Written by Sophie Wyatt
Meet Emily Litta, the Kiwi/Italian/English singer-songwriter entering the music scene and bringing with her, her own unique sound. The 24-year-old incorporates a mixture of genres within her music, from funk, to pop, to R&B. Emily is bringing a new mix of funky basslines and smooth rhythms into the music industry, and we got the chance to ask her a few questions.
After being raised in Italy until she was nineteen, Emily Litta moved to London to study at King’s College, and eventually went on to study a masters in music management. However it wasn’t until she visited Australia where she met a music producer in Sydney that she started working on getting her songs out there. With such a lot of cultural experience packed into a short amount of years, Emily explained to us all the different genres and musicians that influenced the music she now produces.
‘I remember singing along to my cassette player, I can’t promise I was good but I was singing. I also remember my Grandfather singing to me all the time, a sort of Italian Frank Sinatra style of singing. On Sunday’s my dad would show me all different types of music, he educated me a lot and gave me a broad music influence. In terms of the influences for my music I would say there’s quite a lot; Motown, the Jackson 5, Sade, Diana Ross, and a lot of disco music, R&B, funk.
I tend to listen to a lot of old stuff now to be honest; Bill Withers, Janet Jackson. But in terms of current artists, I really like Jorja Smith, Mahalia, I think Goldlink is really cool at the minute too. I have so many people ask me for good music to listen to all the time so I’ve made playlists on spotify for all the music, so there’s a bit of R&B, pop, rock, soul, funk all on one playlist called Weekly Groovy Shit‘.
With such a broad list of influences within different genres, we proposed the question to Emily of how she would define her own sound.
‘I don’t know, everytime people ask this I really actually don’t know, it definitely depends on the track. I’m starting to come into my sound a little bit more, for example my last track [Control] has a sort of moody R&B/pop track, whereas Caramel is very much more like funk. I always have so much influencing me – contemporary R&B and soul one minute and then a week later I’m more pop. But yeah anything with a groovy bassline is good for me’.
Writing everyday is the process which Litta adopts in order to make sure she captures the best of her work. Her music centres around relatable lyrics paralleled with pop/jazz beats, and she explained to us how she combines her words and music to create her unique tunes.
‘I always write from experience, I’m not very good at fabricating new stories that I haven’t personally lived through. I always start from with the music, I like to play chords and bassline and write lyrics around them. I figure if I sit down and play everyday, out of all the ideas I have at least one will make it. Yeah they mainly start from melodies I think up, like I’ll just start humming into my phone and go from there. You can go months without writing anything good and then one day you can write two or three great tracks, it completely depends‘.
At only 24-years-old, her plans on following her dream of singing and creating music for the foreseeable future. Emily then went on to give us a window into dreams for her musical career.
‘I am constantly changing and trying out new stuff so I’m excited to see what my sound will be like or what type of tracks I’m going to be making. I want to make sure i have a clear view of what ‘making it’ means for me and once I’ve decided that then I think I’ll be happy. In 3 years? Hopefully performing for a big crowd of people where they all sing my songs, and touring for sure. But most of all I want to be satisfied with where I’m at, and content with that I’m putting out’.
Check out Emily singing her newest single ‘+1’ here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnn1UhFauKU