A trip down a rabbit hole is often a dark and confusing descent into madness. Going down one means leaning into your own insanity. Getting stuck in one is letting it take over. But for those equipped with the will to pull themselves out, the reward at the end can be profound: a moment of clarity that gives way to personal transformation.
Two years after breaking TikTok with her slinky hit “Late to the party,” rapidly rising alt-pop confessionalist Emei has fallen down her own rabbit hole and undergone a metamorphosis. Following the release of her previous widely embraced projects, End of an Era, and Scatterbrain, a challenging period of writer's block and creative renewal has brought the Los Angeles-based songwriter to return with her most ambitious, and intimate, offering yet.
RABBITHOLE, her glossy, high-octane third EP, is a journey within a journey, thematically traipsing through the darkest depths of her psyche, touching on anxiety, insecurity, and madness with hyper-relatable lyricism, wit, and perspective. But its creation was also transformative as it ushered in a blossoming artistic era for the singer. Loosely inspired by the classic bildungsroman Alice In Wonderland, it’s her first-ever concept project. “I spent the past year or two really developing and figuring out my sound, the visuals,” she says. “On the career side of things, [RABBITHOLE] feels very much like a project that I had to go through. It’s Emei 2.0. It reflects this period of growing up and becoming the person that I'm supposed to be.”
Structured like an anxiety spiral, the six-track project opens on the vibrant punch of “RABBITHOLE,” her metaphorical fall into the titular pit that’s part anxiety diary and breathwork meditation. By the time the EP’s energetic closing track comes around, Emei has completed an redemptive 360. “All of [the songs] are like going through this journey of going down into panic and anxiety and then coming out of it,” she says.
They’re familiar and acute themes for the 24-year-old songwriter, whose previous releases like “Irresponsible” and “Better People To Leave On Read,” painted her an especially illuminated diagnoser of the Gen Z condition. “I’ve always been a pretty anxious girl,” she says.
She considers it a symptom of growing up as a child to immigrantsand the only creative in a STEM-filled family. Raised in New Jersey by Chinese parents in engineering and accounting, she had the value of hard work distilled into her early, alongside more personal notions to excel. Today, it’s her ambition that fuels her rapidly-growing career from TikTok singer to international touring artist — but also her creeping feelings of self-doubt. “Touring is my favorite thing about my job,” she says. “But when I announce a show, I'm immediately like, I have to sort it out in the first few minutes. I always ask myself, ‘What's the worst case scenario?”
On RABBITHOLE, big questions like that one abound. “How many times can I say I’m sorry/ How many times will you take me back,” she wonders on the twangy heart-break ballad, “NINE LIVES,” notable as her first release to venture into an acoustic sound. Written post a fight with her boyfriend, it encapsulates the inner turmoil of realizing she’s “not a very considerate person,” she says.
Mid-album thumper “ALL THESE KIDS,” meanwhile, takes aim at the rich, clout-chasing party kids of Los Angeles — “All these kids wanna ride for free/ Ride, ride, ride on my coattail swing,” she delivers in an acerbic sing-song. Between the lines, however, it reveals a growing doubt about her social circle.
RABBITHOLE undoubtedly traverses heavy themes, but its songs never lose itself to dourness, in large part due to Emei’s songwriting which carries within it a certain youthful je ne sais quais, an endearing nonchalance. She’s serious but she’s also silly as she coos, “Spoonful of sugar makes the boys go woo,” on “SUGARCOAT,” the EP’s upward turning point.
“I'm not writing these crazy, poetic lyrics. I always get the ick from that for some reason,” she says of her songwriting approach. “For me, these are like journal entries. This is how I feel like point-blank, and if you fuck with it, you fuck with it.”
That realness packs a punch on “THE PART,” the EP’s pummeling, redemptive closer about putting in the work to reach your full potential: “It feels like Alice eating a tiny little cookie that makes her grow 10x,” Emei says.
It’s a snapshot of Emei at the current place of her own musical journey as she puts in the work to reach her own full artistic potential. Markers of her growth are visible in the album’s credits as she continues to strengthen her creative relationships with producers Boy Blue, Timfromthehouse, Matt Kahane, and more. While the record’s visual side also sees her bringing aspects of her heritage — the color red, which symbolizes everything from celebration to success in China, as well as braids, a hairstyle from her childhood — into her music.
Taking stock of her journey, Emei breathlessly says, “I feel like I've unlocked a part of me that I haven't really done before. It's an exaggerated, bigger version of who I am.”
It’s her hard-earned reward for daring to descend the rabbit hole.
