BIOGRAPHY
When she was just nine-years old, Willa Amai started writing songs sparked by inspirations of all kinds, from the Regina Spektor records her mother played during bath time to the poetry books she has long collected. Over the next few years, The Los Angeles native amassed a body of work revealing her lyrical complexity and magnetic vocal presence, along with the imaginative melodies she party attributes to synesthesia (a neurological phenomenon in which one sense triggers the perception of another sense, such as seeing letters and words as color). Now 16, Willa has begun sharing her music with the world, showing the extraordinary depth of her narrative voice and the subtle power of her songwriting.
Since contributing a spellbinding ballad called “Scars” to the Served Like a Girl soundtrack in 2017, Willa has enchanted audiences with songs like her stripped-back and stunning cover of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” – a track that has amassed over 6 million YouTube views and more than a millions streams following its feature in a Clio Award-winning TV spot for QuickBooks. She’s also won acclaim for her gently breathtaking rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” (recorded with Dolly herself and featured on the Dumplin’ soundtrack), with Esquire praising the duet as “truly exceptional” and “one of the few moments that an accompanying voice is able to keep up with Parton’s.” Refinery29 hailed their interaction as “a passing of the torch.”
Through the years, Willa broadened her sonic palette by taking up guitar and ukulele, self-recording all her material via her computer’s Photo Booth app. When she was 12-years-old, a family friend introduced her to multi-platinum, Grammy Award-nominated producer Linda Perry (P!nk, Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera), for whom Willa played a fragment of a piece she had recently written. “I was terrified,” Willa remembers. “I got through maybe half the song and Linda was just silent, and then she looked at me and said, ‘Come back in three months with five more songs.’” By the time they met again, Perry offered to record an album with Willa, and soon signed her to We Are Hear – the label/publishing/management company she co-founded with multi-platinum producer Kerry Brown (Smashing Pumpkins, Miley Cyrus).
Her next venture will be covering her mentor’s hit, “What’s Up” originally by Linda Perry’s Four Non Blondes. Willa brings her quietly captivating voice to a rendition of the iconic song to add a modern meaning of “what’s going on!” The track begins with delicate piano work and a melancholy Willa delivering soft vocals. It slowly and powerfully progresses into the melody of a love song, but the message of injustice in institution – a message that still resonates with young women almost thirty years later. The track is delivered with a stunning music video shot, styled, and directed by Willa’s peers, all no older than 18.
In each moment of “What’s Up,” Willa builds a mesmerizing tension between her doe-eyed perspective and refined musicality, a quality she first honed by learning to play piano at age four. After discovering a love of poetry in third grade, she began to experiment with crafting lyrics of her own. “I had a little notebook I wrote all my songs in, and I’d sing them to my piano teacher and she’d sow me how to play them,” Willa recalls. From there, she became more and more fascinated with songwriting, often turning out three tracks a week, mining inspiration from the world around her and all those who inhabit it (her closest friends, her kid sister).
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As she’s immersed herself in the making of her forthcoming debut album, Willa has felt her songwriting expand and evolve. “There are so many little things that I never paid attention to before – like the space between words, and the power of silence,” she says. “Now that I’m aware of those things, it feels like my songs have more weight to them.” At the same time, she’s also kept up with the instinct-driven process behind her refreshingly unaffected songwriting. “When I’m writing it’s almost like I’m turning on a radio,” she says. “It might take a few songs to find a station that comes through, but once I do find it, it’s just right. It’s like the song already exists, and my job is to pull it out of the air and into the world.”
For Willa, the act of bringing songs to life has always served a certain emotional purpose. “I feel like my mind is always going a mile a minute, and music’s like an escape from that – a way to slow down and breathe because time doesn’t move when I’m writing,” she says. And as she begins releasing new music to the world, one of her greatest hopes is for that sense of solace to transfer onto each listener. “There’s a song of mine called ‘Tell Me,’ which is like a lullaby I wrote to myself because I’d had a bad day and needed to try and feel better,” says Willa. “I didn’t intend for anyone else to ever hear it because it’s so specific that I didn’t think people would get it. But that’s what I’ve found – the more specific you are, the more people can relate to you. And if someone can see their own stories in even just one of my songs, that’s really all I need.”
