Artist Spotlight: Akemi Fox
There is something enchantingly sunny about Akemi Fox and her music. Music, mood and season often go hand in hand, and Akemi’s represents the blasé light heartedness of summer. It is skillfully easy listening, radiantly simple, like watching the sun under an orchid tree eating a peach.
I, like many other fans, was introduced to the shimmering sonics of Akemi through Lemon Tea, her soulful stunner produced by regular collaborator Teo. The track provided the gentle climax of her debut ‘20 EP, Colour You In, a dazzling collection of saccharine jams - a subtle apricot for me - that elevated Akemi into the wild and wondrous world of UK R&B. The soulstress is born and raised in Manchester, a city with an increasingly flourishing Alternative scene, with Akemi right at the epicentre.
Akemi released her sophomore EP, You’re My Favourite Day in the midst of August’s heatwave. Emblematic of the season, the project is tender, thoughtful and triumphant, never expecting the listener to try too hard to enjoy the colourful cadences and silky vocals. The project is propelled by the collaboration: July 7 is a welcomed addition on the bountiful cut ‘I Want It’, whilst the production eccentricity of Swindle accentuated Fox’s ambrosial pre-EP appetiser ‘See You Soon’.
I caught up with Akemi to talk influences, her love of Manchester, finding her sound and the gorgeous new EP.
Who and what influences you?
Life influences me, like friendships, relationships. I feel like subconsciously people tell me things and I might make it into a song, or describe a feeling that someone else has felt or what we’ve discussed. I tend to do that. Obviously like musical influences, growing up I would just watch loads of music channels, and watch loads of music videos, so a lot of 2000s R&B. Artists like Amy Whinehouse, even Beyonce’s first album – that always inspires me, because I remember it was one of those CDs I always remember having. Frank Ocean’s channel ORANGE – that was the first album I bought on iTunes. I feel like all of these things got me excited about music, and made me want to write my own. Anything I listened to was obviously inspiration because if I kept listening to it, it would be like I hope I can make something that people come back to, even in 5/10 years, and still hold on to this memory of whatever the song might make them feel.
From listening and loving music, how did you start writing and creating? What were your origins?
I loved writing. My mum writes as well, she writes poems. So, I feel like I’ve always been in a household of writers, and I used to do little freestyles to things, and write little poems. I’d always have random thoughts of cool lyrics, even before bed, things would come to me. I didn’t do music at high school, but my friends did, and I used to help them write songs. It just came natural to me and it just felt fun, I didn’t really have to think about it. I wasn’t really thinking about music too much in the late part of my teens, until I met my producer Teo. We just made a song together and it was fun, and it was the vibe that I always wanted to make, and it kind of just spiralled after that. I’ve just always had an interest in writing and reading but mainly the books I read aren’t very intellectual. I like rom-coms and stuff like that, I like to watch that and I like to read that, and I feel like that’s the content of my lyrics, and I think it's just nice – life’s not always happy but it’s nice to capture the nice moments, and make a nice, happy song to relate to.
Definitely. We’re all romantic deep down, some people just like to hide it.
Exactly! I’m soppy and I cry at anything that I watch, anything cute. So yeah, not afraid to say that!
So, would you say you’ve found the sound that is yours now through experimentation almost? Like, trial and error?
Yeah, definitely. I listen to a lot less music than when I was younger, I used to actively find so much every day, just cause that was my whole life – just finding music. That was like my ‘studying’. I feel like I’ve stuck to that chill, alt-R&B vibe. That’s what I feel like my voice can do, and that's what I feel like I'm good at. So, trial and error because I try and do quite a lot of different things just to do it. It's always good to write even if I’m not going to release it ever. Listening to loads of different genres was also helpful, just to inspire me in different ways lyrically.
Yeah, so to pick sensibilities from different genres to plump up your own sound within the genre.
Exactly, this EP is a little bit different to the first one, I’ve just obviously grown up and the music that I’m listening to now is maybe slightly different. Times change so you evolve with that, but, I'm still keeping to my chill vibes as well.
The alternative R&B scene right now is pretty crazy and there’s so many artists doing their thing. Do you ever feel pressure from having to stand out from that?
All the pressure is on me - if this doesn't work it's my own fault. So, yeah I do sometimes because there’s so much music, so how do I stand out? There is room for a lot though, people like to listen to music, and everyone’s always going to listen, so there is room for everyone. Even if you only find a couple of listeners, at least they made time for you. Like when someone messages me about a song or something that they really like, that’s really nice and it’s like ‘okay, I’m doing my job well if someone’s really connecting with it’. I have to remind myself that it's a fun thing to do, you don't want to take life too seriously, so as long as I'm having fun with it and enjoying it I'm sure it will find the right listeners.
You’re obviously from Manny! Do you still live there or are you in London now?
No, I'm still a Manchester girl. I love Manchester. I’ve lived here all my life, it’s like a smaller London in a way. I love London but when I go it’s like, there’s so many places! But yeah, Manchester’s cool, I like the music scene here. I think as it's much smaller everyone knows each other as well which is nice. I just wish it was a little bit less rainy.
