Umii, the new project of R&B singer Reva DeVito and Los Angeles-based producer B. Bravo (AKA Adam Mori), just released their debut EP, This Time, and it’s already received tons of positive feedback. It was even voted a number-one EP by Jamz Supernova in her weekly roundup for BBC 1Xtra.
DeVito and Mori first decided to make music together after meeting in Portland in 2011.
“[We] were cranking out a bunch of songs and demos, and then I had her featured on my album,” Mori says. “We were like, ‘Yeah, we got all this music. Why don’t we just start a group together?’ So we came up with a name and a concept, and that’s how Umii was born.”
“And we became besties in the meantime,” DeVito adds. “Adam also DJs for my solo stuff a lot of the time.... We get along super well and just have a blast. He plays live keys and does, like, little synth solos, and just kind of livens it up a little bit. We love working together.”
Umii resembles the Japanese word for “ocean,” which pays homage to Mori’s heritage, and is also similar to the Arabic word for “mother.”
“What we were going for is kind of the combination of those two,” Mori explains. “Water is life, you know? And mothers also—women also—give life.”