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Seattle-raised, self-taught singer-songwriter UMI first broke into popularity with her 2018 single "Remember Me," and has since built a devoted global fanbase across a string of acclaimed EPs and her 2022 debut album, Forest in the City. This year, she released her album people stories, her most personal and expansive project yet. It's an album inspired by stories of her fans and loved ones that explores ego, healing, identity, and connection. Somewhere between headlining her very own world tour and figuring out how to sign 150 posters at a time without breaking a sweat, UMI has become the epitome of the kind of artist OnesToWatch loves checking back in with.

For the latest installment of our Q&A series, we handed the mic to UMI and asked her to sit down with her personal OneToWatch, PLACEHOLDER: the colorful, soaringly passionate duo of Iris and Benj, who aren't afraid to come into contact with a few scrapes along the way as they embrace imperfection in their music making journey. Their natural restlessness and refusal to conform to a specific genre in their songwriting feels like a natural extension to the same restlessness UMI channels in her own work. The pair met at a writers camp, and although they originally didn't think the other knew very much about music, they later figured out they have more in common than they thought and became better for it. "Earthquake" and "Heart in My Hands" arrive ahead of a forthcoming EP that finds the duo fully embracing the beautiful mess of doing things their way.

We set the three of them up to interview each other, and they traded questions about the moment they each knew music was non-negotiable, the advice they'd give their younger selves, and what it means to trust your instincts even when nobody around you gets it yet.

UMI: Hello, it's UMI, and I'm here with PLACEHOLDER. It's a beautiful sunny day in California, and we're excited to interview each other for OnesToWatch. First question — when did you know you had to pursue music?

Iris: I knew I wanted to pursue music around 17. I grew up in a really small town, and most of my peers were pursuing sports, or college, or other things. I really leaned into doing what other people were doing — I enjoyed sports and was good at them, but I never found passion in it. I never wanted to wake up early to invest time in being the best athlete, and I realized I was missing a part of me I wasn't tapping into. When I started playing guitar and exploring that more musical side, I felt liberated, right at home. That was when I was like, yeah, this is what I need to be doing.

Side question — you have such an amazing voice, did you not know you could sing until then?

Iris: No, it was something I was almost embarrassed of, in a weird way. Nobody around me had the same level of singing that I knew I had. In my very raw moments my mom would say, "Oh, you just sing around the house." It was something I had to come to terms with — nobody else around me felt the way I felt about music. I was like, oh my god, I'm a freak, nobody else gets it — I get goosebumps listening to things, or really deep crying and feeling emotions in songs, and other people would be like, "That's weird." So I kind of shoved it down, and then finally it boiled over, and it was like, girl, we're not going anywhere, you're not escaping. Probably 17.

Benj: For me it was at 13. My mom had gotten me a guitar for Christmas, I'd been asking for it the entire year. Once I finally got it and started learning songs, it became all I was doing — playing Call of Duty with my friends, skateboarding, or in school, or learning Megadeth solos, trying to transcribe them. After I realized, oh damn, I'm doing this a lot, that's when I was like, this is something I should lock in on.

Also, side question — something that always intrigued me about you is the environment you grew up in versus the music you were passionate about. How did you still want to pursue music even though your environment didn't mirror your own interests?

Benj: That's a great question. I think that's just something that was intrinsically in me. I wanted to be in a band as a kid so bad, and there were people who were like, "Dude, that's weird." If I'd started singing in church it would've been more acceptable — but there was no one around me who wanted to actually go write songs together and rehearse and do all that. So it was just intrinsically there in me since the start.

How did you two meet?

Iris: We met at a writing camp, and I actually spilled my drink on Benj by accident — that's honestly how we met. We were going around the room sharing music interests, and at the time I was heavy into R&B and pop — still one of my favorite genres. Then Benj said something about Tom Petty, and I was like, "What do you know about Tom Petty? I'm from Michigan, hippie parents, grew up on Tom Petty." I was thinking he'd name something mainstream, and he actually knew ball. We talked about all sorts of genres, and he was like, "I can hear it in your voice, I'm surprised you're making R&B and pop — I keep hearing rock in there."

Benj: It was an icebreaker — what's your name, what do you do, what have you been listening to. I said, "I've been listening to Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac." And when Iris played her songs and I heard her voice, I was like, wait a second, there's something here that needs to be tapped into.

Iris: I love R&B and R&B/pop, but making it was more of an act of rebellion, because I'd come from such a small town in Michigan before I moved to LA — which is how I ended up there, fresh off The Voice. A lot of what I did on The Voice and before was rock, country, classic rock, very raspy, deep stuff.

I guess a question for you, UMI — what's something that's happened in your career that you'd tell your younger self?

That's such a heartfelt question. Two things come to mind. When I was little, I used to practice signing signatures and handing them out to imaginary people in my room. Now every show they'll give me a stack of 150 or 200 posters to sign, and every time I'm like, oh man, I used to do this by myself when I was five — so I'd tell her: it's gonna happen. The other memory — I used to do little shows on my bed for my two little sisters, pretending they were my fans. I have this vivid memory of writing a song for Coachella and practicing it in my room, then being on stage and thinking, oh my god, I'm literally doing the exact thing I saw in my head. So the thing you see in your head really does happen. You can't say when, you can't say how, but it does happen.

