It isn’t a requirement to put heart into your art—but for singer-songwriter Wé Ani, it sure is.
You might recognize her name from being a part of The Voice in 2016 and American Idol in 2023, but now she’s a full-fledged recording artist—with a newfound authenticity and authority, as she shares in a sit-down interview just how much she’s found herself in this era of her artistry.
With her upcoming single “Promise Me,” produced by multi-instrumentalist, pop and sync producer, and writer Tony Chetta, set for release in late 2025, Ani is blazing her path forward with the support of Sony Electronics and her inclusion in the Sony Audio Ambassador program.
The program helps artists like Ani refine their sound and use stellar tech in the process—what she describes as a “farm to table” experience: every nuance, detail, and layer of the recording is captured so that what you hear in the headphones is exactly how it was created in the studio.
EARMILK connected with Ani as she opens up about her journey, shares her inspirations, her NY mentality that fuses openness to music and culture, and offers guidance for independent artists unsure about releasing their music.
Looking back at your journey from The Voice Season 11 with Alicia Keys to your debut EP Frantic in 2023, and now your new era with the release of your 2025 single “Jurisdiction,” how would you define your artistry today?
Oh goodness, that is a beautifully loaded question. I would define it as ever evolving, more confident, more edgy, more fearless.
Definitely–I've always been honest, but even more honest about different feelings.
I'm going through different things–what some of my friends are going through, the state of how I feel the world is. It's very honest in this era.
Maybe more honest than previous versions of yourself?
Yeah, I would think so. I would kind of like just skate on a few things and just keep it very surface-level.
I think this time around, I'm a little more vulnerable.
You feel safe to do that now?
Yes. Honestly, sometimes I don't, sometimes I don't feel safe to do that because it's scary. It's scary to be vulnerable, especially to a lot of people.
You give of your heart, you give of your art also, and it's hard, but you also know, like, out of all the things that you're gonna give to people, they're going to appreciate the honesty absolutely.
Since your start in 2016, what have you learned about self-worth and finding your footing in an industry that is very inspiring, but also a bit unpredictable?
Self-worth and self-confidence–you can do one, fake one, and then create the other.
So you can fake self-confidence to get to self-worth at times.
Like, if people are like, "fake it till you make it." Sometimes it doesn't work.
No, if you wanna be a construction worker, do the construction worker things, and soon enough you'll be a construction worker. You want self-worth? Do the things that require you to do so.
So I'm also trusting in my integrity as an artist, trusting in my gut–because it's very hard to listen to when there's a lot of people and a lot of noise around you, especially in this industry.
As a woman in the industry, you get a lot of things people agree with and people don't agree with. You get a lot of opinions, and you don't know which one leads to where it sits right with you.
So that is the biggest thing I want people to know, like, hey, your self-worth comes from within.
I think it also comes from God. You need to have something to ground you.
It comes from family and great friends. Family is not just the people you're related to and blood, it's the people who you choose to be your family. It's very strong, and you need to have a great support system, and that may not be easy, but understanding what you're willing to tolerate and not well, you get to those places.
So I wish I would have known that at 17 and 18 years old in front of 60 million people.
I think I just didn't internalize the fact that I was in front of 60 million people. I was just on autopilot the entire time.
Growing up between Harlem, New York, and New Jersey. How would you say those two worlds shape your sound, your perspective, and then your music?
Overall, growing up in Harlem has shaped the crux of who you are. Can you tell me more about that
Not only because it's a huge place for music, creativity, culture, great food, traditions–it's also a place where my family is from.
My family's from all over, almost every borough in New York.
It was a common place to be able to meet, have fun, eat good food, listen to any type of music, and in Jersey, I got exposed to really cool, like I didn't know what Jersey club beats were like. I didn't know what that was like, I didn't know until high school. I didn't really know.
Then some of my friends told me they were like, "you don't know about this." I was like, "no, I don't, I don't." I got to listen to what my friends in Jersey thought was fun, while also seeing what my friends in New York thought was fun, and mix that together.
You're having places like the Apollo, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and every type of museum. It brings you closer to the root of art and different people.
Growing up surrounded by all of that, you kind of have no choice but to be creative.
Would you say you started writing when you were really young?
Yeah, yeah, I started writing when I was about 11 years old. I was dancing and acting before I did anything, and funny enough, not until I was in high school that I really started singing.
Seriously. All of my friends were dancers or doing theater together. Since when do you sing?
Then they see me on TV, and everybody is like, “oh my gosh, since when do you sing?”
I do what I have to do. But it's always been in my life, writing poetry from day one.
