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OnesToWatch: Who are you? 

Anna Margo: I am Anna Margo.
I am a singer, producer, multi instrumentalist, and I have been doing music pretty much my whole life in some shape or form. I started off with a classical piano background. 

So was that your first instrument?

Yes, absolutely. Before I could walk, I was hopping onto the keyboard and hitting it, I gravitated towards it the second I saw a keyboard. Then when I was eight or nine, they started taking me to actual classical lessons, which in the classical world is pretty late, but my parents went through the Soviet classical abuse and they didn't want to put me through that. But they realized that I actually love it and I would probably enjoy it. It was a natural affinity for it. I wasn't forced into it, I honestly just fell in love with it really fast. My piano teacher was so chill, which is not the norm, and he would let me choose what I wanted to play. That cultivated more of the genuine love for it, rather than strict guidelines. I did a solo recital a year later, at 10, with 50 of our family friends and competitions snowballed into singing. I always sang, but we started to realize that it was looking like this is a life thing, that I’m going to be a musician. It's not a hobby. When I was 14, I went to freshman year of public school, did the whole schpiel – sports, class president, all that – and then end of the year, my dad gave me an ultimatum of, if I want to actually pursue music for real, they could homeschool me. He just knew it was competitive and if I was going to do it, we had to start now. It was literally based off his belief in me. I had no manager. We had no knowledge of this industry. We had no plan. It was just a gut instinct. 

What a beautiful gift from your dad. 


Yes, but also terrifying for a 14 year old to do that and leave everyone, leave all my friends. 

Did you right away feel like you wanted to make that choice?

Yes. I did want to do that. I was very upset to leave everybody. And especially my sport, I played water polo and I was so attached to my team. That was the hardest thing, honestly, the camaraderie was gone and all of a sudden I’m home alone in front of the piano, writing songs. It was like, holy shit, what have I actually done? It became kind of a weird controversy at school. No one actually believed or knew why I left. 

You became lore. 


Yes, it was lore. It was very strange. Especially in our Armenian culture, there's three jobs that are acceptable. It's nursing, doctor, lawyer. That's pretty much it. I started posting covers on YouTube, taking rap songs and flipping them with guitar. Some of them went viral and that's how I met my first manager. Very quickly, I told him I don't want to do covers. I just wanted to write, develop my craft. I started being put in sessions left and right with different producers. I’m 15 working with 40 year old grown producers and they're giving me a track and they're like, okay, write to this. And it's on me. So I think that anxiety propelled me into becoming a very fast worker because I don't want anyone waiting for me. This is too much pressure. So that gave me the best experience to become a producer, slowly. I started to learn from them. I learned Pro Tools. I interned for a producer who had a wrist injury. He basically would let me comp the vocals for his artists because he physically couldn't do it. That trained me into getting into engineering and I built my studio slowly, started buying gear. Then I just kept developing. I kept producing, writing and I genuinely didn't feel ready to put anything out until 2021. Because I just had nothing to say. At least I felt like I had nothing important to say yet. 

There must have been a time when you felt you were writing just for yourself. Was that right from the beginning or did you have to f learn to do that as you were immediately thrown in with session writing? 

Yeah, I was always writing for myself. My first memory of writing is when I found a book of poems from when I was six, and there was this one poem that I just really liked and I started singing to it. I created a melody on top of this poem and that's the first memory I have of creating a song. It was always second nature, but being given a brief for an artist, I think, trained me in a very, very necessary way where now I have the skill set to be given a sense of direction, and I can create off the rip, just based off what I'm naturally going through. But I honestly enjoy both. 

Do you have a process? Is there a way you come about composition normally? 

I gravitate towards, like, a chord progression that really moves me first or a sound bite or loop, something that catches my ear and I become addicted to listening to it. I could be driving and randomly have an idea and I'll record it, then go home and start developing it. Or, there are times where I'm practicing classical piano and start messing around and I'm like, wait, holy shit, that's really cool. Or it could be intentionally scrolling through Splice or something and trying to find a loop. I build the production around it and immediately already hear a melody and once I lock that in, then I start writing lyrics. It's just how I naturally create.
It's just that's how it comes. out of me. 

Okay, love that. On the topic of you also being a skilled producer, how has it been navigating the balance of men and women in production? 

I've met female engineers at studios that I worked at that were so cool and so confident in what they do. And the one thing I've noticed is that they are always so much more eager to learn than male engineers for some reason. Most female engineers producers I've come across are so ears perked up at all times and they're like, oh, that's cool, what does that do? I think we feel we have more to prove for some reason than the other way around. 

Let's get into your most recent work and project.
How old are these songs? What moment does this capture? What's the theme of everything? 


It's actually pretty interesting, my first EP came out in 2024. I worked with Timbaland on that. I was already 80% of the way done and then he put his little flair on it and it was a dream come true, but I kind of realized after that when there's too many cooks in the kitchen, the art and the feeling gets lost. It was a lesson for me. Then the fires happened. I had to evacuate my studio. I had been going through an existential crisis and I was overthinking such petty, useless issues I was dealing with and second guessing why I'm even doing this. Is this worth it?
And then when I had to evacuate, it was a reality check of everything can be taken from you at any second and I'm actually so, so, so blessed to have a studio of my own. I don't need to rely on anyone. Why am I waiting for other producers to tell me?
Like, who cares? So the second I came back, I just started writing and it was like a month of being locked in the room and there was no intention behind it. I was just like, let me see what happens.
If I just create and there's nobody else in the room, I don't ask somebody for approval when I finish it. I'm just like, let me just fuck around and see what comes out. And that's how I made this EP. Most of the songs were made that week. There was one idea that was a little older, but I never finished it and it was something I had posted that went viral and it was just me creating this beat. That was the first song on the project and it was the first single that came out, but most of these songs were just a one day thing. I finished it in two days and then moved on to the next. It was a constant outpour of freedom. I can just create, no limits. It's the best music I had made thus far. Now I’ve made even better music, but it's kind of a secret for later. 

