“I sometimes do feel like an apple tree under the sea. I don’t really know what it means right now, but I think that I can find a meaning that I feel drawn to,” pop star Isimeme ‘Naomi’ Udu (AKA Hemlocke Springs) is talking about the title of her debut album, a phrase the LA-based artist penned when writing a track for an advert and took an instant liking to. As we talk, the reason for her fame and critical acclaim becomes clear: authenticity. Over the years, Udu has repeatedly shown herself to be one of the most exciting artists in the industry thanks to her fresh and experimental approach. And, with the release of her debut album, she is cementing her place as a true innovator.
Raised in 1990s North Carolina by Nigerian immigrant parents, Udu grew up immersed in evangelical Christianity – a framework that would later resurface, refracted, in her songwriting. In the wake of the pandemic, she took to TikTok to showcase her music. In 2022, she hit the big time, with her first single ‘gimme ur love’ receiving love from none other than Grimes and Bella Hadid. Later that year, her follow-up release ‘girlfriend’ went seriously viral on TikTok and has garnered a whopping 55 million streams to date. For Udu, converting a viral moment into a sustainable career is no urban legend, it’s her reality. She is both unfiltered and joyful – two traits that have proved to be the perfect combination to find her a dedicated and ever-growing audience.
With more tracks, her famous fans multiplied, including Chappell Roan, who invited Udu to be an opener for her multi-night residency in Queens last year, and now says that she is her favourite artist. DOECHII also shouted her out on an Instagram live, branding her music “not even of this time” and “incredible.”
Now, Udu has just released her first-ever album; a captivating mish-mash of alternative bedroom, synth, and chamber pop, with some metal influences cutting through. From the wonderfully chaotic and intense ‘head, shoulders, knees and ankles’, to the soaring ‘sever the blight’, Udu has ventured to new levels of creativity – so much so that it is hard to believe it is her debut. Razor-sharp lyrics and playful pop sensibilities make it quite unlike anything else we’ve heard in a while.
“If you want to create something that is, I guess, signature to yourself, then you just kind of have to do some random stuff and see what do you like, what gravitates to you,” she says. “Like are you using this particular drum sample because you really like it or are you using it because you know that other people like it?” It is this acute sense of authenticity that underscores all of Udu’s music and what draws so many people to it.
One of the themes that forms a common thread through many of the songs (such as ‘the red apple’, ‘head, shoulders, knees and ankles’, and ‘moses’) is religion. “You can definitely make statements about religion but I feel like, for me, the best statement was to just really go through ‘well how do I feel during this time’. To this day, I wouldn’t really say I have religious trauma but then I listen to the album and I’m like… maybe it was there,” she laughs.
“Nigerian culture can be very patriarchal and I feel like religion and patriarchy kind of go hand in hand.” The album charts her experiences of trying to set herself free from these influences and find herself, like in ‘be the girl’, where she sings “…now I know I can’t/Be the girl I used to know/Even though I thought I could.”
Udu enlisted the help of producer BURNS, who has worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Charli xcx, and Britney Spears, for her debut. The pair worked together at his home studio, an environment which Udu preferred to the more “clinical” feeling of a professional studio. Speaking about the relationship, she says “I’m in my head a lot so it’s nice to have somebody else… it was a great partnership.”
With the release of her debut album, the prospect of a tour is on the horizon. But the road is not where Hemlocke Springs feels at home. In fact, she hates it – after some bad early experiences.
“It’s the worst,” she says. “You know that Michael Jackson meme? That’s it, precisely. What I will say about touring is that I love seeing fans and I love performing for fans. That is it. That is all… I feel like I’m constantly sleep deprived, [nutritionally] deprived, dehydrated, like I’m just tired – I already said that but I’m gonna say it again!”
On the 2023 Weedkiller Tour with Ashnikko, the van Udu and her crew were in broke down and they almost missed their next show, had it not been for her multi-tasking tour manager saving the day. She recounts how crazy it was, with him on the phone switching between languages and frantically trying to get things sorted. “Shout out to Dom,” she laughs, “That man was a saint – and I don’t say that a lot about white men!” Panic averted, the experience can’t have scarred her completely as she assures The Forty-Five she will be embarking on a tour at some point in the future – phew!
With her debut album out in the world, Udu is hoping that it prompts an emotional reaction – one way or another.“I hope you really like it or you really hate it,” she shrugs. Indifference would be the only failure.
Neither the album nor its creator offers a definitive explanation of ‘the apple tree under the sea’. That ambiguity is the point. Udu has done the instinctive, interior work; the interpretation now, it seems, is up to us.
‘the apple tree under the sea’ by hemlocke springs is out now. Order the vinyl.
