EMEREE is building her own dynamic R&B world layer by layer

If there’s one way to understand EMEREE and her layered R&B sound, it’s to ask her what she feels about vocal stacking. “I like doing it in a way that’s beyond just adding a double and then adding a third harmony on the whole thing,” she says, “I feel like that’s such a boring way to work.” For her, it’s all about being playful with the tools of the trade: the voice, the production, the instruments – and the Australian singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has it all down pat.

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“I’ve always been that annoying kid who used to sing the harmony on songs in the car,” she tells NME over Zoom, days before the release of her soulful new single, ‘Locked Up’. “I really love jazz chords, adding a lot of very spicy layers – that’s what I call them. So, I’ll have a stack of 10 different voices on just two words, and then they’ll cut out and it’ll just be the single vocal.”

Her dynamic approach to music is found in droves on ‘Locked Up’ – “I’ve really gone ham on my backing vocals as always,” she says – a song which EMEREE describes as her “most ’90s-inspired” release yet. That throwback sound, built alongside a lot of Motown and ’70s soul influences, colours her entire discography, from her viral 2023 debut single ‘Leave You Like A Man’ to the sublimely retro ‘Eyesore’. It’s all tied up with a bow of sharp lyricism, dipped in just the right amount of venom. “It’s very tongue-in-cheek. It’s not too serious, as all my music is. It’s just about being a little bit toxic and having a little bit of fun.”

While EMEREE’s music certainly exudes a sense of cheeky irreverence, she doesn’t shy away from weighty topics either. Earlier this year, she released the biting ‘Spring Cleaning’, a song that the singer wrote to “understand how my brain was working after going through DV [domestic violence] and trying to reclaim that space again”.

“I always start and finish my songs myself. And I don’t think that’s ever gonna change. And I don’t really want it to”

“A lot of it is reclaiming it and putting my own spin on life, and not having the next thing that I release be some really depressing, sad thing, and being like, ‘This is what I went through’,” she explains. “I really wanted it to be fun, and I wanted it to be catchy and upbeat and a bit poppy. And that’s what I feel like I’ve done, and I’ve spun it in a funny way. I think that’s really true to who I am as a person and how I deal with things.”

Since she was young, the Melbournian has used her creative mind to process the happenings of life. She recalls how she wrote her first song when she was just six years old to help her remember her homework. “I just have never wanted to do anything else,” she admits. “I was watching Australian Idol and I decided then and there that I wanted to be a singer, and I turned to my parents and I said, ‘I’m gonna do that.’ And I never changed.”

Earlier this year, EMEREE had the shock of her life when NME reached out to let her know she’d been included on the NME 100 list of essential emerging artists for 2025, alongside rising stars like girl group KATSEYE and Indian rapper Hanumankind. “My manager called me and was like, ‘Oh my god, like I have the coolest news.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god, what?!’,” she laughs. “I thought it was surely some tiny extra thing within the NME 100.”

That “surreal” moment would herald the start of an incredible year for the singer. In the time since, she’s performed at festivals like Brisbane’s BIGSOUND and Brighton’s The Great Escape, opened for Daniel Merriweather, and signed with Creative Artist Agency in the UK and Europe. “They approached me, which was just such a cool thing to know that I’m on people’s radar,” she says.

““I’ve always been that annoying kid who used to sing the harmony on songs in the car”

But before she got heads turning as an artist in her own right, EMEREE started out producing music behind-the-scenes for others in the Australian music industry, including Tyla Jane (2021’s ‘Energy’) and Sophia Petro (2023’s ‘Memory of You’). While the singer enjoys being in the spotlight now, she admits that she still finds touring and performing “a lot more draining” than being in the studio working on music – whether for herself or others.

“I just love being a producer and I really resonate with that side of my craft more,” she says, adding that the “ideal situation” would be to follow the career path of someone like Mark Ronson. “Being in studios every single day, working, producing, writing, doing whatever for those artists. Then, I get to completely let loose with my project and just do whatever weird things that I want to, rather than having to focus on, ‘Oh, this needs to be good for charts.’”

At the same time, EMEREE is more than aware how male-dominated the production side of music can be. “It’s just immensely harder to be taken seriously [as a female producer] for some reason. They think I know how to use GarageBand or could fumble my way through Logic, but I’ve done a whole ass audio engineering degree,” she says. “I’m still getting in those rooms, and people will be like, ‘Oh, so when’s the producer getting here?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m the producer.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. But when’s the engineer getting here?’”

She believes that “things need to start changing in those big rooms” and for women to be properly credited for the work they’ve done. “There’s plenty of female artists who also do a lot of their own production, like Ariana Grande, who does all her vocal production,” she adds. “It’s about realising that there might be some internalised misogyny, of having this view of what a producer should look like.”

For now, EMEREE is enjoying living the life of a burgeoning artist and producer, flying across the world to London and doing “50 days back-to-back of at least one session every single day” and still not being tired after. “I literally never get sick of being in the studio,” she tells NME, admitting that she has “a stupid amount of music in the backlog” awaiting release. “I think it’s good that I always start and finish my songs myself. And I don’t think that’s ever gonna change. And I don’t really want it to.”

EMEREE’s new mixtape ‘Maybe I’m Just Too Sensitive (I Am)’ is out on September 11.

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