Features : With “Count ’Em All Dead,” “Misunderstood,” new British artist Meera begins her musical story

The hip-hop and rap “Count ’Em All Dead,” and its video, and the R&B and rap “Misunderstood” are the debut releases by British artist Meera. On May 1, she will release the 10-track album the songs come from, A Part of Me Has Died.

Both tracks are fun and fascinating listening in the stories they tell, the melodies backing the beats, and Meera’s rich, expressive contralto voice is a pleasure to listen to all on its own. She is 19.

And, as can be told from the titles, she has stories to tell.

“It’s for people who are really in their feels or who want to relate to something that people don’t talk about enough, especially in music,” she said. “I feel like the music industry itself is very misogynistic. There are an odd few artists who talk about real issues that people appreciate, and I feel like if I can play my part to do that, then that’s a great thing.”

Part of her story, which she tells in the album, involves how she came to be where she is. She had to navigate several minefields to get to the starting line in her career.

First, there was the decision to be a creative.

Music, she said, has been her whole life’s dream. She started writing songs in her Notes app when she was 14, yet her schooling was oriented academically in math, biology and psychology.

She enjoyed that but, “I was like, ‘Okay, this is really not what I want to do,’ and I ended up following what I wanted to do. It was a difficult decision, because I come from an Asian family, and I’m the only creative.”

Two years ago, she set out to make the songs she had written. She not only wrote them. She performed, recorded, and produced these two songs and the album at home. She also directed the video for “Count ’Em All Dead.”

“Count ’Em All Dead” was not intended to be a rap track, nor was it intended to be on the album.

“I was actually just playing around, and I ended up freestyling. I didn’t intend on releasing any rap in this album, because I’ve always seen myself as a singer/songwriter, not a rapper. But I recorded the rap, and I played it for some of my friends. And they were like, ‘Meera! This is really good!’”

Enough people said that her rap is just as good as her singing that she finally said, “Okay. Let me just do it then.”

The rap on “Count ’Em Dead” is fast and furious, and it is also a fun listen, despite what Meera says: “For those two songs, it’s meant to make people uncomfortable, and it’s meant to make people feel a certain type of way. It’s not an easy listen.”

The story is hard, and in this song she is “talking my shit and picking myself  up and also encouraging other people to do the same.”

It is exhilarating, especially so because the rap, though a high-speed rant, is delivered in a straightforward tone. The words are angry, the voice is not.

“Misunderstood,” which obliquely introduces the concepts dealt with explicitly in the other songs, is delivered in what she calls a “nonchalant” tone.

“The sound is very ambient and dark and a bit a bit messy, because it reflects what I’m saying in the song,” she said, but she didn’t want the vocals to be too loud.

“I’m talking about big things, but I say it in a very relaxed manner. That’s the way I do things anyway, but I don’t need to scream these things for people to hear them.”

Each of the 10 tracks on A Part of Me Has Died is in a different mix of genres.

“The main genre is modern R&B but there are also hints of jazz, rap, pop and hip-hop.”

The album’s story of righteous “female rage” is also the story of how she came to be the sole creative working on her music. When she decided to be a musician, she said, and made the painful break with family expectations, she “went into this music mindset.”

She had written all these lyrics, she estimates three albums worth in addition to what she is writing now, but no music.

“I had ideas in my head, and I just wanted to execute them.”

She started trying to get her album made when she was 18, but at the music school and in the professional music world she found misogyny and betrayal.

“I’d go to people who could mix my album, people who could help me bring these visions to life, and I was scammed out of a lot of money. I knew the music industry was tough, but I didn’t think I’d experience those things straight away.”

Even non-scammers were no help.

“They wanted to turn me into something else, which is crazy for someone who’s not even a known artist yet.”

The shame of it is, “I was looking forward to collaborating with people and making some good memories.”

After a year of wasted time and money, she decided to invest in herself and take charge of her own music. At one point, she was working two jobs to finance it. A year ago, she started learning to be a producer.

“I basically decided to take control of every aspect of my own music. This album is all home recorded. It’s home produced, home written. I co-directed the music video. I also co-directed another music video which has no release date yet, and production and writing and recording credits all go to me.”

Meera is in the pool, and she is ready “to make waves.”

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