UMI on Purpose, <em>People Stories</em>, and the Power of Music
With a voice that feels equal parts balm and revelation, UMI has emerged as one of the most transcendent figures in modern R&B.
Born in Seattle in 1999 to a musical family and raised bilingually, she began writing songs as early as age five, recording them with only a USB mic in her bedroom. Her breakout single, “Remember Me,” captivated listeners in 2018 with its tender lo-fi style and inclusive message that love is universal, regardless of whom we share it with.
Over the years, UMI has released a string of introspective EPs— Balance (2019), Love Language (2019), Introspection (2020), Introspection Reimagined (2021), and Talking to the Wind (2024)— each showcasing the evolution of her soft, soul-tinged storytelling. Her debut studio album, Forest in the City (2022), marked her arrival as a touring artist and cemented her blossoming sense of artistic independence.
Blending honeyed melodies with intimate storytelling, she crafts music that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant, touching on love, identity, healing, and self-discovery — none more than through her latest release, people stories. Across fifteen tracks, UMI blends soul, folk, R&B, and pop in a serene yet emotionally-charged exploration: stories drawn from fans, loved ones, strangers, and her own deeply reflective moments.
But beyond her artistry, UMI has become a guiding beacon for her generation, weaving spirituality and mental health advocacy into the fabric of her career. She creates not just beautifully honest songs, but invitations to sacred, shared spaces for reflection and personal growth — delivered through a voice that lingers with comforting resonance long after each song ends.
KP: You’ve often described your work as a reflection of your spiritual journey. How has your sense of self evolved over the years through making music?
UMI: My music pushes me to become my truest self. I think our greatest fears are often tied to our true purpose. Sometimes we feel that we may be purposeless because we’re scared to confront the journey of overcoming those unique fears.
My fears included the fear of being seen, stage fright, the fear of speaking up, and the fear of being myself. Overcoming these things was possible because of my love for music. It was the only way that I could be the artist I saw myself to be — I had to rewrite those beliefs.
Now I would say that I feel very confident, self-assured, grounded, and bold.
KP: Your name, UMI, means “ocean” in Japanese. What does the ocean symbolize to you in terms of identity and expansiveness? Similarly, as someone who is both biracial and bilingual, has your relationship with cultural identity ever felt like both a push and a pull? If so, how do you find balance in that duality?
UMI: My name feels true to me because, like the ocean, I follow the flow of my heart to guide my art. I see my music as being universal, like the ocean that touches every shore across the planet. Also, the ocean never stops being itself for anything — a boat, a swimmer, a fish. The ocean doesn’t stop flowing for anything — it just continues to be itself shamelessly. And that’s who the truest version of myself strives to be!
Like the ocean, my relationship to identity has definitely felt like a push and a pull. I think this year was the first year that I finally embraced my cultural identity fully. In the past I just didn’t understand how I could be Black or Japanese! My brain couldn’t comprehend it because I’ve tied being accepted as being Black or Japanese to certain experiences or appearances that I didn’t have. I had my own unique experience — a combination of the two — and I had to learn that being who I am is unconditional.
I find balance in duality by letting go of the noise of the world and accepting myself for the enjoyment of my own experience.
KP: You’ve often spoken about the importance of embracing softness and vulnerability. In what ways has unlearning emotional avoidance and repression played into your sense of self or your work at large?
UMI: To me, emotional avoidance and repression is the highway to getting stuck; it blocks evolution of all kinds. I’ve learned that the deeper I can let myself feel — even my darkest of emotions — the more creativity I can hold. I see it in my head like a never-ending well. Every time you feel the well gets deeper, and with that extra space you can hold more inspiration, clarity, and ideas.
On a scale of 0 to 10 — with 0 being the least emotion and 10 being the most — when we are afraid to feel, we live from a 4 to a 6. When we learn to embrace our emotions, we live from a 0 to a 10 — in those extra numbers, there are more stories and ideas! More of yourself! My work continues to expand because I continue to feel deeper in all directions infinitely.
KP: You’ve experimented with both binaural beats and healing frequencies, which are such interesting modalities of music. Can you speak to how meditation and energy work play into your songwriting or production process?
UMI: On a grand scale, music is being misunderstood and minimized to a form of entertainment or a money generator. I feel that entertainment and wealth are the cherry on top of what music is really about.
