In a town built on hip-hop and indie rock, it’s not every day that a Baltimore singer-songwriter finds herself a rising country act in Nashville, Tennessee. But Emma White is not interested in the old way of doing things. It’s why her new EP, The Actress, flips the script on love songs, drinking songs, songs about success and stardom, and it’s garnered her attention from the likes of Billboard and Rolling Stone. And after years of being turned down for her male counterparts, she’s launching her own female-forward label, Whitehouse Records, too. On the heels of her launch, we caught up with White about Baltimore radio, her country roots, and gender bias in the music industry.

Growing in Baltimore, what was your first introduction to country music?
The first country group that I loved was the Dixie Chicks. I was the perfect age to become obsessed with them, and they were my first concert, at what is now the Royal Farms Arena. I always say the lead singer, Natalie Maines, taught me how to sing. They were just unapologetic and leaned very pop. But I didn’t really listen to country radio, like WPOC; as a high schooler, I really listened to a lot of the hip-hop and R&B stations, because that’s what was big then. 92Q was my favorite.

You went to school for music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Did you know at that point what sound you wanted to pursue?
I really wanted to be the female Justin Timberlake. I did not think I was a country artist, but I had a lot of people guiding me in that direction. My family has always loved country music, and when I was growing up, they had hootenannies and I’d show up and sing a Lauryn Hill song. I wanted to be different and loud and proud about what I liked, and I think I fought it more because that’s just my personality. But at Berklee, I started to write by myself and on the guitar, not to loops and beats like I had been. My songwriting just changed, and I started to really love country and the craft of writing a country song.

After college, how did you make your way to Nashville?
I came home to try to figure out where I should move. I didn’t know where to go—L.A. or New York or Nashville. I played in Baltimore for a while and made trips to all those other cities where I would play all of the singer-songwriter clubs to, like, nobody. But it’s good practice. You learn to stick it out. Now I feel very comfortable on stage; I love to perform live. But my dreams felt too big in New York and L.A.; here, I could actually make connections with people. It felt like there was a community, and a way to work your way up. Like I could make some tangible goals and execute them.

And now you’re releasing a new EP. Your first single, “Ten Year Town,” sparked some national buzz with its release earlier this summer. What are other seminal songs for you?
The title track, “The Actress,” is one of my favorites. It’s about struggling with depression. A large portion of my 20s was spent battling that and making it out of that darkness has been a huge part of my life thus far. I had lost a friend to it around the time I wrote the song, and the words just came to me in the car in full, which never happens. I’ve come a long way and want people listening to know they’re not alone if they’re going through sometime and there is a way to get better.

With the release of this album, you’re also launching your own label, Whitehouse Records.
I’ve always wanted to have my own label and have always looked up to artists who do. I’m a huge Jay Z fan and he couldn’t get a deal, so he started his own label that grew into Roc Nation. I just never thought it would happen so soon; I thought it would be later on in a longer career.

Why now?
What sparked the immediacy was the gender bias I was experiencing. It just kept happening and I thought, am I just going to keep having the same meetings, over and over again, where people tell me, ‘Well, you know how to write a song, but we don’t have a lane for you, we don’t pitch female songwriters, its riskier to sign women, they’re not playing them on the radio.’ Women were looked at as a bad investment. It was enough of hearing that my gender was the issue. I realized I had to do something about it. And so, we want to fill this need of supporting women, but the overarching goal is diversity and inclusion.

Back in Baltimore, your songs have been on the radio, particularly on WPOC. What has that been like?
It’s been cool. My family and friends tape it for me whenever it comes on. My dad sent me a video on his way to work at the 8 o’clock hour, which was pretty neat.

We can officially file this one under the “who knew?” category. 

Civil rights activist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch reunited with his college buddies and they are releasing a country album tomorrow called Children at Play. 

The bandmates—Branch along with Bill Guy and John Yelverton—met in 1966 while students at UNC-Chapel Hill. More than 40 years later, they reunited to form the country band Off Our Rocker.

“On a lark, at a reunion, we stayed up all night recording covers from the golden era of crossover soul and British invasion,” the band’s website says. “Off Our Rocker rolls again—we are still demented, decked out, and delirious.”

The band’s latest album, Children at Play, debuts June 30 and features covers from the Beatles, Kinks, and Conway Twitty, as well as a few original songs. 

Branch went on Facebook and acknowledged that his country music debut is a bit of a curveball from his usual fodder about charged politics and race relations.

“Allow a quick chance to relieve regular work and dreary national news with surprising fun,” he wrote.

Cover tracks include Conway Twitty’s “It’s Only Make Believe,” the Beatles’ “And Your Bird Can Sing,” and a particularly harmonious version of “Please Mr. Postman” by The Marvelettes. 

“Please circulate the link,” Branch wrote on Facebook, “especially if you think one of the four original songs has potential to be crazy good instead of just odd.”

