Amber Mark

“I put a lot of pressure on myself.”

“I studied a lot from bossa nova, and I used to listen to it a lot as a kid because my mum would play it. I even wanted to learn Portuguese in high school so I could sing in it.”

“My mother was a Tibetan Buddhist.”

“I'm trying to get every experience possible in a studio environment, because I want to be comfortable there. There are people that I dream of working with, and I don't want to walk into that situation feeling like I'm not good enough.”

“'Conexao,' which means 'connection' in Portuguese, is about exploring the more nuanced highs and lows of romance.”

“I've heard stories of other people that are similar stories to me - their mother or father passing away. People have come out to me on Instagram. It's amazing that they can tell me and confide in me. I always want to take the time and write these long messages telling them how much that means to me.”

“My friends and family unknowingly tend to get in the way when I'm in my creative zones.”

“I could never know someone who could hurt someone else and not feel like a horrible person.”

“I don't meditate anymore, and I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist nowadays, though I do chant mantras here and there depending on the situation.”

“I went down the creative path in my teen years, and when I was in high school, in my junior year, I would perform at this program that was very similar to 'School of Rock.' That was when I started writing and realized that's what I wanted to do.”

“I dream of collaborating with Q-Tip and Timbaland - it's all producers. I'd really like to work with Drake and DRAM. The Weeknd would be dope. The list goes on and on. If Michael Jackson were alive, I'd love to collaborate with him.”

“I ended up having an epiphany that no body of work I put out will ever mean as much to me as '3:33 AM.'”

“I think I have a harder time writing about things that I am not actually going through.”

“'Heatwave' just fits the feel of summer for me.”

“Making music was always a big interest for me.”

“When I wrote 'Monsoon,' I always imagined the music video being shot in India. The song had so much to do with my time in India with my mother as well as leaving her in India during the monsoon season to visit my family in N.Y. It really was a dream come true when I was given the opportunity to shoot in India.”

“Music can be a way for me to think back a lot of the time, almost like an opening into all the nostalgia I never express.”

“My mother definitely plays a big role in my life and in my work. The majority of what I've created has to do with her passing and how I dealt with losing the most important person in my life.”

“After my mother passed away, I felt as though I would never have a relationship as strong as the one that I had had with her. Then, after a lot of ups and downs, I started dating again - but I realised pretty quickly that I was never going to write cheesy love songs.”

“When you lose someone that's really important to you, I feel like it's something that never really goes away. It's almost learning how to live with an empty feeling; it's weird. Something's always missing, but you kind of get used to it.”