

UMI: I think it was a crutch because the main reason why I did it was I could send people my videos, but I wouldn't have to sing in front of them. I'd be like, "Oh, I make music, but check out my videos. I don't want to sing in front of you," type of thing. It was very meant to be because I grew a big audience from doing that so consistently. I also would send those videos to my grandma and my family in Japan, which is a fun family bonding experience for me too.

Alison Stewart: My guest is UMI. The name of the EP is talking to the wind. Let's listen to another track. This is not necessarily. What's the inspiration for this song?

UMI: When I was making this song the producer VRon, she pulled up the beat and I was like, "Does something inspire you?" She's like, "Not necessarily." I'm like, "That's such a niche emotion." I just wrote this whole song about the feeling of not necessarily.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen. This is UMI.

[MUSIC - UMI: not necessarily]

Alison Stewart: That's not necessarily from UMI. The new EP is called talking to the wind. UMI, you've had the experience of making your music independently. You've had experience of making your music with a label? What have you learned about what conditions you need to thrive as an artist?

UMI: That's such an intentional question. I think from working and creating in both environments, I've really learned that I thrive the best in supportive environments and environments where I feel creatively aligned with the people that I'm working with, both on all levels creatively business, because it's difficult when you have to constantly explain your vision, which is a part of the role of the artist, so I don't mind explaining, but there's a difference between having to prove your idea versus explaining something new to somebody.

I think that the proving part can just get really tiring and can weigh down on you and be very discouraging as an artist. I think that it's important for artists to be in environments that they can thrive and feel expanded in and I think it's the energy that keeps more ideas flowing in. For me, it's more about the people. It's less about, is it the structure of independence, is it the structure of the label, it's more the people that I'm being surrounded by.

Alison Stewart: Have you seen that meme of Beyonce from Renaissance when someone's telling her she can't get a piece of the [unintelligible 00:18:41]

UMI: Oh, yes, that's mean.

Alison Stewart: The lens.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: She's just making this face like, "Why are you telling me this lie?"

UMI: Right. You know you can.

Alison Stewart: You know you can.

UMI: You know it's possible.

Alison Stewart: Before we wrap up and we go out in one more song, you've been, and I always think this is great when artists do this because I know there's somebody out there that needs to hear about if someone is struggling, and you've been open about your own mental health issues and struggling with anxiety. How have you managed to take care of yourself? What would you say to someone listening right now who might be feeling the same way? Maybe another artist?

UMI: I would first say that happiness and peace is a practice and a state of being to practice and just because it's not how you feel every day, doesn't mean it's something you can't achieve. I know that for myself because for most of my life, I was very anxious and always worried about things and I feel I've recreated myself to be someone who's mostly very calm and doesn't really worry about things. It's because meditation was really powerful for me. I do daily meditations and it just helps me to develop a healthy relationship with my thoughts and understand what thoughts are worth thinking about and what thoughts just aren't true. I think that that's like a skill set that all people can deeply benefit from.

If people are interested in learning more about meditation, I have meditations online. Tomorrow on Valentine's Day, I'm actually dropping a meditation track so people can follow along on a guided meditation. I also host sound healing experiences, so if I could be the portal into wellness, I'm there for you. If not, I just want to encourage y'all to just take a moment to sit with yourself.

Alison Stewart: UMI's new EP is talking to the wind. She has been my guest. Thank you for sharing your art and your thoughts with us today.

UMI: Thank you for your thoughtful questions.

Alison Stewart: This is SHOW ME OUT from UMI.

[MUSIC - UMI: SHOW ME OUT]

Alison Stewart: Coming up tomorrow on the show, I'll speak with the team responsible for bringing the magical world of Bella Baxter to life. Production designers Shona Heath and James Price join me to discuss their Oscar-nominated work on the film Poor Things. That is All Of It for today. I'm Allison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here tomorrow. Let's go out on some more UMI.

[MUSIC - UMI: SHOW ME OUT]

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