Based in Sweden, thEmotion, aims to capture his human experience as honestly as possible.
thEmotion started producing music when his dad let him install his copy of Reason 3 and he’s been hooked on making music ever since. With everything from playing various instruments in bands to learning guitar and piano so he could record it himself. Although he has always loved singing, he never felt like he was good at it. It was in the last year that he began taking singing seriously because he didn’t have anyone to give his songs to, “so I figured I might as well do it myself,” he says.
From being drawn to music to now creating and releasing his own, thEmotion has always loved music and his dad has been playing in bands and producing music noting that it’s in his blood. Since he got his first DAW, it felt like playing a game with infinite replayability, like you could do anything you could think of in it. “It's so much fun just creating different songs and seeing what you can come up with, especially when you manage to create something that impresses yourself like, “Woah, I didn't know I could write chords like that" or “Damn that's a sound I've never heard before!”,” he says.
For thEmotion it’s a constant journey of discovery. He still doesn’t know what he will do next, and that’s why making music is still fun for him. “It feels like I'm free to do whatever I want and I can express myself so much better through music than through just words so it's also a therapeutic experience for me,” he says. The reason he began releasing music on his own was because he loves making weird music and he has no idea who would want to sing these songs, except for him. It was either let them sit on his harddrives forever, or just get them out into the world; and the answer was clear on what he had to do. His friend told him once, “Music is made to be shared,” and he never thought about it before that but now realises that it’s true.
There is so much music that thEmotion loves that it’s hard to list his musical influences. “When I was young I listened a lot to bands like Owl City, Green Day, Sum 41, Breaking Benjamin, Zedd, Madeon, Porter Robinson and whatever was popular around that time (2009-2015),” he says. But recently, he’s been listening to a lot more RnB and hip-hop artists like Frank Ocean, Joji, Mac Miller, Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator, Daniel Caesar, Mac Ayres, Thundercat, Travis Scott, Denzel Curry, Joey Bada$$, Anderson, Paak, and SZA. He also notes that he loves classics Earth, Wind and Fire, Nat King Cole and Michael Jackson.
thEmotion’s current music is hip-hop based as he thinks it’s mainly the instrumentals, the attitude and the expression from the artists. “I love hard hitting drums and bass sounds as well as spacy soundscapes and I feel like it's a lot freer to express different ideas in hip-hop compared to pop, at least the weird ideas I want to express,” he says. He finds it interesting to thread the line between singing and rapping, “I can hardly tell on some songs if the artist is rapping or singing these days and I think that just opens up a lot more possibilities to express yourself through your voice.”
thEmotion’s brand-new alternative hip-hop album, Eyes Wide Shut, has a dark, melancholic, lofi production. The moody production on the album features bass, drums, guitar, synths, piano. The fascinating production paired with epic vocals will capture the listeners attention from the very first beat. He spent the summer introspecting about themes and writing lyrics to the album to beats he dug up from the depths of his harddrives.
“The album is for all the eyes not realising that they are closed,” thEmotion comments on the album. “Producing and writing all of the music myself felt like an important part of this project to truly capture what I was feeling in the moment but I’m planning to work with a lot of other great musicians in the near future.”
Eyes Wide Shut, is an experimental hip-hop album from thEmotion’s view of the world in 2022. “I don't want to go too deep into the meanings of the lyrics on the album because I like people to give their own meaning to the songs,” he says. “ That way the music can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people instead of it having the same meaning for everyone. But I was mostly just trying to express my thoughts and feelings through different stories and narratives running through the album.”
thEmotion made this project alone because he knew what he wanted to do while knowing how to do it himself. He knew a lot of different and amazing musicians and artists, but they’re all doing amazing songs in their own style, but sadly for him it’s not the style he wanted to express himself through on the album. “I also wanted to have this first year of releasing music be just self made music so I can show who I really am and what I can do when it comes to music, without any compromises,” he says.
He thinks it also has a lot to do with his writing process, when it comes to lyrics he finds it a lot easier to express himself honestly when he’s writing and recording alone. When it comes to instrumentals, he has so many of them that he thinks are great that are just laying around doing nothing. So about 80% of the instrumentals on this album were made in the last three years. Then, he picked the ones that fit the vibe he wanted to have on the album.
What drives thEmotion forward as a musical artist is constantly finding new ways to express himself. He always tries to reinvent himself to keep evolving as a musician and as a person. The last thing he would want is to write the same album twice. “Right now I'm already thinking about my next project and what direction I'm going to take it, how can I make it better than my last one,” he says. He really believes that if you’re not going forward and growing, you’ll end up going backwards. “I’m just trying to find ways to improve myself and write better and more interesting music.”
When discussing social media on how it has impacted and influenced his music career, thEmotion says it has had a big impact in the way that he really dislikes social media. Although he only has Instagram and Facebook to keep up with friends and send messages, he’s not a big fan of constantly uploading things just because. “If I ever upload something on my social media you can be sure that it's something that I'm dying to show you all,” he says. It’s for sure a challenge seeing everything is built around social media these days and how much harder it is to get noticed if you're not active on them, especially as an independent artist. “I'm just hoping that one day I will make music good enough that it will speak for itself.”
If thEmotion had the opportunity to work with any act/artist from the past, present or future, he says it would probably be Frank Ocean. This is because his music makes him feel things that no other artist has made him feel. “Blonde ,is for sure one of my top three favorite albums, which is funny because the first time I heard it I was thinking "What is this? A one-hour long album with nothing happening,” he mentions. “Boy was I wrong when I started actually diving into the songs and now I've listened to the album from start to finish at least 50 times.”
When asked about what he wants his listeners to take away from your music, thEmotion hopes they get inspired to give more love to each other. “I really believe that love can solve all our problems and it's sad seeing how modern society and technology has removed our sense of community since we don't have to depend on each other anymore,” he says. He thinks it’s led to us being more self-centered, and he’s no exception, since we spend so much of our time on social media or Youtube to distract ourselves from the real world and real situations.
A musical highlight for thEmotion has to be seeing Coldplay live around 2012. “I haven't been to a lot of big live shows but this one was truly breathtaking, everyone was wearing bracelets with lights on them and it was raining lightly so you could just see an ocean of lights and lasers in the sky while everyone was singing along to their songs like Viva La Vida and Paradise,” he recalls. It was truly a beautiful experience where everyone was there altogether as one, just enjoying the music together.
When asked what thEmotion has left to conquer in 2022, he replied, “My personal demons. Though I don't think that's a war I will ever truly win, I will just get better at winning the battles every day so I can dedicate more of myself to helping others 'cause you can't save anyone if you can't save yourself first.”
thEmotion’s mission as a musical artist is to ‘save the world’. “I know it's not a realistic goal but I'd rather aim for the stars and fall short than not try at all so that's what I'm aiming for,” he shares. He hopes that at the end of his career he will be able to look back and say he has made a difference, but he continues to take it one step at a time. “Like I said you have to save yourself before you can save anyone else.”
CHECK thEmotion OUT: Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud
Words by Danielle Holian
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