So your voice was like a hidden superpower from an early age, and then you broke out of your shell and said, “This is me?”
Yeah, I thank my father completely and my parents, my sister–I wanted to get into so many things because I just had a lot of energy, but I just wanted to have fun.
Giving kids the proper resources to have fun in a safe environment, and welcoming environment is super important, and you know what? Not just kids. I think adults need that now more than ever.
You need a safe space to kind of be silly–and adulting's hard.
Adulting is really hard, and finding other people who do the same thing that you do or have the same feelings that you do is already difficult.
But then you find them and that you could be yourself. Oh my gosh.
Yeah, it's a new family that you're creating for yourself.
Like the Sony team, honestly, like I got started doing Sony–they reached out to me to be part of the Sony Audio Ambassador Program, and since then, it's been the best group of people that I could have been around because they indulge all of my creative weird stuff.
Yes, we go on great field trips — we go to Miami, we go to LA. I went back to LA to do some amazing events, and they welcomed me with open arms.
They’re so happy to be able to say, “Yeah, whatever you need, whatever you want to do.”
Other creatives your age are like, “Oh, you need help with social media stuff, or you want me to film this content for you.”
Sometimes you don’t feel like filming content, and then somebody says, “Go, go do it! I can do it, I can help you, it’ll be fine, you’re doing great.”
You need that.
How did you connect to the Sony Audio Ambassador Program?
Yes, they found me through TikTok. I thought it was fake at first. I was like, “Is this a bot?” I actually didn't answer for a long time. I was like, there's no way, this is Sony. Then they emailed again, and it ended up being them.
Then we talked, and they were like, we would love for you to represent creativity, different artists, talk about the amazing technology that we have, and how it helps you, and the things that you can add to it, things that we can improve upon.
I love that, that they're like, “Hey, what can we do better? How can we help you with this? What about this? Can you test this out? See how you like it, be honest.”
That’s important for me, especially. I don't wanna talk about a program if it's wack. I don't wanna talk about it if it's not encouraging, if it's not welcoming, if you don't uplift one another. I don't wanna talk about it or be a part of it.
There's plenty of programs like that. You do the thing, you lie about the product, you get the check, you go home.
This is not like that in any way, shape, or form, and I'm glad to be a part of it. It's really a blessing.
The biggest thing is resources– that I now know I don't have to do everything by myself. Like I have different resources at home, but I also know what the people at home, on my team, what they have to do.
So most of the time I don't like burdening other people. I now have a different team of people to kind of balance ideas off of, talk things through, not feel like I'm just so constricted with these things that I can and cannot do. I also really enjoy the fact that I have friends.
That's cool—more than just friends of the other audio ambassadors, but friends in the staff. They are amazing.
They treat you like they're your kids.
What inspires you to create, and what currently inspires you right now, as you work on new projects?
Oh my goodness. Okay, so right now I have been really fascinated with watching people build houses. Like, HGTV is my jam.
I love watching people cook extremely fancy food, like that deconstructed food, and how they like to change the DNA.
I don't know what the purpose of this is, but this is extremely beautiful.
I also read a lot of books. It comes from that, outside of music.
But in music, I really enjoy Doechi. I really like Raye, Lizzo. I like Billie Eilish.
I basically like people who are honest in their craft, and I can tell. Olivia Dean.
Yes, she's wonderful. When you were a little girl, was there anyone you looked up to who inspired you to sing?
Heck, yeah—Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Freddie Mercury, Bruno, Whitney, Michael Jackson.
I look at these people and I'm like, “Yo, how in the heck!”– I didn't know you could become a singer.
I just knew that that's just what people did. I felt like somebody had to give you that job. I didn't know. It was like, oh, you decide to become that, and then you go after it.
I was like, “Yep, you’re born and then they give it to you.” That's it. You just good at it, and they work at it, and then they do it.
So me mimicking everything from The Wizard of Oz to “Beat It” is where I meet in the middle.I grew up listening to a lot of different genres—rock, pop, hip hop—my household had so many things.
I mean, in Harlem specifically, there is no line of demarcation between, like, oh, you're supposed to be listening to this, you’re supposed to be listening to this.
One person down the street is all, “It was all a dream. I used to read,” right? And then the next person will be like, “How to Save a Life,” and nobody judges you for it. With a lot of places I've been to, people will judge you, like, no tomorrow, for the music that you listen to.
Yeah, I know it might be weird to call out, but Cardi B loves Lady Gaga. She really loves rock music, but she also loves Fantasia. You wouldn't think that about Cardi B.