Music can’t be seen by the eye, so it’s easy to misunderstand what it carries. Music is this invisible messenger that can carry anything you want directly into people. To me, music can be just as healing as taking medicine or a vitamin — it’s just invisible, so we don’t realize it. Music can carry emotions to move someone to dance or to cry when life couldn’t crack them open. Music can carry love and make you realize that life is worth living or this relationship is worth working towards. It can make the traffic disappear and take you back to childhood. This isn’t by coincidence — this is the power of the invisible medium of music.
It’s the same way that people don’t know how to define love — I feel that many people don’t really know how to define music. It can be hard to understand things that we can’t see, but challenging ourselves to understand music more beyond the eye, I feel, will truly help heal the world and create a new value system for music that actually uplifts masses of people.
KP: I couldn’t agree more. And on that note, music can be both nurturer and healer — do you see yourself as a traditional artist, a healer, or both?
UMI: I see myself as both! I see myself as an artist because my greatest passion is to see the ideas in my mind become reality. Creativity comes as naturally to me as breathing. I love to take people into the worlds both physically and non-physically; it’s where I see myself impacting the world for the better.
I see myself as a healer because my art naturally heals — that’s something that I’ve realized over time. When I write music, I go into it to express my truest self. And when I do that, truthfully, I notice that it heals others who listen. When I sing from my heart, I see that it touches other people, as if I was let into their heart, too. So without meaning to — but also with intention — I have become a healer.
“I am soft because I am strong. Today, the bravest thing that you can do is to feel. And I will continue to do so.”
KP: As someone who maintains a deep focus on healing, do you feel that softness can be a radical form of resistance in such a harsh, wayward world?
UMI: When anyone — even a country — feels threatened, the first thing that they do is shut down their femininity and attack the feminine… The softness. The body builds up walls and closes itself off from other people, like countries locking down their borders. We can become aggressive and mean, such as when countries attack their people or others. We use force to try to find solutions and avoid feeling our emotions, like countries that ignore the voices of their people and use forceful tactics to obtain order. I’ve realized that the traumas of the individual are reflected in the traumas of the world, and both the body and these larger systems often operate with the same unhealthy habits.
Softness, vulnerability, feeling — these things are only viewed as weak because the current order (the trauma) feels threatened by the possibility of change. Softness brings change because it opens the heart up to feeling, and feeling helps trauma pass. I am soft because I am strong. Today, the bravest thing that you can do is to feel. And I will continue to do so.
KP: Your forthcoming album, People Stories, comes out later this year. Congratulations! What can you tell us about its writing and production? What was your headspace like while creating the album?
UMI: I called this album People Stories because it is based off of the stories that my fans and friends have told me over the past two years. Every time I went to the studio, I asked my Discord to tell me a story of the last time they cried, their heartbreak, or when they fell in love, and I turned those stories into songs.
KP: Oh, wow! I love that. That’s incredible.
UMI: Because this album is based off of a diverse range of lives, the sonic world is a tapestry of sounds ranging from folk to pop and R&B to soul. To me, it was about finding the sound that matched the feeling of the story.
KP: People Stories is such an evocative title. What does it mean to you, and how do you feel it frames the narrative arc of the album?
UMI: People Stories is a reminder that often the reason that we feel so alone is because we don’t talk to each other about our stories. If we asked, we would realize that most of us are living through the same struggles and insecurities. We are more the same than we realize.
At the same time, People Stories is a reminder that who we truly are exists beyond the stories that we hold onto. Letting them be shared is often the first step in discovering our truest self.
What is your people story, and who are you beyond your people story?
KP: “10 AM,” a beautiful declaration of devotion, has already dropped. What advice would you lend women about love?
UMI: I would say that love begins when we heal our wounds around love. Often our partners are the ones who have been chosen to help us recover the lost parts of ourselves. If you have a hard time connecting with others and are feeling vulnerable or insecure, rather than blame the relationship, look within. Triggers are an invitation to look inside.
KP: You’ve shared that anxiety has been a recurring experience in your life. If you could speak directly to your younger self, what would you tell her about learning to cope — and heal — from such mental restlessness?
UMI: I would say that it will take time to heal anxiety because it’s deeper than you think. You’re not broken; you’re just in the process of recovery. Let it take however long it takes, and know that this pain won’t last forever. You will live a good life :)
KP: What do you feel makes a provocative woman?
UMI: A provocative woman doesn’t care if people see her as a woman. She knows she is that without needing to prove it, so she becomes herself first.
Photography: Joseph Collier
