On August 27, 2024, KALX’s Velvet Einstein spoke with Tunisian/American, New York City-based artist, producer, and activist Emel Mathlouthi (aka Emel) about her recent album, MRA, and upcoming tour. Here is the transcript:
Velvet Einstein: You’re just adding a little bit of lemon to your tea there.
EMEL: It’s actually rosemary. Uh, I boil rosemary.
Velvet Einstein: Oh, nice. Okay. You just put the herb into the water.
EMEL: It’s the best. My favorite dream morning drink, cause I don’t drink coffee and I always, uh, I don’t know, I, I get excited about tea and it’s my favorite topic, by the way.
Velvet Einstein: How can we weave this into a conversation about your music then?
EMEL: Well, you know, this all nourishes, you know, who I am and what I do. I care a lot about authenticity. I care a lot about humans. And sharing and empathy. And I think it nourishes my music in the way there’s, there’s a very big bridge between all of these things and the music that I do and they fuel into each other.
It took me many years to finally get to a space where I can, you know, look at everything I’m doing and be at ease and comfortable and understand everything that I’m doing and why I’m doing it. And I think, yeah, I got to this place where I love experimenting with music the way I experiment with fruit and nature.
But at the same time, I like that my music has a message and it speaks, you know, to people’s souls and, uh, connects with people’s emotions.
Velvet Einstein: Yeah. And so we were just talking a moment ago about neighborhoods and then being able to have neighbors where you go over. And in my case, my parents, neighbors have rosemary bush in the front of the yard.
And so they’re very happy for us to go over and pick some rosemary. And then we have lemons that we’ll share with the neighborhood. Do you feel there’s a correlation to that with the music that you’re making then?
EMEL: Absolutely. I think, um, a lot of the problems. that are happening in the world is because of individualism and, and selfishness.
And there’s like, you know, capitalism has brought this, you know, like some people are wasting so much resources. And then other people are deprived from resources. So I think it can start as small as sharing a basket of lemons. It might sound cheesy, you know, but I think it means a lot.
Velvet Einstein: And so, um, I guess bringing things back around to your, your music, you have a new album out MRA, which is a take on the Arabic word for women.
And that part of the premise of the album is that you have all women that created this album. Can you talk a little bit about the creation, where the idea came from and why you decided to do this now?
EMEL: Yeah. So I really love this metaphor of the, the share in the basket of lemons, because now somehow it’s like now it’s sitting with me and, yeah, I do see music as something I want to share with the public, obviously, because, you know, that’s what we have to do.
But on this album, I really wanted to share more of me and share my platform. Um, and I think it started with the label connecting me with a male producer that I wasn’t particularly convinced of working with. And then it hit me and I was like, why does it always have to be a male producer? Where are, where are the girls?
Where are the female producers? And being a female producer myself, it never helped me trust in myself because I realized that I have always been producing music. I feel like as women, um, to get credit and even to give credit to ourselves is a long path. So as I’m getting better at that, you know, I am a feminist, but to me, it’s, I think it’s very selfish to be a feminist within just, you know, with yourself, uh, being a feminist is going to look for other women, creative, share my platform with them, create with them.
And because we have to face it, we are very much underrepresented. We have less opportunities and also I wanted to just have this message that as women, we should be able to trust each other more than that because of patriarchy, we have, you know, these old mechanisms where we very often think of other women as rivals.
And for a long time, I haven’t trusted women behind a board, which is now sounds so ridiculous, but not so ridiculous. Actually, a lot of women are still there. A lot, a lot, most of the women artists and women leaders of musical projects, they most of the time surround themselves with, with, with men, which is not wrong, but I feel that as we are in a very, uh, unequal system within the music industry, we women has to, uh, we have to do something and doing something for me is through music, through experimenting with sounds and having fun. This, this album also showcases really well, the true meaning of sisterhood.
I have to admit, like being in the studio with a bunch of other girls, Was super, super exciting because we all know where we come from. We all know the reality of things, but also I felt that, you know, this intuitive thing and like feeling that I was afflicted and pushed. And I don’t know, I’ve worked with guys 90 percent of my career.
But this was definitely like a high, a high moment for me as a human, as a woman, and as a musician.
MUSIC Interlude –
Emel – “Nar feat. Ami Yerewolo”
Velvet Einstein: And as you worked with women from, from all over the world. Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Ukraine. What kind of similarities or differences did you see between how women were treated in those different cultures?
EMEL: It’s a chain of hierarchy or I don’t know how to say it. Like there’s like these, uh, invisible hierarchy where, you know, women are pretty much, um, invisibilized in the music industry.
