Metro Chats With Rising OPM Solo Artist Kemrie

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Making music

With a fondness for spontaneous and intuitive songwriting, KEMRIE has a flair for marrying thoughts into music. She puts this principle into practice, and abides by it all the time. “I created ‘Palms of Two Sinners’ by feel. I think a lot of my songs are created by feel. I would do trial-and-error of the sounds that I think would associate with the lyrics that I created,” she says. “I’d put something on paper and then I [would] try to hum something. It’s just so weird. It’s just so random how I create my music. I have my own judgment of my own music, so I rely on that. If I feel it, then I’ll put it there.”

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When asked about how she comes up with her compositions, she mentions that a portion of her creative process entails summoning herself into solitude, ergo pinning down the focus that she requires to frame her thoughts. “I zone out! I zone out so much. I have to be in a room or I have to be somewhere that I know [where] no one is around,” she tells us. “I think the silence of that isolation—I think that’s where I found [out] that songwriting and creating music is something that I can do.”

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What music means to her

In her recent guesting on Metro Chats via Kumu’s FYE Channel, hosted by our editor-in-chief Geolette Esguerra, she revealed that music is mainly important to her as it dismantles her inhibitions. “I become so vulnerable around music. With music, I could throw my whole self—my whole being, my soul, [and] just everything about me,” she shares, noting that if she were to compare it to a person, she would likely pour her love onto him with no hesitation. “I have so much trust in music.”

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“The spontaneity of creating music,” KEMRIE replies, when asked about which part of music she prizes the most. With a penchant for freedom, the singer-songwriter is propelled by how random her rhythm is when conceiving ideas and concepts for her songs. “It’s literally because I sat somewhere and then I [would] think of something,” she starts off. “You just come up with something and then you sit on it and work on it.”

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Music idols and feats of her own

With Taylor Swift, Winona Oak, and Lennon Stella as her greatest inspirations, best believe that this promising young talent is going places. With her name now nested under the label Universal Records, she yearns to try more collaborations and musical productions in the future as an EDM and DJ producers’ fan, picturing herself on the same page with the icons that she idolizes. “I can say that I’m really so inclined with EDM and I look up so much to R3hab or Alesso.”

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As KEMRIE slowly blossoms into her own artist, people experience other textures of her talent. From well-received renditions and covers to original compositions and songs of character and substance, her body of work is a breakthrough. Recently, her submission to a song contest called Djooky Music Awards, braided as the largest online global song contest, had her reach second place. “It was actually my first time entering a global songwriting competition. It’s very overwhelming. I’ve never felt that kind of feeling before. I can still recall it.”

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Her songs

Following her first two singles “Impressions” (2020) and “Cruel House” (2021), KEMRIE recently released “Palms of Two Sinners” (2022). In her interview, she spelled out for us what the song implies. Its meaning, as she puts it, is a mishmash of conformity and resistance. “I’m innocent but at the same time, I know that where I’m going is not the type of thing that I would go to,” she claims.

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With enchanting beats that exude spring and summer moods, her latest masterpiece tackles the story of two lovers. As she fondly talks about it, she also tells us what her favorite sections of the song are. “My favorite part of the whole thing is probably the bridge, ’cause it’s really just floating—kind of like a fleeting moment. It’s actually the first part that I’ve created from the song when I was writing it, so that’s my instant favorite,” she shares. While she places weight on the bridge more, she blesses the verses with quality value, too. “I guess, in a collective way, to sum everything up, it’s just the whole song. It’s just so happy-go-lucky. It’s just like a river—just flowing with slow and fast currents.”