Who is Emma Blackery? Meet the surprise artist featured in Apple’s iPhone keynote presentation

Last night, Emma Blackery’s artwork featured during Apple’s iPhone X reveal event in California. A huge follower bump on Twitter ensued and streams of her music shot up as the millions of viewers worldwide get to know the Essex-born singer and YouTube star. We got on the phone with Emma to find out just what happened, what comes next and whether she’s up for a Paris Hilton collaboration (spoiler: obviously).

Talk us through what happened last night…

Embarrassingly, I was sitting in bed watching Rick & Morty by myself when it happened! Then I suddenly got bombarded by about 20 texts in 10 seconds, all from different people saying, ‘Emma are you watching the Apple Keynote?’ I went on there to watch and there’s was just my face behind Eddie Cue. I had no idea it was going to happen – I just freaked out. So I did what any sort of millennial what do and went straight to Twitter and gave my gut reaction.

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https://twitter.com/emmablackery/status/907662779150192641

So you had no idea this was going to happen?

No, I know that a few months ago Apple got in contact and asked if they could use my artwork for some marketing campaigns, but me and my manager didn’t really think anything of it. My artwork has been featured on the Apple website previously, but no one had told me or my manager that this was going to happen at the event. So you know it was a complete shock, because not only was my face there but my name and the title and the track. It was amazing.

You’ve been introduced to this massive audience now – what do you think it’ll do for your music?

I don’t really know what it’ll do – anything that it does do is just incredible, I’ll take anything as a bonus. I had so many people tweeting me saying ‘I hadn’t heard your music and I checked it out and I loved it’. To have so many new listeners is such a privilege.

You put a bit of a call out to the labels didn’t you…

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Well you have to capitalise, don’t you! You have to ride the wave. It was a more of a jokey tweet, but I’m more than happy to talk…

https://twitter.com/emmablackery/status/907667372198256640

Paris Hilton also followed you as well, didn’t she? Room for a collaboration?

Yeah that might be the highlight of the night. I would happily collaborate with Paris Hilton. If she wants to hit me up, I’m completely up for a track with Paris Hilton. That would make my teenage life.

https://twitter.com/emmablackery/status/907727820952100864

You’re used to an massive audience to some extent already though via your YouTube channel?

Of course. There are people who have already supported me, but this mass exposure is something I’ve never had before. Millions of people watched that event so it’s brought it so many new people already.

Describe your music to people who have never heard you before.

My latest EP is my acoustic pop EP, but before that I’ve done pop-punk based music. But on ‘Magnetised’ I wanted to have something a bit more acoustic to listen to that’s a bit emotional and mellow. I’m still discovering my sound every day – like, the next release is going to be a big pop sound.

 

You put quite a few covers on your YouTube channel, which has 1.4m followers, don’t you?

A lot of the time, its songs that I really enjoy and I want to share with my own followers and just want them to discover the original through my own take. When it comes to YouTube I always say, ‘put out what you love making’ so if you want to make videos, make it with joy, and people will see that. So I followed my own advice and made videos and covers of that I loved.

There’s definitely a DIY aspect to being able to speak for ourselves and put ourselves out there without having to contact people in the industry or other places. It’s very freeing to do what you want and have people in the industry and have people discover you.

What’s next?

The next for me is to work for an album I haven’t released an album yet, so when I get round to releasing it, I want to make sure it’s big and I’m super proud of it. I’m in the writing process now, that should hopefully be out next year. The big ultimate pipedream for me is to play Brixton Academy, so if i can achieve that next year, that’d be wonderful.

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