Amber Mark is an American singer, songwriter, and producer. She released her debut album, 3:33am, in May 2017. Her multifaceted style implements sounds from hip hop, R&B, soul, and bossa nova. She was nominated for "Best Engineered Album" at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.
Life and career
1993–2015: Early life
Mark was born on a farm in Tennessee in 1993 to her German mother, Mia, and her Biological American Father by the name of Amos Larkins who is an American music producer credited for being one of the pioneers of the music genreMiami Bass. Her parents split up when Mark was one year old; she lived with her mother in Miami until the age of nine when they moved to India so that her mother could study Thangka, a traditional Buddhist form of art. After three years living in a monastery in India, Mark and her mother moved to Berlin, and after graduating high school at the age of 18 she moved to New Yorkto live with her godparents. Her mother, Mia, died on 3 June 2013 at the age of 60. It was her mother who gave Mark her first guitar, which is when she started to teach herself how to play music. In high school, she joined the school choir and an "after school band program". She stated in an interview that this was when she realized that being an artist was what she wanted to do. Her mother was a huge part of her early life and one of her first songs was in dedication to her mother's passing in 2013. At the age of four years old, Amber Mark's mother was able to get concert tickets for Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour. When they arrived they were told that they are not allowed to go to the seating area because Amber was too young at the time. A man at a merchandise table generously gave Amber and her mother "All Access" passes as long as they wouldn't go backstage. They ended up seeing the concert from the VIP area and stood next to Boris Becker. Amber remembers crying after the concert was over.
2016–present: Musical career
Mark released her debut single "S P A C E" to her Soundcloud in 2016. In 2017 she released her first album, "3:33am". As Mark explained, "hree has been a really common number in my life. My mother was born in 1953, my brother was born in 1983 and I was born in 1993. Then my mum passed away on June 3, at 10:23pm in 2013. Since then, I'd see threes everywhere. When I was writing the EP in New York... and out of the zone, I would check the clock and I always remember it being 3:33am." The album art features a photo taken by her sister, in which Mark is wearing a watch that reads 3:33. Each song on the record represents one of the six stages of grief. The song "Monsoon" includes samples of her mother's voice, which she explained in an interview with Sound of Boston as "a video recording of me flying back to New York for the summer while we were living in Berlin. I wanted to make a video for my godmother from my mother. Hence why I’m telling her that they don’t speak German and that she needs to speak English. When she says she loves me that is from a more recent recording she made for me while she was in hospice." Her mother, Mia, also influenced her fashion greatly and Mark elaborates on this influence in her 2017 interview with Vogue as the "3:33am" album was just released. In 2018 she issued the EP "Conexão" that included the single "Love Me Right".
