Matthew James Hemmer
Biography
Matthew James Hemmer is a Korean American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Raised in Bethesda, Maryland, Matthew experimented with piano and viola from a young age. He started writing songs over the piano in middle school, and in high school started a youtube channel with a friend, as an outlet for his excess creative energy. He competed in the Bernard Ebb Songwriting Competition years 2016 and 2017 and was selected to perform as a finalist during their 2017 showcase.
After graduating high school later that year, he enrolled at Berklee College of Music as a songwriting major that Fall. In his first year at Berklee, Matthew started making and working with new friends, including Jason Shu (SHUZ), Reuben Thompson (REX JAMES), and Jon Walter (of Pink Palace). Also starting to finally experiment with finding his unique sound as an artist/producer, his first release was a debut album Break Me Down in June of 2018. This project showed sides of electronic, RnB, and pop music, and Matthew followed up that year with singles like “About You”, “if u got a man”, and even a holiday song on Christmas day – a soft lo-fi track called “nothing for christmas”.
As his second year of college began, Matthew continued to expand his sound – experimenting with adding elements of EDM and hip-hop, genres he had gotten a deeper exposure to during his time working and living with other musicians and producers. His first single of 2019, titled “BAD HABITS” was an anthemic ode to checking up on your ex, combining earlier pop/electropop sounds with new more urban grooves and rhythms, both instrumentally and vocally. Other singles like “HANGMAN” and “broken hearts” showed different sides of his artistry, through twisted, schizophrenic viewpoints in the former and a more melancholy, dark sound on the latter. This work of showcasing different narratives through adapting his personal experiences and combining them with worlds of his imagination culminated in a second album broke my phone, released in May of 2019. The three singles “BAD HABITS”, “why I never call (feat. Delilah Brao)”, and “XX” were the first of his songs to break one thousand streams. The story of broke my phone was loosely based on a destructive early relationship in his life, and through the artist, POV of MJH – Hemmer’s songwriting and production came together to create an emotionally raw, cynically humorous, sonically fresh, and most of all personally unique project. To date, the album has gathered 100,000+ streams across platforms. “XX” is the most popular song, with an iconic lyric video by Barbara Rego (@mindofbarbara) and over 80,000 combined listens to date.
Career
Summer brought new music, but most notably new collaborations – the first being a single in June with fellow Berklee alumni Zach Dowd (Dowzy) called “can’t sleep”. This track was the quickest to 1K for either Zach or Matthew, a jointly produced song that they had started together in February. MJH also put out his first extended play, a five-track EP called EXOTIC, with features from CCCORAZON on “OVER NOW”, Killacamm on “LIGHTS”, and a second single (“LONELY”) with Delilah Brao. The most popular track of the EP was “SORRY”, a hauntingly sad piano ballad where songwriting structure breaks down and culminates in a final crescendo of sound and emotion.
The title track “EXOTIC” wrestled with his issues of self-identity as an artist and songwriter, but also his problems with walking the line between fitting in and standing out. Other notable releases of the year were “TOXIC” – a re-release of a 2018 single that Matthew took down and reworked to improve, “BUZZ” – which received attention from several popular Youtube tastemaker channels, “Freestyle (v. TRIIIPIIIN)” – the first in the “freestyle” series (similar to the ‘Interlude (v.___) format he established on broke my phone with “Interlude (v.6517829)” and “Interlude (v.TTICSTS)”) and finally in late December “whatchu need?”, a turn in a new direction for his artistry – combining textures previously heard in different songs (ex. ukulele, vocal chops, trap drums) with comforting lyrics letting the listener know someone is there for them. Early in 2020, Matthew had a breakout hit with “Don’t Miss Me”, released through EDM label Vipmusikrecords, featuring on a song for Shikhar Singh (SHKHR). Singh and Hemmer had connected years earlier through youtube and had stayed in contact since (working on earlier features called “Let Me Dream”, and “Love and Glory” with additional production by Heavy Pulse). “Don’t Miss Me” was MJH’s highest streamed individual song at that point, topping 120,000 plays.
Matthew also enlisted help of UK rapper Saykridd Daly on a remix of “back2back2back”, a song Hemmer originally released on December 12th of 2019. Matthew returned the favor by featuring on “Freeze”, a Saykridd Daly song that dropped in November 2020. In May 2020, Matthew released the twelve tracked IE GOD, his third and largest album at the time. These songs continued to show Matthew’s unique point of view and style, with the sound design and production reaching new levels, as well as the mixing and mastering. As opposed to broke my phone which focused more on one continuous narrative throughout, these twelve songs showcased different snapshots of stories over a diverse selection of textures and instruments. “I FEEL LIKE GOD” a song about taking control over your own life, and “staying in this summer” a track about staying inside until you’re ready to move on and face the world again, are two of the most popular tracks from the project.
