My name is Emmy the Great and I’m going to Xiamen
for the British Council China Residency.
I was born in Hong Kong and my mum is Chinese
and my parents live in Hong Kong again now, though I grew up
in England and England is my home.
So I have no experience of being in China
so this is pretty exciting for me.
The music that I make uses a lot of pop sensibilities,
pop structure, singer-songwriter structure, but because I -
it’s so homemade and it’s got like the delicateness
and the rustiness of being homemade so I add the bedroom
to make sure that nobody’s expecting Rihanna.
I call it Bedroom Pop.
ALGORITHM
The video opens with the exterior of a parent in the glass becoming butterflies
My third album Second Love came out in 2016.
The process of making Second Love involved a lot
of travelling and being away from England and what was
familiar and it allowed me to see myself from afar
and instead of constantly asserting my Englishness as is
what I feel like I’ve been doing in England my whole life,
I was able to freely let all aspects of my character come out.
And one thing I will say is I am very Asian
and it felt time to reflect that in my music
and so I started translating my songs into Cantonese.
I translated it with my Mum and my Aunt which was a really
lovely process, almost like quilting or something and it
really, it changed my life and so now wherever I go I always tell
this story and I sort of swap between whatever language
I feel like, really, and it’s incredibly moving it’s been
like a year of taking a bath for me,
I feel like a completely different person.
So my hosts are from Thinker and they
have described to me what can only be a fantasy land that was
designed specifically for me.
They have prepared a space in a bookshop, a huge bookshop,
on an island that has no cars and is filled with pianos.
My plan is to finish an album that comes from my time there.
I think what I really really want ultimately
is to begin an exploration that will continue
and a relationship with myself in China
that will continue down the line forever.