November Ultra and Emma Peters are nominated for Female Revelation of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique 2023, alongside Mentissa. They confide in particular on their musical success and their notoriety, strongly accentuated by their presence on social networks.
Around a coffee, two of the three nominated for the Victoires de la musique 2023 for the female revelation of the year, November Ultra and Emma Peters, are far from behaving like competitors. Emma Peters is on time for the meeting and has already finished her tea while waiting for November Ultra. She mechanically adds water to her tea to prolong it by adding several spoonfuls of honey. November Ultra appears all in pink and hugs Emma, greeting her. She throws : “So we start?“
franceinfo Culture: You are part of this new generation of artists who are making themselves known on social networks. You started with covers, Emma Peters with your YouTube channel and November Ultra on Instagram. Did you anticipate your popularity and hope to make music your life?
November Ultra : Many people discovered us like that.
Emma Peters : So I don’t at all. November, you already had your small group before, so it was already your project.
November Ultra : I was already making music professionally since 2013. I had a band and we broke up in 2018. Then I released Soft & Tender in 2020 while still working on my album at the same time. The covers arrived especially with the confinement and I missed the concerts terribly. I love to sing all day and that’s when I got into TikTok. At first I was just there to watch videos of cats, or people baking bread, and it de-stressed me. After several months I made my first video, but it didn’t take until the acoustics of Honey when I had already released personal songs. Notoriety, I didn’t think it was possible for me. I started at 24, it was my dream. Now every day I wake up and I think it’s still crazy.
Was there a before and following for social networks?
November Ultra : When I left Soft & Tender, I was told that as it was an English song, it wouldn’t pass too much for the radio in France. Before, I was doing independent music, I was releasing my songs, I was making my clips. And then suddenly, a song goes a little viral, Come Into My Arms, and that makes the difference. Music is crazy, you put it out and it’s people who soak it up and other artists pick you up. Social media has given me independence and I think it’s the same for Emma. These are places where people discover you, want to come to your concerts. Whether the music industry wants us to make music or not is up to the people.
Emma Peters : We don’t really have the same beginnings with November. Me, I made a lot of music in family with my brothers and sisters. I was very afraid to film myself and sing in front of people. My sister started a YouTube channel so we might make videos together. Besides, it’s still her who has the codes for my YouTube channel and who receives the notifications. I released a cover of Too handsome de Lompal who walked very quickly. I remember calling my mother the next day saying “but I have 1000 views, it’s impossible, there must be a piracy”. At the time I had 200 subscribers, I had never made those numbers. Gradually, it climbed to reach millions of views.
I ended up doing covers every Sunday. I love French rap so I did a lot of it. I was the little blonde who said trashy stuff on the guitar with a little voice so it went better. Eventually I got all the people who were spitting on the rap and thinking it was just vulgar. They were listening to it through me. The somewhat harsh rappers who wanted to soften up also listened to me. I found a very eclectic audience of all ages and that’s how the YouTube channel started to grow. I wrote songs much later, I told myself that by dint of doing covers I was incapable of writing songs.
Is the recovery the obligatory passage today to make yourself known and to reveal yourself as an artist?
Emma Peters : I don’t think so because November was already posting his original tracks on social media. Afterwards, we always find ourselves humming songs that we love. We do covers without doing it on purpose.
November Ultra : Covers are like putting on someone else’s jacket. You are more aware of the arrangement of words.
Emma Peters : Me, it especially allowed me to sing things that I didn’t assume to say myself.
November Ultra : Oh yeah ?
Emma Peters : It was perfect because I might say ultra trashy stuff that I meant a lot and then say “I didn’t write it, someone else wrote it”. It was another process in my head to tell myself now, I have to assume my own words. Two years ago I thought I mightn’t write songs, so it’s still very fresh.
November Ultra : It’s crazy, it was your first songs. She’s good.
How do you experience being an artist today? Can you be completely yourself?
Emma Peters : I think I have a small shell. I stay close to who I am but we have to protect ourselves a bit with people who are quite energy-intensive.
November Ultra : We are like you in everyday life. Sometimes you are ready to receive, other days not at all, because things are not going well or you are tired. I find that I am very close to who I am deep down, but for example I chose to have another first name. I am very attached to the fact that they call me Nova and not at all by my birth name.
Emma Peters : What’s your first name by the way?
November Ultra : I’m not going to say it, that’s the all point. It allows me to have a very healthy relationship with myself. What I am here is totally the person I am in real life. I really wrote, co-produced and arranged my whole album Bedroom Walls in my room. There was something with my room that was very strong. I tell myself that if there isn’t a last place that belongs to me, it’s going to be difficult to re-energize myself, to recharge myself when I need it. When I met Emma, I didn’t tell myself that she was someone else.
Emma Peters : Anyway I have a big concern for transparency. I lie very badly.
November Ultra : It’s tiring to lie, in truth.
Emma Peters : Me, it’s really the same person, it’s my real name, my real first name. I am very close to my family, I grew up on the farm so I have a very down to earth side.
November Ultra : They are on the cover of your album I believe.
Emma Peters : Yes, my brothers and sisters.
What are the main fights that you carry in your music?
November Ultra : Frankly, tenderness. It hurts to say it, but I think we’re all very scared and we’re more and more divided. We are afraid of the other, afraid of the future, afraid of dying. I realized that sometimes we are so tired of everything around, that it just takes a moment when we feel good and protected. Concerts are also bubbles for people. We don’t always realize the scope of our songs. in my title HoneyI say that I don’t want to get married or have children and that may resonate with a lot of people.
Emma Peters : Someone used it for their wedding, right? It’s so funny because people do what they want with it.
November Ultra : Others told me it was regarding abortion, but not necessarily. I think we have to de-stigmatize themes like anxiety or going to see a shrink.
Emma Peters : For my part, it’s more what I try not to deny. Whenever I do interviews, there is always a journalist who says to me “you are a blond, white woman, you say bad words and you talk regarding ass”. At the beginning, I censored these words there and it didn’t didn’t work at all. I was writing songs, but nothing was happening. When I realized that I might speak in my songs as I speak in life, I was freer. It’s not vulgarity, I’m very well educated. These are the kind of questions you would never ask a man, never a rapper.
How does it feel to be nominated for the Victoires de la Musique?
Emma Peters : I am super happy and proud. It’s going very quickly, I wondered if I was in the right place, if I was making the right choices. Being nominated is a kind of validation of professionals in the profession and it’s classy.
November Ultra : All three of us with Mentissa called each other.
Emma Peters : We had a little meeting in a park in December, we had a coffee.
November Ultra : I was happy for 30 minutes and then I stressed out going live on TV. I’ve never done this before. With the girls, we immediately said to ourselves that the name was already in the envelope, and that we were just going to love it and give each other strength.
Emma Peters : Me, I just wanted to be proud of my performance and have no regrets, because the images are likely to turn on Twitter. You can only be named Breakthrough of the Year once, so winning is fun, it’s like bringing home the cup.
November Ultra : At worst, I really live downstairs from the Victoires de la Musique, so when I get back, I steal it and order a pizza.
