For her debut EP, a composite Ramy Zhang sings about a closed chapter; leaving high school behind as she enters a pre-adult world of boundless energy and sudden longing.

By, Eduard Tatomir

RAMY said that it all started when she joined the choir at just eight-years-old. She said she discovered her love of singing, but realized over the years that she needed more creative control over the music. Once she felt confident in her vocal and songwriting ability, she said producing her own music was naturally the next step.

“I would always get stuck on the composition part where I would try to create an instrumental track, but I didn’t have the skills and knowledge to do so and it was deeply frustrating,” the Toronto-based singer said.

Fast forward years later, Growing Pains was born — a pocket-sized 18-minute EP with a vibe she described as “coming-of-age … emo bedroom pop.” The songs she wrote, sang and produced remind us all of the early 6 a.m. school bus rides we’d doze off on, or rainy day adventures infused with child-like wonder — and she said that’s exactly the nostalgic feeling she was trying to give us through her music.

She said a big reason for her reminiscent-style of music is because of the gap year she took after high school, where she was thrust into a post-pandemic, world on fire with nothing to do but fondly remember what once was. 

“It felt like I never moved on from high school so this was really cathartic for me and it felt necessary in order to close that chapter of my life and move on to the next thing,” she said. 

With over a decade of experience under her belt, RAMY had some words of wisdom for anyone out there looking to start a career in music.

“Songwriting and music production is all about habit-forming,” she said. People have a false connotation of what it means to be creative — such as only being artistic when the motivation is there. “But the motivation will come and go. It won’t always be there. You have to create a little bit every day to build up the stamina. You can’t rely on being inspired all the time.” 

Her next piece of advice was more comforting. “The music industry is in a really good place right now,” she said. And it’s true. The internet, social media, and streaming services have made music discovery and distribution far easier, faster, and more accessible according to reports by Visual Capitalist and Backstage Pass.

Now, small up-and-coming artists like RAMY are able to put themselves out there to be discovered by like-minded people who will enjoy their music, rather than needing a record label to take them on. “It would be nice, though, if you got a little more from streaming,” she said, “but it’s still a nice resource.”

Artists get paid anywhere from $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream for their song, according to CNBC. That may not sound like a lot, and that’s because it isn’t. Streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora have to pay their artists every time their song gets paid, no matter how many times that may be. That actually means that this music consumption model isn’t sustainable in the long run and big companies like Spotify are operating at an $18.4 million loss. So, while this is the way we listen to music now, it may not be this way forever.

Lastly, RAMY encouraged everyone who is inspired to create to do so. “Don’t worry about oversaturation. There’s no cap to how much art the average person consumes. That’s not how consumption of art works,” she said. She urged every creative out there to approach it with an abundance mindset. “It’s not like you’re getting a small slice of a big pie. You’re creating more pies. There’s a lot of space for art in the world,” she said. 

However, according to the singer-songwriter, obsessing over the past like a rocking chair-bound old-timer is only temporary. 

Now that her EP is released, what’s next for RAMY? She said she’s interested in doing more collaborations. “As a small creator, clout isn’t that important. It’s just about liking each other’s stuff,” she said. She said she is also looking to be more intentional with the genre of music she creates, as this EP was very experimental and new.

Stream Growing Pains on Spotify or Apple Music.