Yeah, of course she does. She's from New York. I think that's something that's pretty unique to the New York experience. You don't get limited with your music.
I want to talk to you about your creative process–what sparks a song for you?
So it depends on the situation. Sometimes it could be a melody. Sometimes it could be a piano idea that I'm clunking out. Sometimes it could be a few chords on guitar.
I think it depends on, also, what I want the subject matter to be.
If it's something that is more lyrically forward, I'll probably focus more on the lyrics and the melody than I will on most of the music. If I want, like, just the vocals to try to shine a little bit more.
Honestly, it could be anything. I wish I had, like, a normal flow thing. Cause people be like, “Okay, for step one,” well, step one is I take my shoes off, ground myself, and then I get out a pen and paper because I'm a little old lady and I really like to scribble.
I also think it's really cool to see when you wrote something and then you're like, “No, I got something better,” and then you chose the better thing, and now there's history right there. It's not a backspace.
You get to see, like, “Oh, look here, it was this.” I think that's cool. I wanna try to be as comfortable as possible, especially in spaces where I may be a little bit more nervous, a little bit more sheepish.
As you look ahead, how do you see your sound and vision evolving sonically, thematically, or even visually?
I truly want to evolve into an even more confident person, even more fearless, something that is triple, quadruple, quintuplet faceted—layers of just layers and layers and layers—but not so heady that people can't feel like it's relatable.
Cause I think relatability is super important.
I want to be able to bring people into my creative process, and I think that's where Sony comes in and is really important.
Because the way that Sony has their technology—they're able to use any of the professional technology that I would be using in the studio.
Everybody else has it. The consumer has it.
Also, within the 1000X series, I'm enjoying the fact that it's almost like, you know, how they say, farm to table?
It's like that: you cook up in the studio and then you give it directly to the people as it is, as it sounds, and probably maybe even better.
I feel like in Sony headphones—I sound a little bit better.
If you could collaborate with any artist, living or historical, who would it be and why?
Freddie Mercury. I would love to hear how our vibratos mix.
Also, I would be extremely intimidated. For that, I would want to challenge myself and just ask him, like, “Hey, so all those crazy moments, I know there was a lot going on, but how did you write this? And how did you do this? And what was it like when you did Live Aid?”
Just ask questions, I think, more so than collaborate.
I would like to collaborate with Raye, Teddy Swims, Miley Cyrus. She's really great at blending rock and '80s sound. I love rock and I love the '80s.
For artists out there trying to put their music into the world but feeling stuck, uncertain, or not confident–what words of guidance or perspective would you offer?
The first thing I would say is, start walking. Just do something. Start, just writing down ideas, and then take those ideas and say to yourself, “Somebody needs this.”
Someone needs this, whether it's one person.
You have to ask yourself: “Why do I like doing art? Why do I like doing what I do? Is it for me? Is it a great outlet for me? Do I want other people to feel this great release? Is it for my mental health?”
If it's like all of the above, and it's like, okay, so then if anything, do it as self-therapy, which is a form of self-care, and then also give it out to people. Let it go, see what happens. What's the worst thing that can happen? You just go for it.\
You know, the worst thing that can happen, people be like, "I don't like it." Okay, It's not for you.
I'm sure Chappell Roan felt that for a long time, and I've felt that numerous times in my life. So do not get discouraged.
There will be obstacles, there will be moments where you are like: “Why the hell am I doing this?”
But there is nothing like that sweet spot of a moment where you look around and you're like, it's going exactly how I would have wanted it to go. And I can't wait to do it again.
If you could choose an archetype, what would it be? Could be the rebel, storyteller, etc. What do you really connect to as an artist?
Think the rebel because I don't think I conventionally do what other women in my space do necessarily. It's not a bad thing.
It's just, I don't normally gear towards that way. But the innovator, because I'm gonna do it in my own way.
I talk openly about certain parts of my feelings. I don't openly want to just be like, yeah, I'm selling sex and this is how I'm doing blah, blah, blah. And it's like, that's great.
But also, if you feel like you need to do that, I'm gonna let you know you don't have to. That's what I want to be able to say.
Also, I don't want people to think that they have to be in a specific box. Also, something that people try to do–try to cage and hold you.
What's next for you in this new chapter of your career?
More music, a new project that will hopefully be released before the end of the year. Some great surprises, especially for my fans, which will be a lot of fun.
But definitely up and out. I wanna be able to make even more music, go on tour, reach a lot of fans that I've never seen before, expand upon the relationships that I have, the ambassador program, very grateful for them. And I'm so happy that they will also be a part of that journey, no doubt.
