Umi (singer)

Tierra Umi Wilson (born February 9, 1999), known mononymously as Umi, is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Seattle, Washington, she attended the University of Southern California, but dropped out in 2019 in order to pursue music. She is best known for her 2018 song "Remember Me", which has over 140 million streams on Spotify. She also accompanied Conan Gray as an opening act on his Comfort Crowd Tour in 2019.

Early life
Wilson was born in Seattle in 1999 to an African-American father and a Japanese mother. Her mother taught her how to read, write, and speak Japanese. Wilson's mother plays piano and her father plays the drums. UMI started writing music when she was 4 or 5, with a songwriting journal. Throughout high school, she was involved in DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) and her track team at Tahoma High School in Maple Valley. In high school, she discovered YouTube beats and started writing to tracks. She would record the songs with a USB mic and upload them to SoundCloud and YouTube. She soon started to get copyrighted on SoundCloud by posting covers of other songs. This made her start writing and posting her own originals.

2017–2018: Happy Again and debut EP
In 2017, UMI released five singles before her four-track debut EP, Interlude. This led to making it onto Spotify’s Fresh Finds Best of 2017 playlist. She opened for rapper ODIE in Los Angeles.

UMI's most popular release to date is "Remember Me". She has over 33 million views on YouTube and 117 million plays on Spotify. UMI debuted "Remember Me" with a music video, highlighting universalism by portraying couples of different race, class, and sexual orientation. She said, "the message in the video, for me, is that no matter who you love or how you love, we all hurt the same in the end."

2019–2021: Balance, Love Language, Introspection EP, and Introspection Reimagined
She released the Balance EP on May 17, 2019, which included the songs "Ordinary" and "Down To Earth." On October 30, 2019, they released their EP, Love Language On June 21, 2020, she released her EP, Introspection. Following the release of her EP, Introspection, UMI released a follow-up EP entitled Introspection Reimagined on March 26, 2021, featuring new versions of the songs on the Introspection EP as well as two new interludes.

2022–present: Forest in the City debut album and tour
On May 26, 2022, Umi released her debut album, Forest in the City, which featured the singles "Moonlit Room", "Whatever U Like", and "Sorry", and was the focus of her first headlining tour.

Artistry
UMI has cited her biggest musical influences as Frank Ocean, D'Angelo, Jhené Aiko, Erykah Badu and SZA. She grew up listening to R&B, soul, gospel and Japanese pop/rock. UMI has been described by Vogue as having a "lo-fi, alternative, laid back, R&B style".