Emei.Photo: Lindsey Ruth
Verbalizing the experience many 20-somethings face as they strive for perfection, compare themselves to others and find their place in the world is no easy feat. But for up-and-coming alt-pop artist Emily Li, known asEmei, honesty, vulnerability and angst are all part of the process.
“Writing music allows me to have creative control and say what I want to say and be myself,” Emei tells PEOPLE. “I don’t overthink it. I just write about my life, my experiences in my 20s.”
Emei.Ryan Clemens
The singer’s alt-pop music first found its footing during her senior year of college, after the release of her song “Late to the Party,” which now has over six million streams on Spotify.
“I was finishing my thesis and I was stressed out of my mind,” Emei says. She continues, “I had created ‘Late to the Party’ and posted someTikTok videosand one of them went viral. It threw me into this up-and-coming artist sphere, and since then, I have been working with a ton of people, moved to L.A., started doing sessions and met more producers that I really vibed with.”
As a member of the up-and-coming artist sphere, Emei has certainly proven her place, with the release of “That Girl” in 2022, which has been streamed over three million times on Spotify, her January halftime performance for anLA Clippersgame against theSan Antonio Spursand her most recent release “Scatterbrain” on Feb. 3 that already has 700,000 streams on Spotify.
“It’s surreal because, I know this is good, I feel good about it, but it’s hard to realize that those are real people listening to my songs until I meet them in person,” Emei tells PEOPLE about her recent accolades. “These are not just random numbers on the internet. I have people who listen to my music, which is crazy.”
While Emei started making a name for herself in America just a couple of years ago, the singer found her start in China a long time ago. The daughter of a Mandarin-speaking Chinese family, Emei took a year off of high school in 2015 to compete onChinese Idol, where she placed third.
“I became a much better performer,” the singer-songwriter says about her time on the show. She adds, “I was so much more comfortable on stage after that year because it was every day performing for these huge stadium shows. I grew up very fast during that year.”
Along with being grateful for the experienceChinese Idolgave her, Emei is appreciative of her parents who encouraged her to do it. “My dad’s from rural, rural China where nobody from his family ever left the village except for him, and my mom as well came to America with 50 dollars in 1988 where she didn’t know anyone, didn’t know anything,” Emei says about her parents.
She continues, “Growing up in that household, the biggest thing that I got out of it that I bring into my career right now is they’ve always been head-down, disciplined, just no excuses. I’m so lucky to have their support.”
Emei.Lindsey Ruth
Deciding her place in the music industry was a battle for Emei. “I loved to make music, I knew I loved to sing, but I was always thinking about going back to China and doing it there,” the singer tells PEOPLE. “Not because I preferred to do that, but because I genuinely didn’t think I had a chance in America because I’d never had anybody in my childhood that I looked up to that I thought, ‘Oh, I see myself in them.’ I never had that.”
Now, Emei is becoming the singer-songwriter that she wanted to look up to during her childhood. “It’s been an interesting adjustment, like a headspace adjustment once I started releasing music and people were interested and I realized like, whoa, this could maybe happen. This could potentially be a thing,” she says.
This is just the start for the “Late to the Party” singer. “I’m looking forward to making more music in L.A. There’s a culture of just trading advice and figuring it out as you go here,” Emei says.
She continues, “I definitely want to tour soon. Like I was saying, the numbers are hard to really understand, so I’m excited to just meet more fans and develop more connections with real people who listen to my music.”
source: people.com
