The Korean-American artist was a darling of the underground dance scene, but hadn’t fully reckoned with her painful past. She explains how reiki healing and anime led to clarity and a wondrous debut album
Done (Let’s Get It), the groovy, squelching centrepiece of Yaeji’s debut album With a Hammer, is proof that inspiration – and life-altering revelation, in fact – can arise from the most unlikely of places. A song about breaking cycles of inherited trauma, the Korean-American producer was inspired to write it not after a therapy session or deep meditation, but after watching her dog, Jiji, eat – and realising that she was raising Jiji in a similar way to how her parents and grandparents had raised her.
“My grandpa would make dinner for me and then tell me to eat fast – he was constantly pressuring me in this way that felt really visceral and violent, and I would have indigestion,” she says. “I found myself doing the same thing to Jiji – and while comical, it was also a serious realisation, an example of passing down vicious cycles. It was such a slap in my face.”