“Interlude (v. RAINCHECK)”, a stripped acoustic ukulele tune about putting your life on hold (one of two interludes on the album, similar to the double interlude structure of the previous album) was one of Matthew’s first songs to receive press and blog attention. The album also featured collaborations with new artists, including “comebacktome” with fellow independent and electronic/RnB artist Nolä, “LET IT ALL GO” with alt-pop duo “bodylanguage”, and “fade” with Jordan Hodges (Jordan), a song they had started working on two years prior. After the album, MJH and Bingbongbeats (also Jon Walter from Pink Palace) released “MISTAKES” in June, one of the many song seeds they had written and started over their time learning production together. “MISTAKES” and “savemylife” (a September release) received unexpected exposure from a viral tiktok video in September advertising Matthew James Hemmer as an artist and singer/songwriter, which led to an large increase to fan and follower community through the rest of 2020.
On October 12th, MJH released his fourth album, co x 1000000 – as a surprise project/present for his girlfriend’s birthday, with eight tracks dedicated to her and their relationship. After getting the idea in August, Matthew worked to finish the production and mix of the songs in secret through September – in order to have the audios ready for release on the 12th. The album featured a coproducer, BedHed, who worked with Hemmer on the mix and instrumental for track four “nervous”, from its original conception as a piano ballad. Matthew also credits two friends with instrumental tracking – Alexander Hammes (one half of bodylanguage) plays the guitar and Josh Lamkin (half of Blame Jane) plays additional bass on co x 1000000’s sole interlude, “Interlude (v. flamenco)”. “Saved Me (feat. saved)” dropped mid-November, and was one of Matthew’s last collaborations of 2020. The track garnered support from several large Spotify playlists for pop, trap and RnB music. “NOW” featuring nashville pop/hiphop artist danny G came out the following month, equal parts upbeat and gritty, a track about creating positive change in their lives. “Bad Taste (feat. Matthew James Hemmer)” a song by Delilah Brao that Matthew cowrote and produced, dropped in December as well, one of her first new projects of the year.
January of 2021 brought the year’s first single, “LAPTOP”, which paid homage to the titular device while covering topics like dedication, focus, and tenaciously chasing goals, in a shift of upbeat energy. This foreshadowed the release of standalone singles later on in the year that explored less melancholy topics as seen in previous years. Before that, however, Matthew released singles “PART” and “SUPERHUMAN” from his fifth album, “TRAP”. “PART” featured rap/rock artist MVRS666 and was produced by long-time friend and collaborator Reuben Thompson (REX JAMES), and portrayed the conflicted POV of a troubled individual unable to fully commit to a relationship. “SUPERHUMAN”, in contrast, was a self-produced track reflecting on past failures and delusions, that pushed the mindset of trying to focus on looking ahead while continuing to learn from mistakes. Upon release on February 19th, the ten song tracklist of “TRAP” built on the ideas established in the singles and elaborated on some of the creative and personal struggles Matthew had experienced over the last couple years of working in the music industry. The music video for FEELS, the opening track of the album, dropped March 20th, on his birthday.
After the release of “TRAP” and a one-month hiatus, Matthew returned in April with a new single titled “Tomorrow”, an ode to procrastination which blended piano and string textures over an upbeat electronic backing, culminating in a future bass drop reminiscent of the mid-2010s. He then put out two singles with different producers, “GOODNIGHT” with REX JAMES and “issallineed” with prodxoasis, that both evoked feelings of nolstalgia, relaxation, and just general good vibes. Following that came “cut/throat” a self-produced electro-pop/dance single about two people stuck together who can’t seem to stop hurting each-other.
In June, Matthew decided to release another track in the freestyle series, as he had dropped “Freestyle (v. 20TOPIA)” the previous year in August of 2020. 2021’s freestyle was dubbed “Freestyle (v. VOLCANO)” in reference to how some of those thoughts and feelings came to the surface uncontrolled like a volcanic eruption. The instrumental elements of the song were reminiscent of 2000’s hiphop music, with some added synth textures.
Adopting a trend of putting out singles monthly, August brought a track called “NOCOMPANY”, a song written during the intense time of the 2020 pandemic. “NOCOMPANY” addressed some of the unrest that came with quarantine in a track that combined rap, pop, RnB, and even jazz.
After TRAP, Matthew decided to postpone a TRAP DELUXE EDITION tape that was being worked on, and instead started releasing various singles, many of them collaborations – works with artists Sofie, Alex The Bavarian, saya, Bryn Jahna, saved, ALEXARRA, Reapecks, Delaney Parker, Randy James, Shlag, REX JAMES, JKRON, screwyounick, Anna Rozy Lau, and EDM artist SHKHR. The few releases with SHKHR ended up bringing in excess of 400,000 streams combined, but the variety of genres and sounds expressed throughout the collaborative projects had a vast range.
Around late 2022 and early 2023, Matthew began releasing singles for his next set of albums, a concept project called BTRL8THNVR – a dual expression of both being able to release a large quantity of songs that were sitting on the shelf, as well as the POV of the main character of the album, who goes through many difficult life lessons and mental barriers before realizing he has to change. Part 1: FALL released in Summer 2023, and the sequel, Part 2: DRAIN released the following summer of 2024. While FALL set the scene of a love story and subsequent romantic tragedy, DRAIN depicts the downward spiral that follows, and the weight of the toll it takes on the MC. The conclusion volumes, Part 3: KARMA, and Part 4: FIXED, have yet to be released, but the titular track of the final album came out as his first single of 2022, the twin-titled FIXED. All mentioned tracks are out on streaming services now, as well as in the portfolio section of the website (along with a few demos and unreleased originals).