There’s no exact English translation for ‘saudade’, but Monqi’s new single gets pretty close. The rising Sheffield artist chats to Exposed about songwriting as therapy, finding her groove and what’s coming next on the gig front.
First of all, thank you for teaching me a new word: saudade. How did you come across it?
I had the song written and didn’t have a name for it for ages. I was describing how it felt and what it was about to a friend of mine who’s Brazilian, and he was like, “Oh, I have a word for that – it’s saudade.” It fitted the song perfectly.
Do you know what came into my head while I was listening to it? I thought it should be playing during a late-summer golden hour in Crookes Valley Park, with the sun glinting off the water. It has that dreamy, hazy summer nostalgia to it. Where were you in your head when you wrote it?
I wrote it maybe two or three years ago now. The whole song is me remembering this romance I had. I was with this person during lockdown, so it was a really weird time and very transformational for me. Everything was different. There was a lot of freedom and a lot of restriction all at the same time.
But in amongst all of that, I fell in love. We met at the start of the summer, in late spring, and then had this beautiful romance throughout the summer. I feel like the song is just capturing that feeling of being in love, when the days are so long and it always feels like golden hour.
There’s a mixture of that warm, summery nostalgia with something more melancholic underneath. Were you conscious of making sure it didn’t lean too far one way or the other?
I think it just came out naturally that way. After the relationship ended, I was yearning for a long time. It was perfect for what it was and maybe the beauty of it is that it was just a snapshot.
But afterwards I was very heartbroken and I couldn’t really go near that heartbreak for a while. Writing the song was actually very healing because it allowed me to revisit it and turn that really bittersweet feeling into something I could interact with – a world I could step into where that feeling is embodied.
That’s key to moving on, isn’t it? Getting to a point where you can look back and be grateful for the experience while still moving forward.
Yeah. When I realised, ‘Oh, I think I’m actually ready to write about this,’ I wanted to capture the feeling of a love song, but a love song in hindsight.
That idea of vulnerability and working through complicated emotions is a recurring thread in your music. Is that conscious, or is it simply what comes out when you write?
Writing is so therapeutic for me. A lot of the poetry and music I write comes from sitting and being very present with how I feel. I think storytelling is such a powerful healing tool as well.
There is a conscious part of it. It’s like: how do I really get to the heart of what I’m feeling right now? Then how do I share that in a way where I’m being very vulnerable, but it still feels safe to do so?
I think you can do that through music and poetry, through metaphor and different ways of writing. Ultimately, what I usually want to achieve when I write something is connection, and I think connecting requires a lot of vulnerability.
Is this single building towards a wider body of work?
I’ve got so much music that we’re formulating into a larger body. I’m still figuring out exactly what that’s going to look like, but there’s a lot of it.
I think it’s just about making those decisions around what we’re working towards right now. I’m really enjoying being in this place where it’s all just manifesting.
When we last caught up in December 2024, you were still finding your feet as an artist. Looking at the last 12 months, it feels like there’s been a lot of development. Do you feel like you’re really finding your groove now?
It does feel like it.
When I first decided, ‘I’m an artist and I want to be an artist,’ I think I thought, ‘Right, well, I need to do something then. I need to release loads of stuff. I need to prove something.’
I realised that maybe that was jumping the gun a bit. There’s been a lot of very quiet, behind-the-scenes work going into building a foundation, but I feel like that foundation is really strong now. The fruits of all that work are coming together and it’s so exciting.
Follow @_monqi_ for gig and release updates.
