Singer-songwriter Emma G brings message of empowerment through music to Pittsburgh
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New Zealand native Emma G is here to save the world, one song at a time.
“Music has been my love language, it’s how I connect with people,” the singer-songwriter said in an interview. “I was born with a relatively rare brain condition called hydrocephalus, and so I had my first brain surgery when I was four months old. Growing up as a young person who had 10 brain surgeries … it was important for me to kind of find something to help me connect with my peers.”
She started writing songs at age 5, and her first single was recorded and released when she was 10 years old.
“The first ever single that I released was a song called ‘Look Around’ about … being a good human, basically, in a world that often feels broken.”
Emma G moved to the United States in 2015 to pursue music as a career, but her focus has become so much more than that in recent years. “In 2019, I decided to marry my love of music and youth empowerment work together and develop what’s now called YES Youth Coaching,” she said.
Her guidance helps teenagers to articulate their thoughts and feelings through songwriting. It’s an effective eight-step process to find a creative voice.
”The very first thing is something I call word vomit,” she said. “They’re given the safe space to word dump everything on their minds and in their hearts and put it on paper. After that, we work together to break those overwhelming thoughts and feelings down into themes. Then from there, they can start to recognize that these overwhelming thoughts can be broken down into chunks. So now we attack the chunks individually, and each chunk becomes a song in some way, shape or form.
“That can be a song expressing what one’s feeling, that can be a song where we take the feeling and emotion that we turn into a person that we then write the song to. It could be a songwriting a love letter to your younger self, helping you to navigate your thoughts and feelings. Or writing a love letter to our future selves to give us a way forward or a blueprint, if you will,” she said.
She noted that she wants to guide kids away from the barrage of technology and towards getting in touch with themselves and the world around them. Many of them find a hidden talent.
“I think it’s really easy for young people especially to get so stuck in the muck that we focus on the here and now, whereas when we allow ourselves permission to shift that focus towards the future, that allows us the space and creativity to write a road map towards who we want to become, not who we are,” she said.
Toward the end of the process, she adds in the rhyme, rhythm and musicality portion of songwriting.
“It’s incredible, the more music we kind of introduce … the more free young people seem to be when it comes to expressing themselves with words,” she said.
Emma G has partnered with Hard Rock Cafe for her YES Tour 2024. She will be performing at Pittsburgh’s South Side location on Monday night, and the event is free and open to all.
“It’s been wonderful, it’s been intense,” she said of the first legs of the tour.
She has been inviting teenagers onto the stage to sing their favorite cover songs.
“It was super fun. My band and I would play the music — kind of like live band karaoke — and give them the opportunity to come up and sing. What I noticed would happen … these kids would not normally do that, they would not normally put themselves out like that. It was really nice to facilitate that. I had a second microphone and would sing along with them. It was great to have them experiment and see what it feels like to be heard,” she said.
Her new album, “Fight the Fear,” was released yesterday on all digital platforms. She is excited to share her own feelings with the world again through music.
“Since launching YES Youth Coaching, I found that I was getting myself really stuck in the muck when it came to focusing on the teenagers I was working with, as opposed to letting myself release my inner teenager, if you will.”
So she renewed her commitment to pushing herself creatively.
“I set myself a couple of write-a-song-a-day challenges. Sometimes they were great, sometimes they were terrible.”
The two singles are representative of her worldview and how meaningful empowerment is to her. “Harmony is what makes music beautiful, therefore, please embrace diverse and harmonious things in our own lived experiences as we navigate 2024,” she said of the first single, “Harmony.”
“Glitter” is inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi. “The best way to repair a broken vase or piece of china is to glue it together with gold because … you’re making it stronger and more beautiful. The song is talking about how each and every single one of us has the power to be that gold, that glitter, that makes the brokenness whole again,” she said.
“The other songs on the album talk about everything from love … to tackling ideas of how do you deal with somebody who is suicidal? How do you navigate a broken world? How do you lean away from fear and anger and more towards community and equity?” she said.
She is still concentrating on connecting with others through the music that she writes and performs, but her mission has expanded a bit over time. “I want to have the people who listen to my songs to feel seen, heard, loved and validated.”
What message does she hope to give to the world, now and for the future?” Recognizing that every single one of us are superheroes that possess the powers that can be used to empower one another, to help one another, to create a more peaceful, loving community. That’s always been the focus of my music and my mission, to be there as a guide — kind of the Yoda of music — to help people recognize their value and their worth and their importance,” she said.
Emma G will perform at 6:30 p.m. Monday night at the Hard Rock Cafe on the South Side. To learn more about her and YES Youth Coaching, visit emmagmusic.com.