Women, like creative women, producers, score makers, uh, composers. But then you go inside that, you know, bubble, and then you would find less female rappers, less opportunities for female producers of color, less opportunities for female producers of color that are born and raised in countries like myself in Tunisia or South Africa, um, trans women producers from South Africa, even less.
So I felt that some of the girls like to joke, you know, this is like the United Colors of Emel. And we, we were a United Colors. I mean, and it’s very important. I don’t think this was said enough, but we got together and we all have very blurred backgrounds. Hannah, my main co producer, uh, her family is from India, but she was born and raised in Berlin and now she moved to London and we can cross multiple genres and multiple cultures like this, you know, with, with no problem, with no confusion, but yet like when we come to the world, we feel that there’s so much misconceptions about us and who we are and what we’re capable of.
So we wanted to blur all those boundaries and actually, like, just take them down. And that’s why I love to work with, for example, Lyzza, who is, um, from Brazil and she lives in Amsterdam and she’s, she’s in her twenties. So we’re also like from different generations. I just love experimenting with sounds that are not so much exactly coming from where I come from, but also they feel like so close to my heart and, and my, and, and my heartbeats.
Velvet Einstein: As you worked with the set of rappers that are on the album, were you able to do those collaborations in person or were those done remotely?
EMEL: Unfortunately, a lot of this was done, was done remotely. So yeah, I want to get all these women together to do like an. All stars, female band, uh, we’re, we’re looking to be commissioned.
And I think it’s a fantastic idea because for now I’ve been performing the show. Um, it’s very exciting. I mean, the songs are coming to life, uh, and evolving in a, in a, in amazing ways. And the audiences have been interacting really, really well with all the rhythms and even having the rapper’s voices without their presence adds a lot. I was really confused about that. I wasn’t sure. I’ve always done things almost 100 percent live. So yeah, I’m looking, I’m looking, I think the next step should absolutely be someone has to get us all together. Hopefully soon.
It was very exciting to see how much every woman knew my story behind and my message behind this album before I even started putting words together, because I had a meeting with every single person that worked on this album. And a lot of people that actually didn’t end up working on the album. I might’ve interacted with like, or almost like 80 different female creatives and producers.
And I think what I will really want it to do is much more than an album. I really wanted to create a movement. And I wanted to create a podcast I wanted because I have such, I have such good data now because it took me so much time. I have to talk about this because it was hard. And the more hard it was to connect with the right women to work with and to find the producers, the harder it got, and the more stubborn I became because a lot of people kept telling me, well, you’re not going to work with a woman just to work with a woman.
But I have to tell those people that if I haven’t insisted on this idea, I would have given up because every time I would go, I would talk like with people in the industry. that work in radios, that work in festivals. I would ask them, Hey, do you know a female producer? And they would be like, Oh, I don’t.
And there were so many of these people. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t easy at all. Unfortunately, like, yeah, I had to like, okay, I’m going to work with a woman and I’m going to find the right woman for me. And I eventually found many right women for my kind of project and my vision. But I feel like I want to, I want somebody else to, to get those contacts.
And, and I don’t think we’re connected enough. Uh, I don’t think there’s enough, uh, like there’s a good database for us to find each other. And like I was saying, you know, there’s always these circles. Where people keep working with the same people and the statistics speak for themselves. So yeah, hopefully like anybody who’s interested to work, just come to me.
Velvet Einstein: And what was the hardest role then for you to fill? Was there one particular role that took a long time to find a woman for?
EMEL: I think the, the, the most difficult role was I, I, I had to be at the center of everything. I couldn’t, um, I couldn’t give, somebody else, the job of first of all, uh, digging. I mean, of course, a lot of people helped me. I was never alone. There was a lot of people that helped me like, Hey, what do you think of this girl? Hey, I found this girl. Uh, I did a lot of searching also hours and hours and hours of listening to a Spotify playlist. Uh, I don’t want to praise Spotify, but they have, they have playlists on those playlists, you’d find a lot of DJs.
And there is a difference between a woman producer and a woman DJ. Um, and I just didn’t, I was not going to make like a techno album, maybe another time. But I really wanted the concept of female producers, someone that’s good with arrangements, that good with, Um, musical structures that ideally plays instruments, but also like think of the, of the project as a whole and has a vision, you know, so it’s a pretty specific, uh, but you’d find a lot of male producers, like, you know, you just, you just have to look for the style or the genre that you want.
