REI AMI

REI AMI was born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved stateside to Maryland when she was 6 years old. While her family adhered to a fairly strict Christian belief “where any ‘worldly’ music was banned,” she reflects, her upbringing became high-octane fuel. Her middle school days brought exploration of the so-called world music, from Destiny’s Child and Mariah Carey to Britney Spears, as well as a ton of K-POP. Later, she would seek out the catalogs of Kendrick Lamar, Lauryn Hill, Luther Vandross, A$AP Rocky and Drake as further touchpoints to her own burgeoning craft.

“I remember getting in a lot of trouble from my parents whenever I got caught listening to music that wasn’t Christian. There was this one time my iTunes popped up while my dad was using the computer, and he saw ‘Birthday Sex’ by Jeremih and flipped out on me and told me I was going to go to hell for listening to that kind of music.”

Yet such resistance early on only equipped her with an unwavering determination. Even creative expression of any kind was “frowned upon,” as she recalls. “The only time my parents encouraged any musical endeavor was for worship purposes — they put me through piano and guitar lessons so that I could perform in the church.”