Obviously London is the epicentre of UK music, do you ever think if you were from London it would have maybe positively affected your rise within the industry?
Yeah, I sometimes think about this, because obviously I go down to London to make music so it would make my life easier. But with social media, zoom etc, you can connect with anyone. I like being from Manchester, and my influences mean I don't think I would make the same music if I lived in London. I feel inspired by the people here and some of the musicians that are already here as well. So, yeah, I think it probably would have been a little different, and maybe a little bit more intense as there’s more artists.The reason I'm here right now is it’s my path.
The EP is stunning! Obviously, a body of work is a very difficult thing to conceptualise, and then to also create that and then complete it, it’s such a journey. How did you have that passion and drive to do it?
Most of these songs I've had since last summer. I wrote two of them, So Fine and Movie, when I was in London for two weeks and it was really sunny. It’s funny because we sat on those songs for ages and didn't know what we were going to do with them and the other songs came with it, and I was like ‘okay these all kind of fit together’. I think it's hard to narrow it down, and pick your five favourites, or the ones that make sense. I don't feel like my EP’s are necessarily full narratives, every song means something, I think they just have a theme and the topics are all love and relationships and that idea of summer love. Not every song is like my life at this exact moment, it’s throughout my life, and sometimes you exaggerate the truth.I decided that – because summer’s my favourite season, and love is a favourite topic – I wanted to do something happy that you can go to when you may be feeling sad or you want something to fit the weather that you might be experiencing. But also bring the summer into the winter as well.
So, when someone is sitting down listening to your EP, what do you want them to take away from it?
I want them to feel warm. I like to listen to things and feel happy and inspired in a way, or just to go and do something fun or just wanna relax, just whatever you want to do to make you feel content that day. Because life's hard at the moment, it’s nice to have a little distraction or something to just buffer this bad feeling or long journey you have or these negative thoughts, so if it can distract you for a minute then that's good.
I love See You Soon - it’s crazy that you worked with Swindle. How was that process and working with them?
Yeah, it was a really fun experience. We went down to his studio, and it was him, Teo was there, and this musician called Moses – who came up with the guitar line that’s in the song. Again, it was like a really nice summery vibe, and it was so cold outside I was like ‘ahh, this is so different to what's going on outside’. We went off that guitar line and came up with this cute See You Soon and I was like ‘aw, this is a cute song’, and it’s a little bit different for me, because it’s so happy and playful. It was just a fun experience, and it was nice to work with really talented musicians. They made me feel very chill in the studio as well – it’s awkward meeting new people sometimes, especially when you're making music because I feel like that's quite personal, and you just awkwardly met someone and you question whether you want to sing in front of them… But yeah, it was a chill vibe.
July 7 as well! That was such a good collaboration. How did that happen? Obviously you’re both from Manchester, did you just meet naturally?
I've known him for years, literally. I remember when I bought a microphone, and he helped me set it up so I appreciate that from him. I had this song that I’d written and he really wanted a feature on it, and he sent it back and it really worked with the vibe. It just added something else to the song that it needed, it just needed an extra voice. It’s a little bit different, and it just finished off the song and I was like ‘Yes! This is what it needed’ and I was really happy with that.
What about the future then, who's your dream collab?
I always say KAYTRANADA, because it would just be like something cool and different, more of a dancey thing. I just think it would be a cool vibe, I always say that’d be so sick. Like, when you go to a KAYTRANADA set it’s such a vibe – I always imagine having a song like that. It would be nice to have something that you can listen to at a club or a festival, but with that KAYTRANADA vibe.
If you were introducing yourself to a new listener who's never heard of you before, and you can play them one track to get them interested in you, what track would you play?
Probably Lemon Tea. It’s funny - I hated the song before it came out, and I really didn’t want to release it, but now when I listen back to it, I don't know why I hated it?. I feel like it’s a cute topic, and ‘Lemon Tea’ is a catchy random phrase, and also it has lyrics from when I was like 16-17, and I remember writing them. It came to me before bed, ‘deep into the creases in your skin’. I wrote that and I was like ‘wow, that’s so profound!’ and I still have the diary with all the words, and like 4-5 years later I was like ‘this works for this song! Let’s use it here’. So, yeah, it’s just me, basically, and like how I got here.
Where do you want to take your artistry? What are your plans, what do you want to do?
I'd love to tour the world, I feel like that’s just my dream, and I’d love to travel obviously, and then I’d love to sing to everyone, and hopefully have fans in different countries. I feel like that would be so fun, even if it was the smallest venue ever it would just be so cool to just go to different countries. When you're in Manchester or the UK, you think everyone’s here, but obviously there are people in different places, and it would just be nice to visually see that. I’d also like to make an album at some point that is an album that people would continue to go back to.
You're supporting Kojey Radical, how are you feeling about that?
Yeah, I'm very excited about that. That's in November. That’s really cool, and it’s on a big stage which is scary! I’m excited for my headline show in October, which I’m also a bit scared about. But no, it should be fun. I’m doing one in Manchester at YES Basement and one in London at The Social, so that’s on the 6th of October. Those are my little exciting things that are going on this year.