Emmanuel Shadow, or “EMAN,” is a student here at QHHS. He is also an upcoming rapper and content creator, recently dropping a new self-produced EP called “Self-Titled;” the EP has ten songs on it. Shadow does all the production by himself and is entirely self-taught. I recently interviewed him about his music and new album, and he broke down some of his favorite lyrics and why he got into music.
Shadow says he started making music for fun, and no one really inspired him when he first started. He also listens to a lot of underground music and artists wanting to show love to other rappers trying to make it big, also taking some heavy inspiration from the underground scene. He takes some inspiration from the artists signed by Playboi Carti’s record label Opium as well.
Shadow talks about the first track of the album “Go,” he talks about the inspiration he takes from Destroy Lonely, one of his favorite rappers from the Opium record label. We can mainly hear the similarities in the beat Shadow made for the song. He also broke down one of the verses for us: “Yeah, they switched up. It ain’t easy, how they switch up.” Shadow talks about this bar, saying, “People switch up because it is easier than working things out or talking things through, and losing some people can affect me, and I can’t mess with people the same after that.”
Even though he is not taking music seriously, mainly focusing on his YouTube channel, Eman is still a good rapper. He puts meaning and some purpose behind his lyrics.
When asked what pushes him to make music, he said, “I just want to have fun, man. I don’t force myself to make new beats or songs; I try to let it come to me and rap about what I’m feeling, serious or not, and I think that’s why I enjoy it. It gives me more ways to express myself.” Many people can learn this; especially creators who tend to force themselves to create something new and end up with stuff they don’t even like themselves. Eman is the opposite, letting the ideas come naturally.
This just goes to show even more that Shadow does what he likes, and I think for a creative person one takeaway from this is to just not care about what people say, and to just do what you want as long as you find happiness from it.
Eman was also asked about why he wants QHHS to know about him. He told me “I want to be beyond QHHS, I want to be worldwide. Most people are in a box, following the same flow, same genre, I want to be outside of that.” I also talked to Eman about what he thinks of the haters and supporters. He told me “People are gonna hate no matter what, you can’t change that, as long as I’m happy with what I’m doing I don’t care about them. And to the people that support me and show me love I mess with you, and it’s all love for all of you.”
The final message Eman had to give for QHHS was “Just be yourself, do what you like, and chase what you want, don’t let people hold you back.”
