Rising Stars: Meet Emma Gimeno of Los Angeles

I grew up in Madrid, Spain and my parents raised me around a lot of music. I would always sing in the car or along to songs I played on my CD player. I always loved music and knew I always wanted to be around it. It wasn’t until I started singing in my school choir that I realized I really loved singing and might have an ear for it. I noticed i could sing in harmony with other people easily and it felt natural. I started taking singing more seriously at 13 and took lessons, which then turned into doing gigs with my singing teacher at age 15 who was a huge mentor to me. After that I started playing in a cover band with friends in high school and got really into Jazz and Neo Soul music. I went on to apply to jazz schools and contemporary music schools in the US and UK, I ended up getting a scholarship to go to Berklee College of Music in Boston and studied songwriting there. I started getting really into writing songs and producing in my second year at Berklee and I just really fell in love with creating music. I recently moved to LA and now I’m always working on new songs!

I struggled a lot with self confidence. There are a ton of talented artists out there right now, and that can be really overwhelming. It’s a daily exercise for me to step out of comparing myself to others all the time. At the end of the day we all have something unique to say in our own unique way and thats the most important path to follow. Im constantly inspired by people around me and it pushes me to create more.

I’m primarily an artist and songwriter. I have a project I released this past August that I worked on while in college. It was a really fun project and a lot of my close friends who are incredible musicians were involved so it felt like a little family creation. I’m really inspired by Neo Soul, RnB and Jazz music and those genres are a big part of my footprint since I grew up listening to a lot of Soul and Motown music. I think my favorite part about being an artist is working with other people. I work best when I collaborate with others and I don’t really enjoy being under the spotlight. I pretty much only like to be on stage when my friends are around me. My favorite place to be is definitely in the studio writing songs.

I think choosing to be an artist or pursuing a creative career in general is a risk in itself. It’s a constant battle with yourself, you’re always questioning whether or not you’re good enough or if you belong. There is always the risk of failure and every artist, musician, creative is still choosing to take that risk every day. For that reason I really admire creatives because we are always fighting that fear and you really do have to be brave for yourself.