The next few years, the L.A. native amassed a body of work revealing her lyrical complexity and magnetic vocal presence, along with the imaginative melodies she partly attributes to synesthesia (a neurological phenomenon in which one sense triggers the perception of another sense, such as seeing letters and words as color). Now 15, Willa has begun sharing her music with the world, showing the extraordinary depth of her narrative voice and the subtle power of her songwriting.
Since contributing a spellbinding ballad called “Scars” to the Served Like a Girl soundtrack in 2017, Willa has enchanted audiences with songs like her stripped-back and stunning cover of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”—a track that’s amassed over 6 million YouTube views and more than a million streams following its feature in a Clio Award-winning TV spot for QuickBooks. She’s also won acclaim for her gently breathtaking rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” (recorded with Dolly herself and featured on the Dumplin’ soundtrack), with Esquire praising the duet as “truly exceptional” and “one of the few moments that an accompanying voice is able to keep up with Parton’s” and Refinery29 hailing their interaction as “a passing of the torch.”
On her new single “Trampled Flowers,” Willa brings her quietly captivating voice to a wistful reflection on longing and broken hope, imbuing every line with a soulful vulnerability. But while it begins in Willa’s fragile vocal delivery and delicate piano work, the track soon opens up into a harmony-laced epic that’s undeniably life-affirming. And for the beautifully cinematic video for “Trampled Flowers”—directed by Mark Romanek, the acclaimed filmmaker known for his work with artists like Beyoncé, Fiona Apple, and Madonna—Willa enlisted her grandmother to play an older version of the song’s narrator, adding another layer to her nuanced storytelling.
In each moment of “Trampled Flowers,” Willa builds a mesmerizing tension between her wide-eyed perspective and refined musicality, a quality she first honed by learning to play piano at age four. After discovering a love of poetry in third grade, she began to experiment with crafting lyrics of her own. “I had a little notebook I wrote all my songs in, and I’d sing them to my piano teacher and she’d show me how to play them,” Willa recalls. From there, she became more and more fascinated with songwriting, often turning out three tracks a week, mining inspiration from the world around her and all those who inhabit it (her closest friends, her kid sister).
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Willa Amai’s “What’s Up”was released on April 17th, 2020 which included a million plus video that showcased how no matter how crazy the world, there is still unity.
Through the years, Willa broadened her sonic palette by taking up guitar and ukulele, self-recording all her material via her computer’s Photo Booth app. When she was 12-years-old, a family friend introduced her to multi-platinum, Grammy Award-nominated producer Linda Perry (P!nk, Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera), for whom Willa played a fragment of a piece she’d recently written. “I was terrified,” Willa remembers. “I got through maybe half the song and Linda was just silent, and then she looked at me and said, ‘Come back in three months with five more songs.’” By the time they met again, Perry offered to record an album with Willa, and soon signed her.
​
As she’s immersed herself in the making of her forthcoming debut album, Willa has felt her songwriting expand and evolve. “There are so many little things that I never paid attention to before—like the space between words, and the power of silence,” she says. “Now that I’m aware of those things, it feels like my songs have more weight to them.” At the same time, she’s also kept up with the instinct-driven process behind her refreshingly unaffected songwriting. “When I’m writing it’s almost like I’m turning on a radio,” she says. “It might take a few seconds to find a station that comes through, but once I do find it, it’s just right. It’s like the song already exists, and my job is to pull it out of the air and into the world.”
For Willa, the act of bringing songs to life has always served a certain emotional purpose. “I feel like my mind is always going a mile a minute, and music’s like an escape from that—a way to slow down and breathe, because time doesn’t move when I’m writing,” she says. And as she releases her music for the first time, one of her greatest hopes is for that sense of solace to transfer onto each listener. “There’s a song of mine called ‘Tell Me,’ which is like a lullaby I wrote to myself because I’d had a bad day and needed to try to feel better,” says Willa. “I didn’t intend for anyone else to ever hear it, because it’s so specific that I didn’t think people would get it. But that’s what I’ve found: the more specific you are, the more people can relate to you. And if someone can see their own stories in even just one of my songs, that’s really all I need.”