[Exclusive Interview]: AUDREY and Her Cohesive Universe, R&B Journey, & Gratitude
It’s been a minute since I’ve heard a female R&B voice that has a fresh perspective like Audrey’s. The Korean-American artist originating from New Jersey has been working on her craft for a while now. She brought her music through her time at NYU as an undergrad majoring in music business; however, as her music career began to grow and take off, she made the difficult decision to drop out of school. Nonetheless, she knew she made the right decision.
Audrey is fashionable, kind, funny, and real with you. She had her first show in LA two weeks ago, and I had the chance to stop by and check it out. Being on the stage came naturally to her, and she showed humility and energy under the spotlight. It was amazing seeing her family and friends being there too to support her. I was happy to be able to interview her for the blog, and am even more excited to see where she’ll be in a year from now.
She has already released several tracks on Spotify including some of her hits like “Comic Sans” ft. Jack Harlow, “Paper”, “Party”, and “Time”. Her music always have groovy melodies, hard-hitting beats, and funky undertones. You can practically see the changing hues of her music when hear each one played, whether its loud and clear in the isolation of your bedroom or car or its the vibrations in the background as the distant white noise at a party. Her music falls in the gray areas of Jhene Aiko, Summer Walker, Tommy Genesis, or Remi Wolf, and something all of these badass women hold in common is their underground sultry vibes. They exude the moodiness of sad-girl pop singers and emo-goth punk rockers all in one, disguised as the beautiful, silky smooth tunes of rhythm and blues.
Here Is Our Interview:
[N]: What initially got you into music — what made you finally make that connection that this was going to be your future.
[A]: It's weird because honestly, I really always wanted to do it. I never wanted to do anything else. I did really well in school, but I just didn't want to do it. It just didn't interest me like I knew I wanted to do music. But I think the moment where I really decided, like when I started to plan everything kind of practically was probably when I decided to take a gap year from school. I went to NYU.
[N: What were you majoring in?
[A]: I was majoring in music industry, recorded music at Tisch, which was so fire, but very expensive. I did a year there and then I kind of was working on my music and then also trying to get good grades at the same time. And it was fine. It was just a lot. Like I would take the bus at like 10 or the train all the way uptown, to like 175th, basically work all night and then come back at like six in the morning, because Anwar (her manager) and I work together, and he lives like Upstate. So, I kind of had to make that commute, going back and forth. So, I finally just convinced my parents to let me take a gap year.
[N]: For sure, and I heard from a previous interview that you said you made them a whole presentation to show them why you should take a gap year.
[A]: Ya, haha, it’s so funny how people come up to me to and are like “the PowerPoint girl!” and I’m just like “yeah, that’s me”.
[N]: How do your parents take the current career path you have now?
My mom and dad have always been supportive of me honestly. I’m kind of just lucky that I wasn'tt born to parents that wanted me to do a certain thing, they just want me to be happy, which I’m super grateful for. My dad is an entrepreneur so he always worried that it wouldn’ have been a sustainable thing, but at the end of the day, he let me take a gap year, he supported me. So yeah, I have the best support system in the world, and I really think that’s underrated as fuck. Like people don’t realize that it’s not half the battle, but a really good portion of it.
[N]: Are your siblings big influences in your life?
[A]: So, I have an older sister who definitely does, she’s just somebody who sees whatever she wants and gets it. And we’re all like that, me, my brother, and her, But it’s definitely her who started that trend of doing whatever you want to do with your life. They’re really supportive. My brother loves my music which is sick. He loves Queen, Rush, and old bands, like super-old bands, but he’ll listen to my music, which is sick, because he has great taste, and I really appreciate that.
We bond over the fact that we’re the middle children and that it’s the best sibling role. Then our conversations circled around through our love of music being so versatile, and how we love visualizing the music and the amazing opportunities she was able to have in the past few years of her music career.
[N]: So what what made you choose this vibe the you have? What made you choose this kind of R&B you do?
[A]: Mmmm, it's something I never really consciously decided. I just happened to react a certain way to R&B chords, and I just love that music. So, I guess you kind of just do what you know, and listening to a lot of R&B growing up and loving hearing R&B singers, and then just regurgitating that out in your own music. I kind of just do it and think about it after.
[N]: If you could collaborate with anyone, who would be your dream collaboration?
[A]: You know, I get asked this question a lot, and I think I give a different person every time because there's just like, a lot of people, but I would love to be in a room with Imogen Heap. I just kind of discovered her later in my life, and I just think she's a genius.
[N]: If you could collaborate with anyone, who would be your dream collaboration?
[A]: You know, I get asked this question a lot, and I think I give a different person every time because there's just like, a lot of people, but I would love to be in a room with Imogen Heap. I just kind of discovered her later in my life, and I just think she's a genius. She has that one song with Taylor Swift which is one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs. I think seeing how she works would be really cool. She’s kind of like a mystery to me. I just hear her music, and that’s all I really know.
We joke about being enigmatic and deleting our socials to go off the grid like Imogen and Bjork, and then fall into the topic of the music video that Audrey got to direct alongside the Grammy-winning director, Emma for her single “Time”.
[N]: Was that an outreach between the two of you? How did you connect with her?
[A]: It was through my A&R when I first got signed. They are both from the Netherlands, and I think there’s a small creative community out there, so they knew of each other, and she sent her my song, and she listened to it and she wanted to do it, which was really fire ‘cuz she was Grammy-winning at that time.
[N] So, this is always one of my fun questions I love to ask artists. If you had to describe yourself in one word or even like in a sentence or a phrase, what would you say?
[A]: I am like a bowl of soggy cereal, but it’s good. It tastes good. The flavor is still there, but it’s in the milk. I'm also anti-social, but also love being with other people. Yeah, I’m like an anti-social extrovert.
[N]: I like that!
[A]: I stole that from Kendrick. Hehehe. Shout out to my dad—the man.
[N]: Ok, so what’s your detour?
[A]: I think it's pretty obvious, I love food, so I'm not gonna do that one. I used to do Kendo when I was in high school.
[N]: That’s awesome! I used to do Kung-Fu. Would you go back?
[A]: Oh yeah!
We go down a rabbit hole discussing the various kinds of martial arts and their differences since I used to do Kung-Fu, and we joke about the forms, and rave about boxing as a great workout. Eventually, we circle back to the interview.
[N]: So, I got to go to your show the other day and I absolutely loved it. How did the vibe here compare to the vibe on the east coast when you’re performing?
[A]: Ok, so I don’t want to make any generalizations because I’ve only done one show in LA, so disclaimer, no one crucify me, but it felt like everyone was just smiling at me while I was on stage… Is that a thing? I was performing, but usually, I don’t see the crowd because the lighting is usually on me, but for some reason at this venue the lighting was on the crowd too, so I just see all these people smiling and it made me so uncomfortable, like why are all these people smiling? In New York, a lot of times unless they’re your friends, it’s kind of cold, not cold, but you have to kind of break through some kind of wall, but I didn’t feel that at this show. Everyone was very open, which I’m not used to. Haha.
As an east coaster myself, we got to bond over our love for fall and winter weathers, and joked about how absurd it is that here in LA the weather is never bad.
[N]: Favorite memory so far since being in the music industry?
[A]: Oh, you know what was really cool? It was the other day at the show, where the first time that people came to the show knowing my music. This guy named Chris, shout out to Chris came up to me with this hoodie for me—he made me this hoodie! It was so badass and so sweet. Like, no one's ever done that for me before.
[N]: What are you most excited for in the new year for your music?
[A]: I’ve always loved visuals but actually executing them is something that I recently started doing recently. Also, putting out some kind of project, because as much as I love putting out any kind of music, whether it’s singles or not, the idea of putting out a cohesive universe for someone to experience really excites me.
[N]: I like that you put it that way, a “cohesive universe”, a look into the music and the artist’s mind.
[A]: Ya, like I want it to be a world. It smells likes this, tastes likes this, people dress like this.
[N]: Is there an artist’s visuals you love the most?
[A]: Any ASAP rocky or ASAP mob shit. I love that there’s so much mystery behind who’s doing it. AWGE (the creative collective of the ASAP Mob) directed “Money Man” and it’s so fire and it’s just awesome that they’re doing it, but it’s also kind of underground. Like no one’s really talking about it, but it’s still this force of pushing out all of these visuals and artists are watching these artists
[N]: Would you say that this would have been another life path for you directing visuals?
[A]: Honestly, I wanted to be an astronaut if I didn’t do music, so maybe not, BUT I got a DM for the first time last week from someone asking me to direct their music video which was such a weird feeling. I definitely want to do that. I would definitely be down to direct other people’s music videos in the future.
[N]: So, you mentioned you’re a foodie, what would you eat everyday if you were stuck with only that for the rest of a tour?
[A]: I love Sushi! I also love Korean barbecue, but that’s not really portable… Also, ok, I have to say west coast is on some other shit in terms of food. Like you can go to the shitty spots and they’re not shitty.
She then asks my favorite food and we go on a tangent where I get to explain different Persian dishes to her, even recommending some spots for her to hit up during her stay in LA. We then redirect our conversation back to my final question for her.
[N]: For people who want to go into music, what is your advice to them?
[A]: Sell your liver and make your videos with the budget! hahahaha Just kidding. I feel weird giving advice, but if I were to give advice I would say really listen to your intuition and keep it about the music first because I think everything follows the music. Once you figure out and make a song, which by the way, it takes 100 of songs, at least for me, to make a song that I really like... Once you find that you start seeing everything else around it. So, I’d say focus on that because everyone is kind of in a rush to do whatever, to do this, to get on these playlists, but have you really found what it is that you want to make? And I’ve been in that too where I just wanna move ahead, but you’re not in a rush. And I think people think that they need to be young, like it’s a young person’s game, but if you just keep doing you, it will come.
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Thank you so much, Audrey, for chatting with me! It was such a pleasure, you’re super dope, and I hope I get to hang with you again soon! Be sure to check her out on her socials, everyone, and stay tuned for her upcoming projects this year!