By Hannah Newman

Amindi can only be described as America’s new favorite, genre-bending artist from Los Angeles, CA. With a Jamaican background and an upbringing in LA’s music scene, Amindi’s style is a melting pot of culture, alternative funk and soul, and sounds that are completely fresh and different. Her career, creatively founded in SoundCloud beginnings, skyrocketed when the single “Pine & Ginger,” the name of a popular Jamaican drink, debuted in 2017. The immediate smash hit, which was produced by Valleyz, featuring Jamaican artist Tessellated, now has over 20 million streams amassed across all major streaming platforms.

Amindi’s recent single “YWSYLS” (“you win some you lose some”) arrives with a new music video filled with shots of California streets dotted with friends and bike rides, a studio scene, and then punctuated with Amindi relaxing in a tub, seemingly reflecting on something bigger than the day: “I don’t wanna pretend / that I’m all good on my end / but I learned how to be my own friend/ yeah I learned how to be my own friend.” “YWSYLS” starts with a beat and melody that feel just like home. The plucked guitar at the beginning combined with Amindi’s soft humming, the twinkling chimes, and the smooth shift in beats make the track an instant catch.

All of Amindi’s proudest and most recent musical releases can be found on her website, which includes behind the scene media of music video production and song descriptions from the artist herself. The site not only presents Amindi’s style perfectly (early 2000’s-era aesthetics fill the pages), but it also debuts her project Minztape. The collection consists of three songs that Amindi describes as “an appetizer” with the promise that more music is definitely on the way for us soon.

Your parents are from Jamaica, and you grew up to be a large part of the LA music scene. How have these two backgrounds shaped your music? 

Oh man, I always say it’s like being a Q-tip. One side is pretty immersed in the Jamaican culture, and then the other side is pretty immersed in LA culture, just cause my household is different than the outside environment. Obviously, my mom raised me. She stuck to her Jamaican values, played a bunch of reggae and dancehall... And I was raised around a bunch of Jamaicans in LA….and then, outside of that, obviously LA is not Jamaica so that was a big impact too.

Speaking of your background, what kind of specific albums showed you that you wanted to be a music artist? 

When I was in fourth grade, I found this singer Santigold, who is a Black woman, she makes alternative music, like alternative rock, and that was my first experience being a black woman hearing something that wasn’t R&B or rap, you know what I mean? I was obsessed. I was like, “Wow. There really are no limits to this.”

And then my mom, she’s super Christian, but she’s always played reggae around the house, and there’s this artist, Beres Hammond, that she always played that I loved. I just loved his writing and his voice, and she played a lot of Buju Banton, who is great. 

The type of music I listened to when my music taste was forming was a bunch of alternative: Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys, like them.

But I also listened to a lot of rap, like I really loved Acid Rap by Chance, and I loved Gambino when I was 14, and I loved Isaiah Rashad...all of it, really. It was just a mix of things. I never really stopped myself from listening. I just love good music, and I just want to make good music because all of this stuff makes everything I like that makes up who I am.

When it comes to the beginning stages of your musical process, where do you find your inspiration? What motivates you and how do you know a song idea has potential?

So, I’ll first answer the writing process question because I’ve made music for a very long time, but I only started uploading to Soundcloud when it was new, which was like 2013. 

Then I didn’t have much life experience. So, I would pull from books or movies because I’ve always loved to read, and I’ve always loved films, so I’d always pull from that. There’s a song on my SoundCloud called “digital echo field,” and that was heavily influenced by Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. I really love beautiful imagery, and so I always try to convey that in my songs. 

But now that I’m older, a lot of my songwriting comes from experience, just life, lived experience now. 

[Referring to potential song ideas] Oh, I just feel lit, it’s like a gut feeling, I guess...I don’t know. Honestly, my biggest song, it’s the song “Pine & Ginger,” I had no idea that that would do as much for my life as it did. It was literally like my friend from SoundCloud sent me a beat. I sent it back…and then it went crazy, and it literally changed my life. My life is super altered because of that song that I didn’t even know—I just liked it you know? I was like, “Oh yeah, this is a cool little song.” But now it has millions of plays on every streaming platform. It’s crazy.

You just recently released your song “YWSYLS” this past New Years’ Eve. You mention on your single write-up the decision on including a recording of your mother. What does that mean for you and what drove that choice?

Well, the song itself, “You Win Some You Lose Some,” it’s like, honestly, it’s an accumulation of feelings I was having. In 2020, it was a rough year for all of us. I had just moved out of my mom’s house for the first time and that conversation that I recorded her voice from, I was...okay so, backstory: growing up in my mom’s house, we didn’t have the best relationship. That was a huge part of why I wanted to move out. But since I moved out it’s greatly improved, and we talk way more frequently, and I never really asked her for advice or anything like that before but this was one of the first conversations where I was real down bad, and she was really spitting, and so I recorded it, honestly just for something I can look back on when I was feeling down again. It just felt fitting for the song. And I’m at a point where I want to be able to feel pride in my family, and not that I didn’t before, it was just something I wanted to be inclusive on. 

I have this video of me playing [YWSYLS] for her because I never really share my music with my mom, she really only knows “Pine & Ginger,” the one that’s heavily Jamaican influenced, but I played her that song before it came out and I recorded her reaction to it, and she’s like: “Who’s voice is that? That’s me?” And it was just a cool experience.

What was your vision behind the music video for this single? What did you want to express to your audience? 

When I was writing the video, I was just trying to be real and intentional. In the English expression, like my real experience, what it feels like, I guess, when your plan is to have a good day but because of outside factors and because of mental health, it just doesn’t happen you know what I mean? So, you just need to tune that in with yourself and try to make yourself feel good. Because 2020 just took a toll on a lot of us, overall. It was really just me trying to convey how to take care of myself the best I can. So, it was like, “Oh, I’m with my friends, still feeling sad. Oh, I’m at the studio, still feeling sad. Let me make this trek home and make myself feel better.”

You’ve mentioned in previous interviews the ups and downs of being a female solo artist. What are the realities of being a Black female solo artist, and what does it mean to you (or what do you want it to mean) to be a Black female solo artist?

I want to have the same effect that Shanti Gold had on me when I was 9. I want other little Black girls who are—they don’t even have to be singers—I just want to show them that there is no box that you have to fit in. There is no one way to do stuff. And I felt boxed in for a long time after “Pine & Ginger” came out, and that was just a new feeling for me, and I hated it because I’ve always uploaded a song on SoundCloud whenever I felt like it, like: “Oh, okay. I finished a song. Let me put it out.” And then “Pine & Ginger” came out and I was like “Oh, okay. I’m a Dancehall artist now.” And that was never my move at all.

When it comes to your overarching musical career journey, what is something you are the proudest of creating?

Art-wise, what I’m most proud of is always the last thing I did. So, right now it’s “You Win Some You Lose Some.” I’m real proud of that video. It came out exactly how I saw it in my head. As I said, I love Wes Anderson, and I love movies, and I really wanted it to look like a little movie, like a little glimpse of my brain. 

Era-wise, it would definitely be when I was in high school because I see myself as a DIY artist. I’m at a place now where I have all this extra help from labels or whatever, but the era where I was making music by myself, or finding friends to make music with, uploading by myself, amassing my following by myself, booking shows off of word of mouth because people fucked with me and they wanted me to play their shows, like that. That’s something I’m real proud of. I never really depended on anybody to make a way for me. I always made sure, if this is something I want, that I have all the tools within me to go and get it.