Behold She Is KING: Interview With Danish Singer/Songwriter

Behold She Is KING: Interview With Danish Singer/Songwriter

Interview with KING

Today, I was lucky to be able to interview Danish artist Gabriela Olmedo, or KING, to learn more about her and her art. 

From the very start, KING made me feel so comfortable and like I was just talking to a friend, which exemplifies her openness and beauty as a person. It was clear she wanted to have a conversation and make a connection, human to human, and she allowed my nervousness and any stiff formalities to melt away. “The universe wanted us to meet,” she said after the call. 

From her garden, where she grows plants including strawberries, avocados, and cucumbers, she talked to me honestly, with the same self-understanding and natural flow that cascades out of her music. 

Born in Copenhagen to a Chilean father and Cuban mother, KING grew up without her dad (but has gotten to know him now that she is older) and visited Cuba with her mother every year. She feels very connected to her Cuban side and even began writing her third album there. She likes to include both Spanish and English, sometimes Spanglish, in her music and explained that sometimes one language is better for expressing a certain sentiment than the other. 

Who/what inspires you and what is your writing process like?

“I don’t think about other people’s music. I don’t think about what’s in now. I’m creating from where we are and what stories I have in my notes,” she responded. She keeps a lot of notes about her experiences and feelings that inspire her while writing a song. She explained that she tries to take a feeling or story and sum it up in a line or shorter idea that a song can capture well. 

While KING’s music spans many genres, she doesn’t necessarily plan it. Instead she lets the music come to her and become whatever genre feels right in the moment. The feeling of the track’s story is more important to her. 

A Dancing KING

KING grew up a dancer before a singer. “Madonna and J. Lo started as dancers. All the big ones can dance,” she pointed out. Singing arrived as a sudden opportunity that the universe presented to her and that she felt called to pursue. When she was 24, Mariah Carey’s old agent flew her out to LA after liking her first song. The crew gave her tips and said she had a lot of potential. “I don’t like to dwell on things,” KING stated. “They gave me the energy to shift direction in my life.” And so she did.

However, the dancer in her is still very present and active, desiring her music to be at least 100 BPM (beats per minute) so that she can move to it. “I don’t want slow slow songs,” she said. “[The music] has to be moveable.” 

Single “Angel Dust”

KING’s newest single “Angel Dust” is especially artistic because of the choreographed music video that comes with it. “As a dancer you don’t have to have clothes on to express yourself,” she said. “There are ways to express yourself other than using sex.” Our conversation went deep as we talked about the struggle of always being seen as a woman before being seen as human. She wanted her video to address this issue, which she discusses on her Youtube podcast, as well. 

“How far can I go so it is sensual and not sexual?” KING asked herself when creating the music video. She was able to create a unique piece of art that pushes the limits and celebrates sensuality and the human body, rather than sexualizing it. “Skin is just a texture,” KING rightly noted. [videos file=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFbkYRQCxQ”][/videos]

When talking about another recent track of hers,“OMG,” a catchy and icy song that mocks the idea of “making it,” we floated into another deep subject. What does it mean to “make it?” 

“When you have material things? When you have love? Both? But are you happy?” KING wondered. “You have to find love in your inner space. You made it when you said you made it.”  

As long as KING is living in the present, comfortable being alone with herself, and doing what she loves, she has made it.

In the more typical definition of making it, KING is also succeeding. She is one of 15 artists accepted, out of 10,000+ applicants, into production duo Stargate’s new music program, the Los Angeles Academy for Artists and Music Production (LAAMP). She is excited to work with mentors like Charli XCX and spend time on music through this program, starting in the fall.

The Future (Whatever That Means)  + Third Album

Do you have plans for the weekend? I asked KING.

“No. I don’t believe in time. Every day is the same,” she responded. She doesn’t like to put pressure on certain days to be more interesting than others. Instead, she likes to find excitement in the present moment. 

Whether it be the upcoming weekend or further into the future, KING always puts her energy into the NOW. However, she does have an upcoming third album. Unfortunately the pandemic and the terrible civil war in Cuba have prevented her from recording the tracks despite having finished writing it. 

She has been working with a poet/philosopher, Albert “Xampi” Garcías, to make the writing on this album a fusion of language and poetry from the 19th century. There will be no electronics on this record: every sound comes from a human being playing an instrument or singing.

KING’s third album is inspired by the Buena Vista Social Club™, an 1996 album recorded over seven days in Havana that brought together many artists from the 1950s golden age of Cuban music, some of whom even came out of retirement to record it. 

“I don’t go behind people’s backs” KING explained, meaning she doesn’t follow others. “I’m just trying to be as me as possible.” KING is clearly a uniquely artistic person and she puts a lot of care and work into her music. I can already feel the powerful and deep energy her third album will bring! She absolutely deserves her stage name because she has a royally gorgeous and creative energy, and I am so pumped to hear her upcoming third album. 

Spend mindful time in the present with KING’s music and let her energy move you!

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