Well, that's a very interesting genesis, literally born out of fire. How do you self-edit? Were those the only songs you created? I can't imagine that's the case, so how did you sort of choose what makes the project and what doesn't? 

I listen to them back to back and see what makes sense together, which are from the same world. There's maybe one or two that didn't make it, but might make it on the next project or be sent to a different artist. But, it was pretty clear. It wasn't a long decision making process. It was just undeniable that this is a project. These belong together. 

Beautiful. Do you have ambitions? Do you hope this project takes you somewhere? And if so, what is that? 

I, in general, am a very ambitious person. But I don't have a timeline on it. I don't have expectations. I don't really care what happens.
I'm just having fun right now. I know that there will be some growth because I believe in my team. I believe in my work ethic and the content that I put out is really creative and I enjoy doing it. Every single post of mine, there's something fruitful that came out of it, whether it's big or small. It's not really about how it blows up or to what extent. It's not my business. I had a great time making this EP and I'm excited to share it with the world and if it connects with a hundred people, I did my job. There's so much you can't control in this industry that I'm more focused on what I can control, which is getting better and developing my craft. I have somewhat of an audience at this point and I think from an audience's perspective, it's so exciting to see someone get better consistently.
So I'm looking forward. I can't wait to put this out so I can put the new set of songs out. There's no real specific metric I'm looking for with this EP. Just any growth. 

Do you have an expectation for what your audience takes from it? Do you hope they take a certain message or a feeling from it?


I'm not fucking around anymore. I think they already are feeling that because I've never been this consistent with posting and singles, my singles have been so sporadic in the past, even if they were connected to the same project.
This is the first time that I have a rollout this well-prepared with this kind of fearless energy that I don't think I gave off before. So, I think they're already feeling it, but it's going to continue to grow and it's just exciting. 

I love that you've hinted at this next project already a few times, I guess we'll have to wait for that one. I'm going to pivot to hopefully some more fun questions for you. If you could put together a dream festival lineup, who would you want to perform with? 

Oh, that's a loaded question. SZA, Clairo, Samara Cyn, Radiohead. I honestly listen to everything. I'd be honored to perform with any of this new generation of alternative R&B, it’s so awesome.

If close friends ambushed you at your place and everyone's hungry, could you whip up a meal and if so, what would it be? 

Absolutely. This is a hidden talent of mine. I can cook, but I don't that often because I'm literally lost in the sauce, but Thanksgiving is my time to shine. So I would go mac and cheese. It's like my famous mac and cheese. Also, a prime rib. 

Okay, I was not expecting that. 

And then I make these crazy ham slice sliders. And for balance, some broccolini. 

That sounds delicious. 

That's my go-to. 

If you could be at your most Zen, you're most relaxed, what are you doing? 

I am in my bedroom with my two dogs next to me, sprawled, lying down. Maybe with a book. 

Okay. If you had an alternative course of life, what would you be doing? 


Screenwriting. I went to acting class for a while, and growing up, I was always at a crossroads of, do I want to go into acting or do I want to go into music? But music is so much more expansive. I'm kind of in every single facet of it. Acting, I feel like one day maybe it'll happen, but screenwriting specifically, I'm so into it.
I've read screenwriting books. I'm a film buff. I love watching film criticism and I love writing dialogue. When I stopped going to acting class, my coach was really upset with me and to make up for it, I would write scenes and send them to him for his students in class. To this day, he’ll be like, “Yo, we just did this scene that you wrote two years ago.” Maybe one day I'll actually do that, if I weren't full time doing music, I think that is another thing I would absolutely enjoy. 


I think there's tons of parallels there, with storytelling in general. Last couple of questions. I would love a non-music recommendation. It can literally be anything, a place to visit, how to work out, what to do.

I have one book that changed my life. Joe Dispenza, it’s called Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. Genuinely, there's a before and after of when I read this book, what I was like before I read this book, and what I'm like afterwards. I have to constantly remind myself of the themes of this book. It's about our default as humans being very self-centered and negative and how much easier it is to divert into pessimism. Acting like a victim to life. The law of the universe is that when you give off that energy and you send that out, the universe has no choice but to give you more evidence of that being true. If you're in this constant state of suffering, which is a choice, it's going to constantly be reconfirmed because that's what you're asking for. And it's just the belief that you're not given what you want. And I realized that's what was broken in my mindset. Once I let go and switched that to the idea that I already won, it's like I’m living my dream already. You create that world in your head and it's reflected back to you. 


I love it. 
All right. Now how about some music? It can be an artist, a couple artists. 

I already mentioned her, but Samara Cyn’s new single, my theme song of the week. I've had that on repeat. It's just no fucks given energy. Everyone needs that a little bit right now.

I would love to just end on your words.

Look for the little things in the day to day. I think we're so focused on big goals and our whole life, our whole day to day revolves around those big goals, but there's so many little happy moments throughout the day that we miss. Just enjoy the process. I have been having so much more fun thinking of things a little more lightly. I love feeling the sun on my face today and that made me smile and that's enough today. 


That was great. Thank you so much. 

Thank you.