EMEL

Tunisian/American, New York City-based art pop musician Emel Mathlouthi, AKA EMEL, has announced her newest LPMRA. A beguiling coalescence of ethereal hip-hop and indie-pop sounds that is, at turns, a call to compassion and to action, it is due out April 19th via her own Little Human label. Alongside this announcement, she shared the new single + video “Lose My Mind (feat. Nayomi).” A multicultural excursion blending a unique, bouncing Arabic reggaeton drumbeat with EMELʼs own flair, and a bilingual guest verse from smokey-voiced Iraqi-Swedish rapper Nayomi, the track is about the distance that can't be unbridged between two people, when they lose connection and drift apart. It explores one's desperate quest for liberation and meaning as they get stuck between a fading passion and fear of the unknown. On this new album, EMEL continues her musical exploration, as well as her fight for Global freedom through an explicitly feminine/feminist lens. MRA, meaning “woman” in Arabic, seeks to amplify and strengthen the voices of women worldwide, specifically in a largely male driven music industry, through heavy beats and hooky melodies. The record is as much about EMEL using her voice as it is a rally cry that her fellow women do so freely, with the same opportunities and in the same spaces as their male counterparts. Having worked alongside such formidable visionaries as Iranian filmmaker, Shirin Neshat, and multimedia artist, Laurie Anderson, she knows the mutually beneficial strength forged by working with women, sharing a platform and trusting one another. “I've come to discover the true meaning of sisterhood. I'm not interested in the inherited feeling that other women are my rivals anymore,” she says. “I want us to change the system from within by and through women.”