Three Stars: emoniFela
Hearing her tell it, you'd think emoniFela has been making music for a number of years. The truth of the matter is she's not old enough to vote in next week's election and when she was born, the emerging medium for recorded music, CDs, came in long, rectangular cardboard packaging. Yet at age 17, the high school graduate has already rocked stages on both the West and East coasts while rubbing elbows with the likes of KRS-One and D.C.’s hip-hop elite.
She's in control of her career, from the rhyme writing to show bookings to even doing public speaking. She is her own brand and is proof positive of her belief that determination will take you a long way. With all this accomplished at a time most people her age are gearing up for college, emoniFela seems well on the way to making herself a force to be reckoned with in hip-hop, as we picked up from our conversation with her while she's working in Los Angeles.
Visit emoniFela online at: myspace.com/emonifela
Questions for emoniFela:
Right now you're in L.A. What are you doing out there?
I'm out here working on my album. I'm also out here working on another project with some fam of mine named Reasone. I have a show. I didn't intend to do a show but that's how it worked out.
How did you get your start?
I was born in 1991, believe it or not. I'm a youngin'. I haven't been rapping that long. I started out as a poet and a DJ. Then I became a freestyle emcee and now I'm doing what I do. All of this was a product of me being exposed to so many different things, spending winters in D.C. with my mom and summers in L.A. with my dad. My 4th grade teacher started taking me to open mics and that's where everything started happening for me. I started meeting producers and meeting other artists. Those places were the only spaces where people accepted me for myself as opposed to just being a young person. Since then I've just been grinding.
We caught your performance at the Can A Sista Rock A Mic? Festival earlier this month and noticed you were rocking out a little bit. Who are your musical influences?
I like to think I'm a hybrid of hip-hop and rock. On the hip-hop side, Lauryn Hill, Rah Digga, Mos Def, Andre 3000, and Jay-Z. Overall, Fela Kuti, Prince, and Bjork. I really enjoy fearless artists. Oh, I can't leave out Rage Against The Machine. Zach de la Rocha exemplifies everything that I'd hope to in the way he expresses himself as an emcee and as a rock artist.
Let's back track. You were 9 years old doing open mics?
Yeah. I was pretty young. I was going to the Mocha Hut. I had all my little poems written up. I remember after the first poem I did they started calling me "Prodigy." I didn't know what the word meant.
When did you make the transition into the musical realm?
Only about a year and a half ago. I got invited to open up for KRS-One at the Black Cat. Nobody knew really knew me as an artist and I got a 30 minute set. After that show, I knew that this was what I was supposed to be doing.
Who are the local artists you've worked with?
I've known Raheem DeVaughn, Wes Felton, Asheru, Oddisee and Kev Brown since I was 8 or 9 years old. Right away, there was a lot of love. They pulled me in. I'm working with Kokayi for production. It would take me days to write out the poets that I know. I'm tied to so many people in D.C. They showed me a lot of love. They were the first ones to treat me as an artist as opposed to just a kid.
Who are you working with now?
I've met some of the dopest people from them just hitting me up on MySpace. Mainly I've been working with Chuck Treece. I'm one of those types of people who'll tell people to bring their music to the show for me to listen to. Let's motivate together.
Do you catch a lot of flack for what you're doing and the fact that you're 17?
Most definitely. I'm as much influenced by the punk rock scene as I am the hip-hop scene. Just being mixed up in those crowds is a battle unto itself. And to be a young person adds another level. Promoters, once they found out my age, would sometimes pull out because they would think I wasn't mature or it was at a club. But I've been performing and DJing in clubs since I was 13. I don't let it phase me. I feel like I'm doing something right. Eventually, those people will come around. The best thing to do is just show them love.
What was the impetus for your track "Black Isis?" It's a pretty deep, and somewhat dark, track.
I started writing that song in the 10th grade. I tried to portray the relationship between a mother, a father and a child but from the child's eyes. I wrote about a mom addicted to drugs and sex. The father was pimping women and selling drugs. And I wanted to talk about the government's part in that. These are things that are really happening. It's a long, crazy complex song but it takes a long time to explain it because there's a lot of issues. I hope people are able to get some type of understanding from it.
What is the next project going to look like for you?
I call my music exotic hip-hop. It's going to be a hybrid of punk, agressiveness, hip-hop, funk, soul, and freedom. I almost want to call this project "The Dinner Table" because it's a whole bunch of different genres coming together to create one thing. Expect something more personal and new. This is my baby to the world. I'm thinking I may have free downloads in January and really push it around April. Hopefully, I'll get a mini-college tour going in December or January.