‘5 Questions With’: Emma Rena

LA-based, Grammy-nominated lo-fi RnB singer and songwriter Emma Rena just released her latest single ‘God says joke’s on you’ and we’ve had it on repeat since. This is the second track from her Quarantine Series, the first was “Sutter Home”, and the lo-fi tracks with low-key surf guitar lines is the perfect soundtrack for all your locked-in summer feels. In her words: “God says jokes on you” is my ode to frustration, disappointment, and my all-around lack of patience [laughs]. In Emma’s own words this song is the complete product of quarantine: “I could not stop thinking about all the things that were getting cancelled, and couldn’t help but to get anxiety about all of the things I felt like I was missing out on, as I’m sure many people were feeling. but as the expression goes, we make plans and God laughs. I’m not even religious but that expression kept popping up on in my brain”.

Read the full feature below…

EQ: Hi Emma, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got into music as a career?

ER: I grew up in a very musical family, so it was pretty much expected that I was going to learn at least one instrument. I started studying classical piano when I was 6 and then joined an orchestra a few years later playing the viola. I always wanted to be on stage singing and was constantly finding ways to make that happen [laughs]. So now fast forward to a few years ago and I just moved to LA and didn’t know anyone. I started making lists of people I wanted to work with and just started reaching out to them, the first person who really took me under their wing was James Fauntleroy – we did a bunch of songs; I definitely learned a lot. One day I was at Odney Jerkins studio and he said he needed a song written for a track he made for Empire, which is how I started writing songs for the show. I think the most recent highlight for me was the Grammy nomination this year for the Toby Mac song I co-wrote called “see the light” – that was pretty crazy. But my artist project has always been what I wanted to do, I think all of the songwriting I’ve done has just developed me into the artist I am now – I needed that time to figure out how I wanted to use my voice.

EQ: If you had to highlight a single lyric from your new single ‘God says joke’s on you’ that stands out as something special to you, which would it be, and why?

ER: I definitely would say that the highlight lyric of God says jokes on you is “we make plans and God says jokes on you.” honestly that line was the concept that started the whole song. Right after quarantine started, my friend was telling me a story about how everything was getting cancelled, and she laughed and said something along the lines of, “we make plans and God laughs.” I’m not even religious like that but for some reason, that really struck me. We must remain optimistic though, things will eventually go back to normal!