He signed the message, appropriately, “all you need is love.”

You live in Nashville but are originally a Maryland boy.
Yep. I grew up in Berlin and Ocean City, and then I went to Towson [University] and played football. I was a linebacker.

There’s definitely a thread of small-town life that runs through your music—not to mention country music, in general. Is that the Eastern Shore influence?
My biggest influence growing up was my father. He was big into the old country—the Willies and Waylons and Merles. So the first songs I learned, really, were the “three chords and the truth” songs. But the Eastern Shore is just such a beautiful place. There’s kind of a relaxed atmosphere. Everybody is just kind and nice and wants to fish and go out on the boat. And there are a lot of songs that you haven’t heard just yet that I’m recording now for my next album that are summertime, beach songs. It all ties in. It shaped my personality, which, in turn, shapes my music and my writing.

One of your songs, “Superman,” is the anthem for the nonprofit ZERO—The End of Prostate Cancer. How’d that happen and what has the reaction been?
We are all touched by [cancer]. But I really wanted to dive into this [cancer], specifically. So I started reading about it and this guy, Phil Shulka, he was a stage 3 cancer patient who was not given more than, I think, a five percent chance of living, and he beat it and he has been a survivor for over 11 years. So he works for Chesapeake Urology and what he does is, when somebody finds out they have cancer, he goes to their bedside and says, ‘Look, I was not supposed to make it. If you’re only a stage 2, I was a stage 3. This is what you can do. This is what you can expect. These are some of your options. This is what my experience was.’ So he can give them some hope. So I was like, ‘What an amazing thing this guy does every day. Let’s get this guy to Nashville, so we can sit down and talk to him.’ And we did, we brought him into the BMI building right on Music Row and we took him in to a writer’s room—I can’t tell you how many hit songs have been written in the same room—and myself and Goose Gossett, who is another great writer in town and lead guitarist in my band, we sat down and we just listened to him talk for 45 minutes, and we just took notes.

After he was done, we just started writing and about two-and-half hours later we came out with a hit song. And it has really just touched so many lives. We sent it back to ZERO, just as an acoustic rough and they were blown away. They were like, ‘We’ve got people in the office crying right now listening to this. How did you guys do this?’ So that turned into their anthem song and then that turned into creating a music video that I then presented to CMT and GAC and tons of other outlets and everybody picked it up, which is hard to do because they get hundreds of submissions per day. So it premiered with CMT, which was huge for the song, the message, and me as an artist to be able to have that. And then ZERO asked me to become their national spokesman because I did a lot of interviews going into the race and I really studied up and learned about the organization and spoke well and it’s a lot easier for me to get on a morning shows and things like that. It’s more fun, I guess, to talk to a country artist with the story rather than just a doctor trying to get you to come to their urology center, you know what I mean? ‘Hey, you need to come in and get your butt checked!’ You know? Last year I toured the country, and we raised over $3.5 million.

It’s fun to have summertime drinking songs, those things are great, but they’ll be forgotten. But a song like this—the amount of emails and messages I’ve received from people who are going through the battle of their lives. . . . It’s just incredible what a song can mean to them to provide hope.

You were on American Idol, season 9. Do you consider that your big break?
That was probably the most exciting moment of my life, to get a golden ticket to Hollywood on American Idol. [But] it’s not something that, at this point in my career, I necessarily hang my hat on. It’s not something I keep saying, ‘Hey, guess what? I was on American Idol!’ I didn’t win and you’re on to the next thing.

Now, this whole project [the ZERO cancer work and “Superman”] is what I’m most proud of, and I just recently had another song in the Top 40 of NSAI [Nashville Songwriters Association International]. They are the biggest songwriters association in the world and they’re based right here in Nashville. One of my songs, “Cowboy Soul,” was in their Top 40 this year, which is a huge honor. I love that song, but I was surprised it wasn’t “Superman.” Now, I’ve actually just been asked to perform at their publisher’s luncheon and meeting where they have every single publisher, big and small, which is an amazing thing to be able to do, to sing in front of every publisher in town. So that happens [this month], July 21, actually.

You’re also playing shows around the Eastern Shore this month.
It’s important for me to get back there as much as possible. And Fourth of July is a great time for me to do it. We have six shows lined up, the 6th through the 10th. Any excuse I can take to get to the beach and back home, I’m going to use it. They have lakes here in Nashville and the lakes are nice. We’ve got the redneck yacht clubs and we all tie up and get on the rafts, but lakes just ain’t the same as that ocean.

Well, it’s obvious you love it. You even wrote a song about Ocean City.
Yeah, I did. And Baltimore. And Maryland. There’s “Back to Baltimore” and “I Miss My Maryland,” too. Yeah, so I’ve got Ocean City, Baltimore, and Maryland all covered!