Artist Profile: Ember Woods
Ember Woods, the rapper and freeform lyrical artist from Broward County, Florida, has been refining her craft since she was a teenager, forming her stream-of-consciousness writing style over shimmering instrumentals. As she has found a sense of confidence in her sound and creative approach, her recent work has reflected a polished technique that imprints her music with a unique intention.
As a child of Haitian immigrants, Ember grew up surrounded by the sounds of her parents’ ancestral home, and, coupled with their sworn allegiance to the classics that were played on the 101.5 FM radio station in Florida, Woods was drawn toward music from an early age through the influence of her parents.
As a teenager, however, Ember had a sort of epiphany. She realized that she had access to essentially every era of music, and she began a genre-less journey into the depths of what was available to her.
This time spawned not only her love of rap, with artists like Eminem, Wiz Khalifa, Curren$y, and Kendrick Lamar being among the earliest of her tastes, but also her love for indie and rock music: a passion that endures in her sound today.
Most influentially, however, Ember discovered the pure songwriting capabilities of Amy Winehouse during this time: an experience that she says profoundly shaped her understanding of music.
“[Back to Black by Amy Winehouse] really gave me confidence, and it gave me the grassrootson to write a song or how to construct a song. Amy Winehouse doesn't get enough credit for the way that she writes her songs. It's not how she sings, it's how she writes; it's very poetic. Back to Black, that was like my first album where I knew it front to back.”
Largely in the spirit of Winehouse, Ember’s first attempts at writing songs came in the form of long, ambling poetic efforts: a practice that has conveyed into her current free-form approach to songwriting.
“I just feel like music is not supposed to be put in a box…. We found a formula to have pop music be more accessible to people that are not maybe avid listeners, but I feel like music was always supposed to be free-flowing and a stream of consciousness. When you listen to music, it's almost for escape, it's an escapism, so why would you put this leash on that?”
Yet, this free-flowing approach does not signify a lack of intention to Ember’s craft. From her first album, Mono Brew, to her most recent, face the world., there is clear evidence of her refining each individual sound, and, through her sometimes wandering song structure, clear directions and concepts are communicated unabashedly.
Mono Brew, her earliest album, centers around a feeling of being stuck, of waking up and living the same day every day, and, over melancholy instrumentation, Woods delivers a unique and intentional sound on each track.
This dialectic is most clearly seen, however, in the creative gap between her last two projects: WIM (World Iz Mine) and face the world..
After moving to New York from Florida to further pursue her music career, Ember was forced to move back to Florida as a result of the pandemic, where she finished WIM and, for the first time, felt as though she had put forward a fully cohesive musical effort.
Yet, just one week after WIM released, her grandmother, a central figure in her life, passed, and Ember now had to reconcile with her world shattering around her. She moved back to New York, and, through the process of her grief, found a newer, more humble view on life. Thus, face the world., and the three-year gap it represented from her last project, signifies Ember in her fullest, most vulnerable form.
Now, as she releases her first single, “broward2bk” (feat. K.C.), for her next project, which will explore her move from Florida to New York, Ember feels as confident as ever, and her upcoming work should reflect this budding cohesiveness.
