Her name is Akemi Fox, she likes tea, crisps, the sun, Erykah Badu, shopping on eBay, butterflies, flowers, candles, complaining and she is the next generation of alternative RnB music artists.

 

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BEIGE: Tell us a bit about your music. How would you describe your genre?

 

Akemi Fox: I like to describe my music as chilled vibes, for the bedroom, for a summer’s day,  an after-party, or when you’re feeling a bit sad.  That’s where I’d say my music fits. I would describe my genre as alternative RnB. I’m influenced a lot by 90s and 2000s music, but I’m trying to put a modern spin on it. 

 

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BEIGE: Who or what influences you?

 

Akemi Fox: To be cringe, I’d say the world. Just life. Everyday activities are inspiring. That is why I have writer’s block right now, because I can’t live my life, which makes it hard to write a song. I do often draw from my own relationships and then embellish them. I like to dramatise them a bit for some good content. I also like to talk about situations that have happened to my friends in my songs. I’m good at writing stories, even though they’re not all completely true. But that is something that I have always been interested in. I used to write a lot of stories when I was younger and even said to my Mum « I’m going to write the next trilogy ». One of the stories I remember was about this boy and girl who met in college. They lived next door to each other and he sang to her and fell in love, which makes me laugh because that’s very similar to what happened to me with Matteo.

 

My music is basically my teenage diary. I used to keep one when I was a teen and would write little notes in it, lyrics, poems or small bits of gossip and crushes. I love reading through it. It takes me back to my school years. Good times! But it’s also a time when you explore life. You realise stuff about things like love and relationships. It’s a fun thing to try and capture in a song. I like to capture people’s confusions or overthinking, because that’s what I often do. I quite like talking about when you question yourself and others, because I feel like that is something that I relate to, or other people my age relate to. The teenage years is a time when you can fuck up. Teenage years are a very dramatic part of your life. But, to be fair, the 20s are quite dramatic as well. 

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BEIGE: You create your songs in the intimacy of your bedroom. Could this be why they feel so intimate? Tell us more about this unique way of working.

 

Akemi Fox: The real answer is, we don’t have the money for a studio yet! But, I definitely think that it’s the reason I can feel so comfortable, because it’s a familiar, comfortable place. The first time I went to Matteo’s house, he lived really close to me, I felt comfortable immediately, because it was just his bedroom. There wasn’t the pressure of it being a big studio. I like this way of working because I’m quite a nervous person, and I still, a little bit today, suffer with stage fright. I think that bedroom environment really helped me to perform at my best. So yes, I think it does give those intimate vibes. People feel nice and chill because I feel nice and chill whilst recording. I don’t think it would have given the same effect if I had recorded my songs in a studio. 

 

 

BEIGE: You released your first EP in December 2020 - how does it feel to have released it during a pandemic?

 

Akemi Fox: It wasn’t ideal, I won’t lie. However, I do feel like the pandemic has given me a lot. It’s a time where people have been listening to music, and I don’t think I would’ve uploaded ‘Lemon Tea’ if it hadn’t been for the pandemic. So it’s kind of good in a way. It makes you work with what you’ve got, which is not a lot. But it was difficult, because, as I mentioned before, there wasn’t a lot of inspiration when you are stuck inside, so it does really make you think outside of the box and also come back to past memories and speak about them. But yeah, it’s been good and bad, because I did release ‘Lemon Tea’ from it, which I didn’t expect. However, It was hard to promote, because I usually do that through gigs, and I had a few lined up, and festivals, which all got cancelled, which is sad. I’ve kind of forgotten what it’s like to perform now, and performing is probably the most important part of being a musician, so I definitely miss that. It’s strange. I don’t know what it’s going to be like when I go back to performing. Who will be in the crowd? Will it just be my mum and dad and friends? But I am just going to continue saying to myself « you can’t worry about it too much because it is your job so you have no choice ». Thanks to my management, I still managed to promote my EP through articles, and internet helped us get coverage.