It’s, it’s much easier. It’s always much easier. And I remember there was this funny moment when I was working with Hannah in her studio in London and we needed this last minute, um, addition of strings and horns, I think. And she’s like, are you sure we can’t cheat? You know, I have this guy and he will pull it off in two seconds.
And it’s true. There’s always, I also have many guys and I love them. You know, there’s always a guy that can pull it and we want to reach to that point with the girls as well, you know? So, because a lot of the girls are not encouraged to, to become producers and, you know, it’s all about representation, so it’s, it’s getting better, but there’s still a lot of work.
Velvet Einstein: I had noticed that you had done a track with Alyona Alyona from Ukraine, it’s not included on the album, so I was wondering, is there a plan to release that in another format soon?
EMEL: So the track is on the vinyl, but yeah, it’s on the vinyl and on the CD, we also did CDs. So yeah, if anybody orders the physical album, uh, she will be on it.
Velvet Einstein: Oh, okay. Obviously people can get the vinyl or the CD releases.
EMEL: Yeah. Get the vinyl. Get the vinyl.
Velvet Einstein: And you touched on this before, but it sounds like in terms of the arrangement there, you’ll be having some of the rappers pre recorded?
EMEL: Yeah. We have a song that’s called Nar, which means fire, where we have Ami Yerewolo from Mali.
It’s very hard to move Ami around. Um, because of visa issues and all of that. So we hope to have her sometimes in the, in the European days, but, um, yeah, so she will be, uh, not in person. We also have Justina, uh, who’s on the track L’amour, which is one of my most favorite tracks of all time to do live. It’s really like a big jam and we, we have videos actually during the shows.
And in the videos, we show, uh, some of, uh, some of Ami’s images when she filmed herself in a village near where she lives, in Mali. Because it’s on the video, so we, we, we show that on the show. And we have a very special video about the Iranian protests, you know, the Women, Life, Freedom movement. And it’s one of the highlights of the show, honestly.
Uh, we were performing this summer at WOMAD UK. And it’s really a very strong moment where you feel that people, uh, react. Even though, like, I don’t understand what she’s saying, people don’t understand what she’s saying. But her debit with the images of the protest is just like one of the strongest moments, you know, you can experiment live.
Velvet Einstein: So that’s with, uh, Justina? Yes. Yeah.
MUSIC Interlude
Emel – “L’amour feat. Justina”
Velvet Einstein: Great. And then who else is gonna be on the stage with you?
EMEL: So we have keyboards and piano. And we have drums and percussions. And we play a lot of floor toms because I’ve always loved tribal music and tribal rhythms and percussions. And this is something that I always like. It’s not as showcased live as on the recordings, but that’s why my main passion is to do live music and to be performing on stage.
And I always give a completely different dimension. To my songs once, once we’re playing them live.
Velvet Einstein: Speaking of touring and playing live, what’s the status now in terms of your ability to go back to Tunisia and perform there? Is that an option for you at all?
EMEL: Well, it’s funny because it’s always an option, you know, but it’s kind of like the impossible option because I feel like festivals don’t really come to me themselves.
Like it’s, it’s kind of heartbreaking because when I, every time I announce a tour, obviously I have a lot of Tunisian followers, uh, on my social media and my biggest audience remains Tunisia. And, you know, they’re always asking like, when is Tunisia, when is, you know, like summer festivals come and then spring festivals come and, you know, and I, I don’t know what to tell them, you know, like I’m ready. I’m available.
Last summer they canceled my shows. There was like a big, you know, controversy online. I feel like there’s always a good reason, you know, to stay away from me kind of thing, you know, it’s not exactly sad. It’s not exactly, but let’s not say too much because I’m still hoping to come back spring.
Hopefully we’re having a, um, an opportunity with someone, uh, that’s putting out like really cool festivals that are not happening in the capital, but in like smaller cities. Um, so yeah, that’s it. I still dream to maybe someday have like a full tour of Tunisia, which has not happened yet, but hopefully it will.
Velvet Einstein: Okay, well in the meantime, perhaps it’s to our benefit that you’ll be touring the U. S. here.
EMEL: I’m very excited to come back. These are like very special times and I know that a lot of people are going through hard times with everything that we’re seeing. This is really a time where we have to gather, uh, musically and, and get back our strengths.
We don’t have enough options, but we should, we should feel like we should have more options, you know, to decide for our future.
Velvet Einstein: Yeah. Thank you so much, Emel, for speaking with us.
EMEL: Thank you so much.
My voice has no limits. My voice has no end. This is Emel and you’re listening to K A L X. Berkeley.
Woo! Thank you.
MUSIC Interlude
Emel – “Nar II”