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- PHOTO CREDIT: By Rachel Jones – Busted – Manchester, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61585586
Emma Blackery has worn many hats over the years. Now a successful singer-songwriter, she is also a YouTuber, comedian, writer, and one-time waitress.
Emma Blackery was born on 11th November 1991, and grew up in Basildon. She attended sixth form at Bromfords School in Wickford, and wrote songs through her teenage years. In 2012, while working as a waitress in a local café, she began uploading videos onto YouTube. Her first music videos did not gain much traction, and, inspired by other popular YouTubers of the day, she decided to branch out into comedy. She created humorous and quirky skits recounting stories from her life with a relatable angle, and she also had a regular series where she would read out sections from E.L. James’ erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which was very popular until she was forced to halt the series due to copyright complaints. This change in direction gave her channel a huge boost. Emma’s subscriber count skyrocketed, and she was able to quit her waitressing job – and go back to her first love, music.
She released her debut EP, Human Behaviour, in 2012, and a second EP, Distance, in 2013. Her third EP, Perfect, topped the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart for one week, and entered the UK Rock & Metal Singles Chart at number eight the following year. She toured with Busted on their Pigs Can Fly tour in 2016. During this time she was still uploading to her YouTube channel, and in 2013, her video titled “My Thoughts on Google+” went viral after YouTube changed their comment system. The video featured Blackery on a ukulele singing a comedic yet very pointed song about her dislike of the changes YouTube was implementing.
In 2018, Blackery founded her own independent record label, RWG Records, and started working on her first studio album. Blackery worked with Toby Scott, an American record producer and sound mixer, who had previously collaborated with musicians such as Bob Dylan, Bette Middler, and Bruce Springsteen. Villains was released 31 August 2018, and Blackery toured across the UK and Europe to promote the album in October of the same year.
In addition to writing songs, in 2017, Blackery also published Feel Good 101: The Outsiders’ Guide to a Happier Life, a book based on her video series of the same name wherein she discussed mental health, self-esteem, ambition, self-harm, and other issues important to her teenage audience. Although she no longer uploads comedy skits to her YouTube channel, she has released videos about her diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, her interest and research into North Korea, and her journey into making a record. She now lives in Birmingham.