Yaeji
09/12/24 • 29 min
Bedroom producer turned global club-pop icon Kathy Yaeji Lee, better known as Yaeji, is our guest this week. Yaeji self-identifies as an “introspective loner” and was raised between New York and Seoul. In this interview she reflects on how her upbringing has influenced the music she makes today: whether that’s listening to her dad’s mixtapes of Korean indie ballads, finding community in internet forums or getting into the brostep scene for her radio show in Pittsburgh. She started out DJing and later became a producer, known for her introspective yet danceable beats, and vocals which swing between Korean and English.
Where some of our Don’t Assume guests struggle to think of any surprising hobbies outside of music, Yaeji was spoiled for choice. She’s a prolific journaler, with multiple journals on the go at any one time. She’s also into fibre art, where she collects fibres from across the world and weaves them into yarn to knit or crochet into fabric. Whilst this sounds like a departure from the songs featured on albums like With A Hammer, it all feels like a continuum of Yaeji’s lifelong process of observing, gathering and reassembling the multiple facets of her identity to create something new.
Presenter - Zakia Sewell
Producer - Alannah Chance
Music composition - Jennifer Walton
Mix-Mastering - Sol King
Exec Producer - Lizzy King for NTS
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Bedroom producer turned global club-pop icon Kathy Yaeji Lee, better known as Yaeji, is our guest this week. Yaeji self-identifies as an “introspective loner” and was raised between New York and Seoul. In this interview she reflects on how her upbringing has influenced the music she makes today: whether that’s listening to her dad’s mixtapes of Korean indie ballads, finding community in internet forums or getting into the brostep scene for her radio show in Pittsburgh. She started out DJing and later became a producer, known for her introspective yet danceable beats, and vocals which swing between Korean and English.
Where some of our Don’t Assume guests struggle to think of any surprising hobbies outside of music, Yaeji was spoiled for choice. She’s a prolific journaler, with multiple journals on the go at any one time. She’s also into fibre art, where she collects fibres from across the world and weaves them into yarn to knit or crochet into fabric. Whilst this sounds like a departure from the songs featured on albums like With A Hammer, it all feels like a continuum of Yaeji’s lifelong process of observing, gathering and reassembling the multiple facets of her identity to create something new.
Presenter - Zakia Sewell
Producer - Alannah Chance
Music composition - Jennifer Walton
Mix-Mastering - Sol King
Exec Producer - Lizzy King for NTS
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode
Thundercat
Thundercat doesn’t follow the rules. From his tattoo of the word NO, to his genre-bending playing and extensive collection of cat hair, he's an artist who keeps us guessing and is the perfect guest for Don’t Assume.
The bassist, singer, and producer has become a key figure in the West Coast jazz, funk, and R&B scene alongside the likes of Kamasi Washington and Flying Lotus. Known for his virtuoso playing and falsetto voice, Thundercat actually cut his teeth playing bass in the thrash metal band Suicidal Tendencies. He traces a line from there to the psychedelic, jazz-infused R&B that he’s loved for today, as he and Zakia discuss being the weird kids in school, how all musicians want to be comedians and his quest for extra pickles.
Thundercat has benefited from some incredible collaborators along the way including Kamasi Washington, Mac Miller, Erykah Badu, Flying Lotus and Kenrick Lamar, here he reflects on the impact they’ve had on his career. He’s a mercurial talent, and over the course of the interview he dances between references, funny asides and reflections on grief, all grounded in what is clearly a sincere love and respect for music.
Presenter - Zakia Sewell
Producer - Alannah Chance
Recording - Sophie Ellison
Music composition - Jennifer Walton
Mix-Mastering - Sol King
Exec Producer - Lizzy King for NTS
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Next Episode
Vashti Bunyan
In the 1960s Vashti Bunyan burned all her possessions, saddled up a horse and cart and set off for Donovan’s Scottish island with her boyfriend. So far, so pastoral. But Vashti’s story is not a counter cultural fantasy, and Vashti is not the folksy heroine people assume she is.
Vashti was born in 1945 in Newcastle, named after a rebel queen from Persia and she lives up to her namesake’s reputation. The singer-songwriter started out with ambitions to be a popstar, but was quickly disillusioned by the music industry. After releasing a few singles which fell on deaf ears, she set out on her now infamous horse-drawn journey to Donovan’s commune on the Hebrides. Along the way she wrote her debut album, Just Another Diamond Day. It was largely ignored on release but when it was re-issued in 2000 it gained a cult following and is now considered a psych-folk classic, lauded for its delicate beauty, even though folk was never a genre Vashti related to.
In this real meeting of minds, Vashti and Zakia talk about Vashti’s punk approach to quiet music, her experience of being rejected from a class on music technology for being ‘too old’ and the importance of dreaming for a better future. It’s fair to say that Vashti continues to do things her own way and her own, softly-spoken version of a rebel queen.
Presenter - Zakia Sewell
Producer - Alannah Chance
Music composition - Jennifer Walton
Mix-Mastering - Sol King
Exec Producer - Lizzy King for NTS
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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