Am.i is an alt-pop solo artist originally from Italy but now graces the music scene of London with her messy silky beats and poetic vocals.
We chatted to her about writing, her first track, and ticking off her goal of a 1st interview with a magazine.
Q – Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your work?
I started singing when I was 14 and then realised it was part of life when I was 16 that’s when I knew I wanted to move to the UK.
I’ve always sang it’s my biggest passion when I was 19 I moved to the UK to pursue that. I studied music here and am also doing my masters in music marketing.
I use music for healing.
Am.i is my creative project that allows me to show my creative side. I wouldn’t say it’s my alter ego but it represents pure emotions. It’s fully creative and pure. It has all the good emotions but it also has all the bad ones. All my issues regarding anxiety, procrastination all those millennial issues.
I bring them all up in my work and I’m very open about my work. That’s the reason I make music, to heal.
Q – What’s your song writing process?
I write poetry and I turn that poetry into songs. By writing poetry I get all the emotions out of my head so it’s like i’m releasing a weight and with that I make my music.
I just bring everything out and it seems to resonate with a lot of people because it’s all common issues that our generation has.
Q – We listened to your track ‘Millennial’ and loved it. Wanna tell us a bit more about it?
It was a hard one to write. It speaks a lot about anxiety, I actually wrote it because I was having a panic attack on the tube. I was in the tube and thought I’m just gonna have to write it.
So I sat down and wrote everything that came up.
The 1st verse talks about anxiety, the 2nd is about self acceptance in terms of body, sexuality and all that, then the 3rd is about romance.
It’s like a manifesto about myself but it’s not really starting with ‘i’; i’m not talking about myself in the 1st person.
Q – Your name? Am.i? And where did that come from?
It comes from a journey I made with myself.
My original name was ‘Frankie’, because I’m called Francesca. But it didn’t feel it would work with my music as much as ‘Am. i’ – ‘Am i’ has a different concept behind it, Frankie was just a nickname.
‘Am i’ comes from a journey of self doubt that I had throughout my life. When I moved to the UK I realised that was one of my issues. I started to be aware of it and with the awareness came acceptance and control over it.
When you have self doubt it’s bad you have a lack of confidence and all that comes with it, but when I started to embrace it and accept it, it enabled my personal growth.
I realised that self doubt was equally good and bad.
It makes you question yourself when you should and when you shouldn’t either, it’s all about finding a balance.
‘Am i ’is simply a question. Am I enough? Am I good? Am I bad? Am I strong enough for this? Am I weak enough?
It’s literally the essence of the self doubt that has been with me my whole life and that’s what made me who I am.
Q – It’s kinda like when people Google search right?
Yeah I posted about that on my Instagram. It impressed me, I was like ‘wow this is real?’
I’m very straightforward. I got to a point in my life where I was like
yeah I have all these issues, but who cares?!
It’s me, in both the bad and the good’.
Q – How important do you feel queerness in arts & culture is?
It’s madly important!
To be honest the more you’re happy with yourself and bring your own experiences out to the world, the more people are also going to do it as a consequence of what you’ve done.
It’s a great community, especially in London. It’s so beautiful and so supportive.
The more the better.
The reason I started making music and my music talks about experiences for example, a song i’m going to drop in May, the lyrics are about my ex girlfriend. With those lyrics you can tell I’m singing about another woman. The reason why I made it is because I felt there weren’t enough songs out there that literally talk about a relationship with the same gender.
I wanna relate! Because I relate to music a lot, it’s my life.
The more queerness and artists out there, the more relatable the work is
You’re bringing out your story and your story can be my story so I can relate and then another person can relate and so on. That not only helps music but also the community to grow.
Q – What do you want people to take away from your music?
Like with every form of art, I want them to take whatever they feel is part of themselves in my songs.
Say with a painting, personally I don’t want to know what the story is behind it. I want to know that after because I want to relate to it first.
I want them to feel the emotions they feel and then take what they want from my songs.
Whatever their experience it doesn’t have to be the same story as mine.
Q – In theme with our issue, what dreams do you have for your music / your listeners?
I kinda have short term goals atm. Like:
- My 1st headline show to sell out
- The 1st sofar sound gig
- My 1st radio interview
- My first interview – actually tick that off as that’s you guys at UNICORN!
- A 1st for everything really!
But I’m just more focusing on the single release, so that’s my dream right now which is becoming true soon.
Q – If you had one piece of advice for your younger self (looking back now) what would it be and why?
Not be afraid to be aware of yourself.
Instead of keeping yourself from being aware of who you are and what you want in life, actually do it because even if it’s scary at the beginning it brings you a lot after.
Also accepting yourself, knowing what you want, knowing where you stand as a person.
Since our interview, Am.i has released a new song called ‘Game Over’ check it out here:
Photo credits
Valentina Gentilin @missvvart
Samuel Hennessey @samuelhennessy
Ministah Minah @minstahminah
Am.i
She / Her | London | Musician
Am.i was interviewed by Lucy Everett