Iris: I used to watch the movie Brave — it's funny because I look just like her, red hair, this Irish princess who fights the whole "you have to get married" thing. In that movie there are these things called sprites, little blue things that lead you to your destiny. That's how I picture my intuition, this little blue animal-flame that leads me where I need to go. Anyway — who was the first R&B artist you fell in love with, UMI?

Probably Destiny's Child — my dad was a DJ when he was younger and my mom loved R&B, so she'd have all these mixtapes going. Destiny's Child and Sade — my dad loved Sade. I think it subconsciously taught me a lot about singing with feeling. I loved what you said about your music being an act of rebellion, because my last album was very folk-inspired, more grungy and alternative, and it was my act of rebellion too — I hated when people called me an R&B artist. I'm more than R&B.

Iris: I think every artist experiences that, and more artists now are coming out and asking why we have to be pigeonholed to one area. I think about T-Pain — his "Tennessee Whiskey" cover is such a cool representation of how multifaceted we all are as artists, even when we pick a lane. I love to be a little unruly in my artistry.

Benj: Iris, who was that first artist for you? Mine was the White Stripes — anything Jack White did. It was so raw, but it also felt like stepping into his mind.

Iris: My grandma got me a Selena CD for my fourth birthday — I can still see it, light gold with her signature on it. The other one was Michael Jackson, but every kid loves Michael Jackson, so that's kind of a given.

A tie-in question for UMI — how do you feel about live performances? Some artists love the studio and hate performing live, and I've met the opposite too. Where do you stand?

Recently I've started to love live performance — it came from the Blue Note tour I just did. I watched this Erykah Badu interview that explains the difference: the studio is a perfected moment, versus a live show, which is a moment you can never replicate, that exists because of the dynamic of every person in the room, the temperature of the air, the sound system. Performance art is about creating a moment, and studio art is perfecting one. I used to only love being in the studio, and I think that's part of why I hated performing — a lot of my music was hard to adapt to a live space, even with a band. But now that I'm more confident with the unknown of being on stage, my own magic is coming out, and I'm realizing I'm actually really good at it. Now every time I'm making a song I'm like, can I dance to it, can I hear an arrangement to it? I'm shifting my whole world to be more live.

Iris: I feel almost the opposite — my whole career started with live performances, so I learned that quickly, and it's made me a little too fluid to work with sometimes, because I lean into the fact that you can never fully prepare for what's going to happen live. You might hit a note, there might just be a vibe — you might be sitting on the ground, you might be crying — you never know. Transitioning into the studio was dope, because I was like, oh my god, I get a million tries.

I'm sure there are a lot of new listeners who'll find you two through this interview — how would you describe PLACEHOLDER to someone hearing you for the first time?

Iris: I think we're a very colorful duo. You're not going to come over here and experience an ounce of dullness. I don't think we're clean cut, and there's beauty in that — our world definitely has some bumps and scrapes. My voice is crackly and nowhere near perfect, and I think there's a lot of texture and color in what we make.

Benj: I might not keep the right guitar takes ever — if you solo them, you might hear some messed up notes, even on the keyboards, because I can't even play keys, but we put keys on the records because why not.

Iris: If we put ourselves in an artist perspective, it's like a Picasso vibe — there's no rules over here, it's a lot of what we're feeling in the moment and how we want other people to feel. I want to listen to music and feel fun and bubbly, but also grounded, part of the story the artist is painting. We're trying to create a world you can exist in and feel all those things — fun, creative, curious, sad, happy. That takes a lot of colorful mess to make.

Benj: Picasso knows how to do fine art and all the proper techniques, but he also knows how to go psychedelic and do whatever he feels in the moment. I feel like we do the same — we can have a good time, and we can also gather everything together and show you we're really dope at what we do.

Iris: I think we're both super talented in what we do, but also in trusting ourselves in what we do. Benj has experience in different worlds and genres, as I do, and I know where I thrive and where I don't — I think same for Benj. It's a smooth, fun process, and I hope that's conveyed when you're listening.

Let's do a rapid fire — what's something you've released, what's coming, and what are you excited about?

Iris: Released — two singles, "Earthquake" and "Heart in My Hands." Coming — another single, and an EP on the way. Excited about — honestly, the whole process. We've put a lot of vulnerability into so many meticulous late nights, so I'm just really excited to see it all unfold.

Benj: Same here — just seeing all the time and effort put into these songs come out. I love it all, and I'm super excited.

Iris: How about you, girl?

What I've released — my album People Stories is out, go stream it, one of my favorite art pieces I've put together so far. What's coming — I'm working on another album I'm in love with. This is me going, you know what, y'all caught me, I am good at R&B, so I'll give you what you want, because I actually enjoy it too. What I'm excited about is summer — it's finally felt like it this week, so I want to do summery things, hang out, have barbecues, go to the beach. Every summer I want to top the last one, so I'm ready.

Iris: Thank you so much for having us here, UMI, awesome to be part of this space. And thank you to OnesToWatch for having us on. To everyone listening — thank you for tapping in, and we hope you enjoy what's to come as much as we enjoy it, because it's awesome.

Listen to UMI and PLACEHOLDER below: