Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S4 Ep9: Bookshelfie: Emeli Sandé

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

We are closing the season with a bang as multi award-winning singer songwriter Emeli Sandé joins host Zawe Ashton to tell her how women’s writing supported her through her journey from quiet medical student to chart-topping megastar.    Emeli doesn’t really need an introduction, as you’ve undoubtedly heard of her, or her incredible music. She’s got an MBE, she performed at the London Olympics opening AND closing ceremonies, and she’s been making brilliant music for over a decade. She’s one of those artists who manages to be both other worldly and someone you really think you should be friends with all at once.    Emeli’s book choices are:  ** I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  by Dr Maya Angelou  ** I, Born a Woman and Distressed by Edna St. Vincent Millay ** Half of a Yellow Sun  by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ** A Room of One’s Own  by Virginia Woolf  ** Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend by Arianna Huffington   Zawe Ashton, acclaimed actress, director, playwright and author, hosts Season Four of the chart-topping Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. The new Women’s Prize Podcast season continues to celebrate the best fiction written by women, by interviewing inspirational women about the books that have most influenced their life and career.   This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People saying, well, don't you want to do this anymore? You're breaking down the building you've done it in. You want to destroy it all. And then it's just that reminder to yourself that you are the building. You're the thing and you can create a building and a team around you and you can kind of customize it to make it fit you in a more sensitive way. There's different ways to do things. Things are always changing and trying to do the same thing you did a decade ago is it's not doing justice to yourself and it's not doing justice to the people around you. I want to feel that whatever happens, whether it's popular or not, I've definitely kind of been the driving force behind it.

There is so much for our listeners to learn in what you've just said. I'm going to get that on a T-shirt. I am the building. With thanks to Bayleys, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. Hello, I'm Zawi Ashton and I'm your brand new presenter for season four of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. The podcast that speaks to women with lives as inspiring as any good fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them.

My guest today feels like she doesn't really need an introduction. She is the magnificent, multi-award-winning, multi-million selling, singer-songwriter and overall, wonderful human being, Emily Sanda, MBE. If you haven't heard her phenomenal voice or sampled her beautiful and complex songwriting talent, you can listen to one of her three albums, Our Version of Events, Long Live the Angels, or Real Life, wherever you get your music. She was one of the guiding lights at the London Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. She is one of those very rare artists who manages to be both completely otherworldly and also someone

who feels completely familiar and that you have access to. I was so lucky to meet her at the launch of my book Character Breakdown in 2019, where she generously agreed to come along and be an honoured guest. I've loved talking to Emily today about her relationship to story. It has been an illuminating and fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for being with us here on season four. Here is your closing episode with the brilliant Emily Sandy. Emily Sanday.

Hello. Hello. I can't believe I'm talking to you, to be honest. That's great to talk to you. Thank you for having me on the show. I'm genuinely having to kind of self-regulate. and definitely a skill I learned over the first lockdown I'm employing now, which is don't let the voice get too high,

don't let the sweaty palms put you off your stride. I could use some tips whenever you've found in lockdown. I definitely use those. Well, I was going to say, you are so generous in offering your time to us today because you've been so busy, but you've also, like many people, suffered with the superbug, I'm going into Superbug mode.

And so I was going to ask you, is there any kind of voice warm-up we should be doing? Is there an Emily Sande's free concert special? Well, the hardest thing I find with warm-ups is I was always told, like, you really shouldn't be talking. But I found that absolutely impossible, like on tour, after shows, before shows. And I think that's actually the best thing to kind of preserve your voice. But I just can't. I would sometimes write on a piece of paper, you know, can you please get me this or have you heard about that? But yeah, we soon kind of just started talking again.

Side advice, yeah, just kind of not talking and lots of lemon and honey, I think. Great. So we're basically, we're basically screwed. We're breaking all the rules. You're breaking. Welcome to breaking the rules with Emily Sande. It really is so brilliant to reconnect with you. you not only because it's a massive get for us to have you here at this busy time of the year and a busy point in your schedule. But it feels so full circle for me because the reason I'm guest hosting this podcast is because

I'm not just an actor. I'm also now an author. You were at my book launch, Emily. Yes, which was such a great launch. Honestly, it meant so much to have you there. Because, I mean, we share a dear friend and makeup artist, don't we? And I definitely took advantage of that friendship to get an invitation to you. Which I don't do that, guys.

Look, if you've got someone who knows someone, just try and play it cool, don't be like me. But it really, it really was so moving to see you there with my family and friends and the generosity and kindness that you showed all of us on that. that day will genuinely stay with me always. It was such an honour because you are a fellow performer. You're a fellow performer of dual heritage. You also started in your industry very young, as did I, which was kind of the basis of that book. I did my first acting job age six. I believe you wrote your first song at age 11. You're an icon for me and for my family and it was such a special way to meet you. It's also worth saying just getting off my chest that I also used your first

solo single, Heaven, as the soundtrack to my first ever show reel, which these terrible things that actors have to do, where you kind of splice up your best bits into a sort of a two-minute reel for people to, you know, to help them understand what you can do in complete silence and and chopped up in a short amount of time. But I was like, it has to be heaven, it has to be heaven, it has to be having. At that point, it really was the soundtrack to my life. So having you here today to talk about your relationship to story and to honour the story of you is a really big deal.

So thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, it was such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for asking him to send the invitation because I really enjoyed your book launch so much and meeting your family, all your friends. You have genuine deep love and support around you. It's just, it was so lovely to be in that atmosphere. And yeah, just thank you for having me.

And thank you for your work. And it was such an interesting interview that you had there. And also, like you're saying, because we have so many things in common in that sense. It kind of reminded me of just seeing your family there and seeing everybody being involved. It really reminded me of, you know, if I'm releasing a new track or something like that, having my family around me is so important.

So it felt like we're all part of the family. So thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to meet you then. I just love you, Emily. And it did feel like there was a real kinship and connectedness that happened that day. And I'm so glad that you felt it too because I'm sure you get this as well. you can feel like because someone has been an icon for you in some way that you just assume a knowing space when you meet them and it's because of course you know them and they have no

idea really who you are but it did feel like such a connected meeting and I wonder how you go about preserving that Emily how you go about preserving your your spirit in that way I mean I I think over the years I've definitely learned that you need quite a small team of people around you, one, that you're certain of their love and their genuine concern and care for you. I think it's so important to have that first line of people around you. Because at the end of the day, you know, we are making, we're making something that you have to dig so deep in your soul to gather and find. but then, you know, the other side of it is showing your soul to strangers and really opening up yourself in such a, you know, profoundly deep way.

So I think it's so important that you have your family around you and make sure that you are surrounded by genuine people, which is often easier said than done. But that's how I try to maintain my spirit. And also just to remind myself of what my actual job is, which is, you know, to dig and find... hopefully something beautiful in music or writing. And because I think sometimes we can get a little bit carried away with the marketing of it or the selling of it or the presentation of it at the end of the day.

And sometimes that can take over 50 to 60% of your job. And then what I realized was, God, I'm not actually spending time on getting better at what I do. And then that would diminish my spirit in a sense. And I'd end up feeling drained. So I've really tried to flip that. and care about the presentation and the end result, maybe give 20% of my energy and the rest, kind of allow myself to dive in and replenish myself with, you know,

with the muse in the first place. Absolutely right. Because you are a writer. You are such a beautiful songwriter. You're not just a performer. And I wonder what role books played for you at home. Yeah, I bring the important role. It allowed me to have this alternative universe, really.

You know, I felt very lonely as a child because I felt very different to everybody or the environment around me. I was very, very shy. So really my expression was left to when I was on stage and I was singing or when I was writing a song. But then reading also allowed me to enter that same world. I used to tell lots of stories to my sister. There were two of us and we used to share a room so we had bunk beds. And I would just make up these really just fantastical stories.

I just enjoyed shaping the story and there was always a moral at the end. And I'd always involve people that we'd met throughout the day and singers. There was one where Mariah Carey toned up. And what I loved about it was that it was our little world. It really influenced how I viewed the world. You know, I loved music. I loved singing. But for me to make it as a singer was, you know,

unfathomable. It just, there's no way it could have really happened if I was thinking logically. But because I had this kind of grand imagination and it was being fueled by reading and just creating out of the blue, it really influenced how I saw what was possible. You know, I'd close my eyes when I was playing piano and imagine thousands of people watching. But here I was this super shy girl that can barely speak to anybody. Just thinking, yeah, I think that could be possible just because it's possible in the stories I'm reading and if I can create this whole world, why can't I create my own path in a sense? Absolutely. I mean, this podcast has been, for me, less about books and books are wonderful and female authors are wonderful and that's really the flag that we're flying here. But what's been

so special about it is to really think about the stories that we tell ourselves. and how they shape our lives. As you're saying, the stories that we can write for ourselves can write us out of immediate circumstances. I am really intrigued to hear you talk a little bit more about feeling different or other as a child, probably selfishly because it chimes into my own sense of myself

as a young person. Yeah, it was multi-layered in that my mother was from England and my father from Zambia and just having this sense of never really fully feeling belonging to anywhere. It's something that, you know, later in life I definitely turned around and tried to make it into a superpower. But I remember always having this longing of, well, who am I and where do I belong? And I'm in between white and black.

How do I identify myself? And then I'm living in a community where, you know, nobody looks like me. And as much as I want to fit in, it's kind of impossible. So in some ways when I look back, I'm quite grateful that it was absolutely impossible for me to fit it. Because I think if I could have found one way or another, I would have tried my best. You know, I remember reading a chapter in your book about using the wrong shampoo and damaging your hair. And I definitely relate to that. You know, I look back at some pictures and, you know, I went through a phase of wearing contact lenses and straighten my hair.

And as much as we laugh about it, because it's a really terrible picture, it's sort of. also quite tragic because I'm thinking, God, I was just desperate to be somebody else because I couldn't see myself reflected not that much in the media or something that was beautiful, was never spoken about as someone that looked like me. Our family didn't have much money. So I always felt that we were, you know, there's something I wanted to kind of prove. And then just also just thinking differently, you know, I'd never know that maybe if I did look like everybody else, I could have still felt just as isolated because I had this, you know, very imaginative mind and kind of drifted off and daydreaming all the time. Now I look back and think, well, that's fantastic because it allowed

me to try different types of music. It's really made me quite a determined person. I love that, Emily. That's so inspiring. I feel like there is a huge cultural tipping point happening now, you know, right now in terms of culture and popular culture. I don't think I've ever seen more artists of colour who are truly embracing any element of themselves that they choose to identify as and choose to present as. You were really part of the beginning of that cultural revolution for me. You know, you had this rebellious image to me and then this unbelievable instrument in your voice. And those two things together really made me feel very much. seen somehow. I really have been going down an Emily Sandy. I'm not going to call it spiral.

Rabbit hole, pleasant rabbit hole ahead of our chat and found myself blubbing at the same intensity now, re-watching your unbelievably haunting and beautiful performance of Abide with me at the Olympic opening ceremony. And again, that. That duality of this biracial woman singing this ancient English hymn sent a stage at this completely celebratory diverse event was really huge. Did it feel that huge for you inside of it? Yeah, it really felt like a momentous occasion. Very nerve-wracking at the time,

but it did feel like I was poor of something. that was important for the country because, as you said, it was so diverse and Danny Boyle was just so wonderful and pulling everything together. And for me, I really felt an acceptance which I think I had to search for quite a while, you know, to have the privilege of representing

where you're from and feeling on that stage with everybody else and through the whole story that he told through the opening ceremony, you really feel belonging in the history and the story and the story that's being told. And also I identify as a black woman,

but I am of dual heritage. You know, I do have a white mother and I have a black father. So I do feel that in this country, there is more allowance to be able to fully express, you know, your full heritage. And that song was one of my mum's dads, my grandfather's favorite songs, abide with me. So being able to sing it with him in mind

and the history of, England where he was from as well as singing in my style and it really felt like a pure mix. It's a big word, isn't it? Belonging. I definitely feel like it's the word actually. My year was, it's been a whole renegotiation with one's self, I think, not only because of the pandemic, but also because of the events of last June. And this massive conversation we're finally having about black lives and the preciousness of black life. I wonder if that has shaped your creativity, your songwriting, your reading, your cultural landscape. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it definitely has influenced.

What it's mainly influenced is how deep my knowledge is of my own heritage and things I may have faced without fully acknowledge. them. And, you know, as a person of color, we do have to develop a defense mechanism because it's so much pain and information and, you know, every other week there's something horrific that's happened to somebody that looks exactly like you. And mainly because they look like you, it's happened to them. I think we do have to develop very, very thick skin. The biggest revelation for me is that I had created such a defense that I wasn't feeling or acknowledging in justices that may have occurred in my life. I wasn't responding as a human should. That was a big thing for me just cracking that open for months after that. I felt very raw emotionally and I didn't

really want to speak to anybody about these emotions because they were really stacked from years and there was so much undoing to be done. I definitely started reading more, just looking at the world from a different perspective because I'd always really accepted the one I'd been given. Some songs on the new album I've really been influenced by. what I found within myself and a new sense of kind of determination to change experiences for people of colour coming into the world now and, you know, young people coming through. Absolutely. I think this leads us on really to your first bookshelfy choice, which is, if we're talking about being undone, I think we're talking about this book.

It is, I know why the Cage Bird sings by Dr. Maya Angelou. This has been chosen twice this series, and I love it when a book comes up more than once. It was chosen by Jun Saupong and Bim Adawimi. It's worth just saying again what this book is in its makeup. It's the first volume of seven books of autobiography by Dr. Maya Angelou, where she invokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American South in the 1930s. She faces discrimination, violence and extreme poverty, but there is also hope, joy, achievement and celebration in this novel. It's a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of reading and literature can help overcome even the most traumatic circumstances.

This is considered one of the greatest books of the 20th century and one of the most quotable books of all time. I don't know many women who aren't living by the phrase when someone tells us. you who they are, believe them the first time. Yep. The line to live by. What was it that made you fall in love with this book, Emily? Definitely the honesty of the writing. You know, you really get such a in-depth feeling from the characters.

For me, I read it at an age where I think I was around 11 or 12. It awoke something in me about identity because I felt throughout the book, you feel the character becoming more and more self-aware. first within their internal world and then how they are positioned in the external world and then then making sense of that as, you know, as she grows older. I remember looking at my hands and kind of really realizing I was different and this is going to affect me for the rest of my life. But then also I found so much strength and inspiration in her survival.

The symbolism of the cage bird is it's such a powerful image. and a song of hope to someone who is aspiring to be a singer must have been even more powerful as a metaphor. It was more perhaps an internal cage I'd created by myself in this shyness or in this kind of feeling of not belonging. And suddenly when I was on stage or when I was singing, I could let myself out. You know, people would find it so strange

that this super quiet girl would just open her mouth and just be like singing these Mariah songs. And as I've gotten older, it's been something I've really questioned. You know, how much do we associate ourselves with our profession or with the thing that allows us to be heard by other people? It's just made me question, okay, this is me, but are there other ways to get out of the cage that aren't the thing that you've tied yourself to, not tied yourself to you, because that sounds like it's a negative. I love singing.

I love music. It definitely feels like my most natural expression, but it's definitely where I've tied my value, my worth and my identity. But there are other ways out the cage and you don't have to be in the cage. And I love how this comparison of a free bird versus the cage bird, the free bird doesn't necessarily have any need to sing because they're free and they're themselves all the time. So that's been a big thing that has really inspired me and has made me wonder, why don't you just sing in different ways and just sing by living and enjoying the world and owning the sky.

We so often tie ourselves to things that are supposed to bring us freedom and joy. It's so funny that, isn't it? I love how open you've just been about talking about something that is your talent and your gift and your privilege as something that could also be something that made you feel not entrapped, but as you've said, sort of maybe within a cage and not using it in the way that makes you feel most free, I really identify with that. And I wonder if there's a way that suddenly becoming a public person

when you burst onto the scene fed into that. Did fame feel like a cage in some way? I think I really had to burst that bubble of what success meant to me. This thing, the singing that I really did for, you know, if looking back, if I'm honest, it was very therapeutic singing. It belonged to other people because I was signed to a label and I was a product to many people. But that's, you know, that's when I look at it in quite a deep and perhaps negative perspective. I did really enjoy being heard and also I felt the ways I had survived and the ways that I had really given myself strength and re-upped my spirit, I could now give to others.

So that was the really beautiful thing about it. It really felt wonderful to me to be able to pass on something that could give other strength. It's so interesting to me that you are also, and our listeners might not be aware of this, a qualified neuroscientist. Not qualified, but I definitely, I studied medicine in Glasgow for four years. I did three years of the course, and then the fourth year you could do an intercalated degree. and so then I chose to specialize in neuroscience in that integrated part of it. And then after that, I deferred a year and I went to London and that's where the music took off.

And in the spirit of Dr. Maya Angelou, you know, I'm so interested in people that have these incredibly robust left and right brain ways of thinking. You're clearly a deeply creative, imaginative person. and you are also someone who, if they wanted to, could turn their hand back to neuroscience at any second. How does that duality live in you? I kind of have enjoyed it because I've always in school, you know, I loved English, but I also loved physics. And I loved having absolute answers versus, you know, subjective wondering.

I liked that there was a world, both worlds, and then there's a world totally in between. And I would imagine if I would have studied physics at a higher level or gone deeper into medicine than I would have probably found a creative part of it all. And it was nice to dabble here and, you know, be a decent enough student.

And then over here you can, you know, be a decent enough musician. But I wanted to know that within my life I'd really completely dived into one area. I mean, it really wasn't until I got to, like, the third album where I really started to consider myself as a musician. You know, I still had in my head,

well, I'm a med student, or I'm a this, or I'm going to go back here. Sometimes I really do miss the discipline and the dedication it takes to really get your head around science and the precision. I guess I'm just trying to find that more scientific approach in music. And I guess that comes down to learning your instrument to a higher level and putting that discipline and precision into the techniques of what you're doing. Ah, Emily, honestly, the only science student with a Brits Award. and well, Danny Boyle directed IMDB Cage. Let's dive into your second bookshelfy choice.

Continuing on the theme of poetry from I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, you have chosen a poem by Edna St Vincent Millay called I Born a Woman and Distressed. I am so glad someone has finally chosen a poem. It's a texture that has, I've just been dying to talk about on this podcast. This is a poem from 1923 by American author Edna Vincent Millet. It's a 14-line Italian sonnet which directly addresses a potential lover, focusing on the physical attraction, but her right to walk away if there's no emotional connection. Edna is such a fascinating character.

I really encourage all of you listening to become as acquainted with her as her work, as well as a poet she was also a playwright. She identified as bisexual and was a prominent feminist on the bohemian Greenwich Village scene of the 20s. Her subversive work gained a rapt and loyal audience and in 1923 she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. She has directly influenced the work of fellow Pulitzer Prize winner, Mary Oliver, who I'm a huge fan of,

who went on a pilgrimage to her grave at the tender age of 17. This poem has literally just come out of copyright, Emily, and I could read it. Oh, brilliant. If that might be interesting. Or you could read it. Please go ahead. Shall I go, okay, I'm going to read you your choice. Really badly.

I'm regretting already. I'm reeling up for this. Okay. I, being born a woman and distressed by all the needs and notions of my kind, I'm urged by your proping, there we go. I'm urged by your precond. This is why I didn't want to do. It's just that word.

Propinquity. There we go. To find your person fair and feel a certain zest to bear your body's weight upon my breast. So subtly is the fume of life designed to clarify the pulse and cloud the mind. And leave me once again undone, possessed. Think not for this, however, the poor treason of my stout blood against. my staggering brain. I shall remember you with love or season my scorn with pity. Let me make it plain. I find this frenzy insufficient reason for conversation when we meet again. Well, it's quite

good, isn't it? Yeah. So good. Each line just paints a whole story. Why did this resonate with you? I mean, I love the irony and I love the sarcasm of it. If you're trying to talk to a man who, or woman, who doesn't quite understand the need for feminist thought or the need for progress within half of mankind, or really empathize with, you know, the indecencies and inequalities we face. You have to treat it in this way. She's basically owning what's said about us and we're these, you know, ridiculous emotional women

and we're here to be possessed. We find herself just kind of sleep. walking into the next possession and identifying and validating ourselves based on a relationship. And I just love the kind of humour she's spoken about it with. And also just not getting carried away with physical intimacy. Does poetry speak to you in a way that other art forms don't, do you think? Because your lyrics are so poetic, Emily. I think it does so similar to songwriting and I often write poetry as well. and I have began to think, well, if I take the melody away from this, will it still be beautiful? Will the word still be melodic without the notes?

Is it cheating to have a nice melody underneath a lyric? How much harder can this get when a line just takes your breath away? And within one line, it's like the punchline of the joke or the end of the story just takes you somewhere else and gives you this deeper insight into the poet who's always known they were going to take you. you there but you didn't know on the journey. Yeah, I really love poetry and what can be done efficiently with words really fascinates me. It's the same with music, you know, when you listen to Mozart or Bette. They're doing incredible things and pulling on so many emotions within you, but with very few notes and I think that's when you really have reached that, you know, when you reach that level of genius. I couldn't agree more. Having never written a song in my life,

That makes complete sense to me. The podcast is made in partnership with Bailey's Irish Queen. Bailey's is proudly supporting the Women's Prize for Fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treat, whether in coffee, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book.

Enjoying the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast, share the literary love and be a part of the future of the Women's Prize Trust by supporting our charitable programs for writers and readers. Donations of all sizes help us to continue empowering women, regardless of their age, race, nationality or background to raise their voice and own their story. Search for Support the Women's Prize to find out more. I'm going to take us on to your third bookshelfy choice, which is half of a yellow sun by Chimamanda and Gossi Adichie. I mean, we always have to take a pause, I think, when we speak of Queen Chimamanda on this podcast. Yes. This is actually the first time this book has been chosen this season. I'm so glad that you've chosen it.

It was actually crowned the Women's Prize winner of winners. last year in a public vote to celebrate the first 25 years of the women's prize. It is Chimamanda's second novel and is set in Nigeria before and after the 1967 to 1970 by Afrin War, charting how its brutality tears apart the lives of five central characters, including the twin daughters of an influential Nigerian businessman, a professor, a British expat and a teenage houseboy. It's such a powerful novel and of course now has been adapted into a major major feature film starring Chouotel, Edea 4. Chimamanda is just a virtuoso for me at making the historical human or humanising history.

Tell us about why this book has made your list. I'd say this is my favourite book ever. I was in Zambia with my parents. We'd gone over there three. years ago and I started reading the book on the flight to Zambia. The writing is absolutely incredible and you really become so deeply revolved with the characters, their plight, their love. It's so colourfully written. And I think being in Africa at the same time as reading about Africa about a civil war that I really hadn't much knowledge on prior to reading this book,

it made everything come to life. It made everything so real. And I just genuinely fell in love the characters. I didn't want the book to end. I felt with them and also just the other theme she's exploring, you know, the futility of war. The romances, the different angles, she's really looked at it, family interactions and I just felt everything. I felt every character's development. And there are so many characters actually, but the way she manages to enrich each one of them. By the end, you can feel they've all reached this maturity, but also cynicism towards the world as well. It was really beautifully done,

and the way it ended was heartbreaking, really. But I felt so deeply every chapter. It's an absolute joy for me to live in a world where writers like Chimamanda are writing, because I don't know how you feel, Emily, when I was growing up, having African heritage was such a beautiful thing, but you could only ever talk to people about it in a very literal way. The lens that was put on Africa felt so deeply literal,

especially in the 80s when we were growing up, and it was about war and it was about famine, and it was about impoverishment and lack. And to be at a time in my recent, life where I get to read stories about Africa, even if they are couched in uncomfortable and challenging moments in the continent's history, there is so much that I'm getting from the artistic lens being put over that continent and having other people enjoy them. It's kind of massive.

Yeah. And that's so much about what I get. from this piece of literature and pieces of literature like it, it's like finally there is this artistic lens put over a part of my heritage that just wasn't there before and it's universal. And I don't know why we haven't just always thought of it as universal. But we are now, you know, and we've got the prizes to show for it. I wonder if that proximity to Zambia and to Africa that you'd,

talked about has introduced a new sense of self-actualization for you. It can be complex. I know sometimes when I go back to Uganda where my mum's from, I'm like, oh, I can't wait for the sense of belonging that's going to surround me. And actually I get there and I'm like, oh God, I'm basically an English person. I don't belong anywhere at all. Talk to me a bit more about that trip and the effect it had on you. Yeah, that I can definitely relate. This was the second time I'd been, actually, maybe a third time I'd been, the first time I went to Zambi and met all of my family, I was 24. So it was really a big awakening in me. It allowed me to make a lot more sense of myself in terms of why have I always just been madly in love with music? Why can't I stop singing? When I

realize that my whole family are singers and everybody's musician. The children are singing these intricate harmonies and this is just something that's done after a day of hard work. I felt I could really understand what okay music is in my blood. But yeah, as you were saying, there is also this other layer of unbelling that comes upon you because you think, you know, finally I'm going to get to my route to know who I am, which I did. But then culturally, that isn't somewhere I've grown up and my cousins are looking at me like we were all dancing one night it was my grandma's birthday

and we're all dancing they were doing these amazing dances and then they were just laughing at me because someone said oh you dance like a robot I thought oh no here we go I was finally home in a talent show and I'm seeing my song it just wasn't landing and I thought okay but then in another sense

I think if I'd spent months there and I really would love to learn my dad's mother tongue which is Bamba. I'd hopefully integrate a bit more. Yeah, it does bring another kind of dilemma. But I think the greatest thing for me was seeing my dad in his home country, seeing my dad speak Bamba with his mother, seeing him in his natural environment.

Throughout my entire life, I'd never seen that. I've seen him adapt incredibly to a new village, a new atmosphere, to dealing with different bits and bulbs of racism. and I've seen him be a very strong man holding his ground and totally enjoying. You know, he loves Scotland and he loves the UK. But to actually see him at home with his family, I think that's the biggest thing that helped me make more sense of myself. I really relate to that.

I hadn't thought about it actually until we're talking now. But one of the, I first went to Uganda where my mom's from. from very, very young, you've articulated something for me actually, which was the joy and peace and internal kind of expansion that I felt, seeing my mother in the position of a majority in any setting, whether that was at home, whether that was at the supermarket or the swimming pool or the bus ride, seeing her as part of a majority in every single setting was huge. And I hadn't actually thought about that until we've spoken now.

It really is a feeling trips like that. I don't know if I know yet the influence it might have had on my own art. I'm wondering if you can locate any any influence it might have had on your way of working or your way of thinking even. I think when you're in, you know, being in the UK and hearing how European music has been formed over the past few hundred years, it's, that's the education you get and that's what you're told music is and these are the scales and this is what we must stay within. And so then to hear my grandma singing with all of my cousins, it was a night I'll never forget.

We were around the fire and we're sat outside my grandma's house. And the moon was super full and I'd never seen nature so vivid and potent. You know, that's what I took from Africa. Everything was just larger than I'd ever seen it. The sun, the moon, the emotions, the soul of the people. It was just so strong and enriched. We were sat around this fire and we were all singing. And everyone started singing these harmonies

that I would have never been able to work out on a piano. I'd have never been able to write down. They were just, it was something so deep on a soul level. And everyone was singing. It was so beautiful. And it was very spiritual. And all of a sudden, my sister and I excused herself from this beautiful camp singing.

And we just found this, we just started crying and we didn't know why. We're just everything that we've been going through. Everything was kind of being purged out by this incredibly spiritual music. And because I can't speak Bemba, which is what my grandma speaks and she can't speak English, it was this very strong communication through music. So it really has shown me that there are in-betweens. There are so many frequencies in-between that we'll never be able to harness or make dots and lines. but there's, you know, there's God in between those lines.

And it's really made me try and relax and get more soul into what I do in terms of, yes, we have the capacity and facilities to edit and make things perfect and change things on recordings. But sometimes it's just capturing that moment and making sure that you have a good mic around to capture those mistakes and cracks and just to get that feeling. I love that, Emily. God is between the lines. It's interesting to read about what Chimamanda says, the writing of this book did for her, and she did say it took a sort of toll on her mental health. I wonder in terms of your writing process,

because I know I find it very difficult to write in times of turmoil. I've had complete writers block this entire pandemic. Have there been any transformative writing process? for you, either positive or more challenging. I mean, I just don't know how musicians and songwriters do it. You know, I've got my heartbroken. Okay, I'm going to go and write about it and turn it into the song. That would be the opposite of what I would manage to do.

I wonder, you know, what, I suppose, what, you know, suffering or challenge does to your, to your writing experience. Hmm. For me, music's such a need. You know, I really need to, if I, don't sing for a while or if I haven't put that energy into music, then it usually comes out some other way in a negative form. I was taught something really great by the flowist who was in, who was in flowetry. We were talking and I said, oh, are you writing anything new?

And she said, yeah, I finally come to a point where I want to make an album. I've been writing socks for the past few years, but she was saying sometimes we feel that everything should be heard by everybody. And certain songs maybe should just be. your own personal diary or they were there as therapy or just for you to kind of blog how you were and look back on it and then the tunes and songs that you see that should be given to other people then they should be treated differently so yeah sometimes it is just things that people will never hear just just pain in the music I'd like to find a nice way to kind of present it and be honest about the emotion but also give a bit of strength within it as well I absolutely love that not everything

needs to reach the ears of the public. I know I felt that with my book. As soon as I finished it, I thought this absolutely should not be read by anyone else apart from me. But it really helped me write myself out of a situation, actually. It helped me write myself out of some deep ambivalence I was having about my industry and about the career I'd chosen. and I wonder if no one had ever seen it, how my life might be different.

I don't know if you have a song like that. If there was a song that you could have kept to yourself, do you think your life would have sort of been different in any way? Yeah, probably. I mean, there's certain songs that I remember even writing the acoustic version of Read All About It, having my sister, we were in the kitchen, and she was there just kind of coaching me on. I was like, oh, I don't know. And she's like, no, no, no, this is good, keep going.

keep going, keep going. So often I think if I hadn't had that support from somebody, I think it's so important to have those very energized people around you that can give you a bit more of an objective opinion and just give you that little push. I love that. Talking of writing brings us on to your fourth bookshelfy choice, which is A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf.

I know when I read the title of this book, A Room of One Zone, I thought that's literally all I need before even reading the book. She's really nailed what I need to be able to survive in the world. And this is, of course, the very iconic extended essay written by Virginia Woolf, which was first published in 1929. It was based on two lectures that Wolf delivered in October 28 at three separate women's colleges, in which Wolf stated that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

I'm with you, Virginia. The book works on so many metaphorical levels to explore social injustices and limits on women's freedom of expression. It's considered a feminist classic text, a passionate assertion for female creativity and independence. It's arguably her most well-known title. Emily, why did a room of one's own make it onto your list? I agree completely with the argument, and I first read it, I think I was around 17. In different phases of my life, I've come back to the book, well, the essay. I just absolutely agree.

It's something that I really live my life by creatively. When I first moved to London, I remember I went to a writer's house. I think it was Fred Ball. he had a whole studio that he could access 24-7 and he had all the keyboards in the world. And after reading this essay and really taking everything on board, it made me realize I do need that space for myself. Because usually when I first started, I was always in somebody else's studio, always a male. And it's fantastic. I'm so grateful that I had that experience to write and, you know, they gave me the opportunity to perform in their studios.

but at the end of the day, you have very little ownership of what you've done there. When you're alone and in your own space, there are certain ideas that will come up more fluidly because you're allowing yourself to be a lot more vulnerable. So the first studio I ever had was, I think maybe 2011, and I found this tiny little space in Bethel Green. It had no windows. I could just fit an upright piano into it. But it was my dream.

And I couldn't believe that I'd finally just have. had a space where I could create and I think I was trying to learn cello at the time and it was really terrible cello playing but it was my room. I could do what I wanted in there and I think for a woman to be allowed to make mistakes and not be perfect and not be what's expected of a woman to be and just to have that space and time to explore it's so important to have a space and room of your own. When I first moved to London from Glasgow where I was studying, I got a tattoo that was the first The first tattoo I ever got was a room of one's own. And I just had this feeling inside of me.

I felt finally I am free from doing what's expected of me. I'm taking a risk. This could go terribly wrong and I've wasted a wonderful medical career. And, you know, everyone could be right. I could just be being crazy. But when I got that tattoo in my arm, it was my first rebellion really because it wasn't really encouraged to get tattoos studying medicine and trying to become a doctor.

So I got a small one. And then after that, one thing led to another. Then I shaved my hair. Then I dyed my hair. Then I became a singer. And it all just started from this act of rebellion, really. I thought, this is the time for me to really choose what I want to do with my life. And I will regret it forever if I don't give myself that space and time.

And to have those, that year and a bit, before I actually got signed as an artist myself, where I could be a writer, develop my craft, really look at how other artists manage their lives and what everybody did within the music industry. That really for me was the time and space I needed. It really is a deep, deep metaphor for, as you're saying, just that space inside where everything is just your own. And you can live from that place. I know you parted ways with your record company not so long ago. And I wonder if that in itself is you building that room of your own.

I know for me, when it comes to acting and the people who represent you, it's created so much noise over the years. And I am someone who has been probably more rebellious than others. and I have stayed in places too long, but when that time is up, you know, I feel it. And I don't just clear a deck. I clear all of the decks. And people kind of responded like,

oh my goodness, you're crazy, you know, is this you saying you don't want to do this job anymore? And I don't think people who aren't in these industries understand just how many people outside of you there are to answer to or who are out in the world representing your craft? Yeah, there's definitely reflections in that. And unlike you, I really, I feel like there comes phases in my life that you have to have these complete recalibrations.

What freed me from being too concerned with what others thought was this is more an internal process within me. That's where the creation comes from in the first place. there are so many people involved in it. And I think if you are very creative, you usually will be sensitive. And I think that many different influences and emotions, when it comes to a point where you don't feel you being as genuine as you can be through your music or through why you're there in the first place,

that's when I start to think, okay, this is on me, this is my responsibility. I'm sure people may think I'm crazy and I'm sure people may be a little bit upset. But I had to remind myself that they're never going to be that upset. Sometimes you have to stand back and take more of an objective view of everything. It felt like the natural time in that we've achieved everything fantastic together. You know, there was never any bad feelings, but I as a woman have grown up and you use a company have certain needs and requirements which I can't bend myself to fulfill anymore. And then also beyond that, I want to own the matter.

to my music and I want to start my own record company and all these other ambitions, you know, 10 years in the industry, you do see how there are different ways of doing things. It was a big step to take and it definitely felt like, you know, it's really interesting what you said there about people saying, well, don't you want to do this anymore? You're breaking down the building you've done it in. You want to destroy it all and then it's just that reminder to yourself that you are the building. You're the thing and you can create a building and a team around you and you can kind of customize it to make it fit you in a more sensitive way.

There's different ways to do things. Things are always changing and trying to do the same thing you did a decade ago is it's not doing justice to yourself and it's not doing justice to the people around you. I want to feel that whatever happens, whether it's popular or not, I've definitely kind of been the driving force behind it. There is so much for our listeners to learn in what you've just said. I'm going to get that on a T-shirt. I am the building.

One of my favorite. quotes and we live in such a quotable time, don't me? And actually, I don't know where half of the quotes in my head come from anymore because of social media. Again, probably because of someone I was sitting opposite on the tube wearing a t-shirt. But one of my favorite quotes, I have no idea where it's from, is you're allowed to outgrow your dreams. I read that somewhere, again, at quite a formative time. And that allowance that you're talking about to outgrow, the thing that you dreamt of at one stage doesn't mean that you've given up on dreaming. You are just changing your own parameters. And I think that's what this book did for me.

It felt like it was so much about fulfilling your potential as a woman. But again, like you've alluded to, I always thought that potential was set by someone else, that if I was reaching someone else's idea of my potential than I was safe and actually getting to a point in one's life or career where you go potential is something I decide for myself. That's so true. And very scary actually setting your own bar. Yeah, that's really interesting. Having the time to slow down is so important. I think it's become a bit of a cliche now because of lockdown. What else can you say? I've had the time to slow down. I've been forced to slow down.

And it was needed, actually, though. I've had this dream since I was seven. I'm going to be a singer. I'm going to be a singer. I'm going to be a singer. And to be a singer, you need to be signed to a big record label. And to do this. And you have, I had to look at what was the dream and why was it that?

And who told you was that? And of course, I just felt like I just have to be grateful because this is my dream has come true. So whatever I'm asked to do, I have to do it. Because if I don't, then I'm turning down an opportunity. and this is me being ungrateful. I don't know if this will ever happen again in my life. And of course you want to jump into everything, but in doing so,

I think you do kind of burn yourself out a bit. And you end up not actually knowing what you want to do and why you're doing what you're doing. How are you going to feel your happiest and healthiest moving forward? Because essentially that's success, you know, happiness, however you managed to find it. And that feeling of belonging, I think that's my understanding.

new kind of definition of success. Your fifth and final book choice this week is Maria Callas, the woman behind the legend by Ariana Huffington. Maria Callis is of course still considered one of the greatest opera singers of all time, and this biography charts her dramatic life, including her interminable conflict with her mother, the unraveling of her first marriage, her love affair with the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. a secret abortion. It's been praised for its insight into Callis's inner world, which is hard to do

with lots of biographies. It does focus on her vulnerabilities and flaws, as well as her extraordinary talent. The woman behind the legend, I mean after our conversation, do I need to ask why this book resonated with you? Yes, I do, because that's the format of the show. Why did this book resonate with you, Emily? I completely fell in love with Maria Callis, but to years ago, my friend sent me a YouTube clip of one of her performances. I was just blown away by her charisma, the bravery on stage, obviously her talent, obviously her voice, her voice just pierces right into your heart and soul. From that performance on, I just wanted to know everything about her, so I'd watch every documentary. I read a couple biographies, but this one in particular,

I found so much more intimate and deep than the others. And interestingly, I think, because it's a woman author, I feel there's an insight in there that I hadn't read elsewhere, really understanding where she'd come from, what the family dynamic was like, what she'd experienced during the war. It's written so beautifully. And then to have insights into, I mean,

she really has recorded all the performances where she was, who she was speaking to letters that were sent back and forth, I really felt that I got a new sense of this incredible woman. She is phenomenal. She is a transcendent talent. And to have anyone that we think about in that way humanised, it can be a blessing and a curse sometimes, can't it? Because you think, no, I don't want to look behind the curtain.

Is there anything that really makes you feel a particular affinity with Maria Callis? I definitely connected with her in many ways. reading about her struggle and how determined she was to become Maria and Carlos, you know, this famous opera singer. And also the battle she had in that often she speaks about the sadness that her mother really kind of forced her into singing and she wished she could have been perhaps, you know, another kind of musician. So definitely that tenacity and determination she had,

this girl with not very much moving to America to chase a dream, that definitely resonated with me. And all the rejection she faced, she's really one of the first singers that have really made me see the voice as a musical instrument. I know that sounds a bit silly because it is, but I've always seen it as part of my body, part of my physical expression,

but her depth of knowledge in music and her technique was just so precise and she was so dedicated to that level of perfection that she has inspired me to really dig a lot deeper into music, music theory, knowledge of music. She was just a master, a master of her craft. And also reading about how she experienced misogyny or sexism during her era and how she dealt with it. Watching her interviews, it really inspires me because I wonder how she would have been if she was here now. you know, the stress of everything kind of shortened her life.

I really feel her spirit within some ways. I wonder if you could expand on, you know, this idea of a misogynistic undertone within music and within that industry. Is that something that you yourself have had to really build up a resilience against? Yes. it's such a subtle force. Well, it's subtle but crippling all at once. And, well, it's something that you can never really fully prove.

And I think if you're willing to play the role that is, you know, laid out for you, you know, women are supposed to look a certain way and present themselves. And if you're willing to kind of play that role, then I don't think you'll come up across too much resistance because you're being what's meant of you within this system. If you really want to be intellectual about what you're doing and be seen as an artist rather than a product or, you know, some kind of puppet, I think that's when you really feel it. And as I've grown older, I just start to, you know, having to fight to be an artist, having to fight to have command and, you know, say over who Emily Sandy is as a musician. And I say that not to be, you know, speaking third person, but I've heard people say to me, well, this. This doesn't sound quite like Emily Sandy, or this isn't what people want from Emily Sand.

And so it's such a confusing thing to hear because then I'm thinking, you know, but I am, I am, Emily. And this is what I'm making right now. Just over the years, strange reaction from different men or feeling like, oh, God, what have I done wrong? And I'd always think I had done something wrong. I said, oh, God, was I rude to that person? Or was this not supposed to happen? Why are they speaking to me anymore?

And now I've just realized something to do with probably you being a woman. and maybe you have annoyed someone, forget about it, get back to the piano and just do your job. I love that. And I love what you've said about it being this pervasive energy, misogyny in any form, a pervasive energy that you can't quite locate and take to the authorities. The acting industry and the entertainment industry is having a huge reckoning in that way. do you feel like the age of Me Too is changing discourse around what we're talking about? Do you feel safer somehow?

In a sense, yes. I definitely feel we're being allowed more platforms to talk about it. It's definitely something that five, six years ago just wasn't up for discussion. So in that sense, yeah. And I do think it's giving women more confidence to at least have a voice. My only reservation is whether we're truly being listened to or we're kind of just being given a space to vent our issues. It's just what now comes from it and how does that really, really influence what happens on the ground. But I think it's a brilliant thing and it's positive that at least people that want to can learn and can realize I see the need for it and I love the expression.

but I really hope that it does translate and become something real, if we ever run out of electricity, that we have it in real life. And we don't get complacent behind the screens. Yeah, I think a realistic approach is best. And you think about people like Maria Callas, or I watch the brilliant documentary on Rita Moreno, the actress from West Side Story,

the original West Side Story, and she's repreasing a role in the updated version. But, you know, it's artists like this that we stand on the shoulders of because they were pre-clicks. And there was so much sacrifice that happened. And managing to have all of these relationships, you know, high-profile relationships. And then actually bring it back to the relationship with themselves, you know, just at the end. that's the lesson for me with me to you know it's it's it's about well like you said i am the building you know having the strength of of one self-love be the protest really yes yeah and be the thing

that outlasts the power shortage as you've just said yeah and it's also you know something my sister tells me, like, this feeling of, oh, just, I'm just grateful to be here. I think that's something that especially if you're first, second generation, immigrant, or you know, you're of different heritage, just this feeling of whatever happens, whatever we face, I'm just grateful to be here. And it's the same as sometimes as women, we're just, I'm just thankful you've even allowed me here. And oh, yeah, so whatever you need, I'm just happy to be signed and getting rid of that

attitude and really, I think that probably, hopefully comes with age, but feeling that I have a right to be here, I'm a citizen of this planet. And just because I don't fit into what has been prescribed in society, it doesn't mean I don't have a right to be here. Emily, I could honestly talk to you for, I mean, just decades. This has been really fun. I've discovered a lot about myself. Thank you. Honestly, me too. This has been one of the most powerful things about doing this podcast. And I am talking in a kind of a nostalgic way because you are closing out this season. Speaking to women whose lives and the narratives of their lives are so inspiring about the literature that they keep in their hearts has just been mind blowing.

You truly are someone, Emily, for me, who puts so much of their lives. story out there for us to navigate our own lives. It's an act of bravery and a vulnerability, as you've said. So I really want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know this would have been such an illuminating chat for all of our listeners. I do have to be a tiny bit mean to you, though, also as a super fan, this is hard for me. I do need to ask you the question about which one book from this list, would you take on with you into your journey of self-discovery? And why?

Well, I think I would take half of the Yellow Sun. I've read it once and I'd love to just reread it again. Perhaps reading it over here in London would give a different perspective. But it was, yeah, I love it so much. I think every time I'm going to read it, I'm going to find more, more depths and more jewels within it. Thank you so much, Emily Sunday, for being here with us on the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

I'm Zawi Ashton, and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. This is the final episode in the current season, and if you haven't yet discovered all of the incredible conversations I've had, I urge you to go back and listen to the rest. Please do rate and review the podcast. It's the way that we help spread the word about the wonderful women writers you've heard about today and throughout the season. Thank you so much for listening and I really hope to see you next time. You've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast, brought to you by Bayleys

and produced by Birdline Media.