Jonna Emily Lee (born 3 October 1981) is a Swedish singer, songwriter, record producer and visual director. Lee is the creator and artist of audiovisual online project

iamamiwhoami iamamiwhoami ( ) is the electronic music and audiovisual project of Swedish singer-songwriter Jonna Lee in collaboration with her longtime record producer Claes Björklund. The project has, since 2009, released audiovisual series on their ch ...

who since 2009 have released their audiovisual series online, gathering a huge online following. Since her first solo album, she has collaborated with music producer and artist

Claes Björklund iamamiwhoami ( ) is the electronic music and audiovisual project of Swedish singer-songwriter Jonna Lee in collaboration with her longtime record producer Claes Björklund. The project has, since 2009, released audiovisual series on their ch ...

who is also a member of iamamiwhoami. In 2017, Lee started using the moniker ionnalee for her new solo project. In February 2018 she released her debut solo album, ''

Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten ''Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten'' (stylised in all caps) is the third studio album by Swedish singer Jonna Lee. It is her first album under the moniker ionnalee. The album was released on 16 February 2018 via Lee's own record label To whom it ...

''. With the album she also created her own world tour co funded by her fans via

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

. The tour sold out their venues all over the world during 2018. ionnalee remixed Moby's "The Ceremony of Innocence" which was released in December 2018, and in February, her sophomore solo album ''

Remember the Future ''Remember the Future'' is the fourth album from English progressive rock band Nektar. Much like their debut album ''Journey to the Centre of the Eye'', it is a concept album which is formally divided into ten tracks but in fact consists of on ...

'' was announced with the release date 31 May 2019. Lee toured with Norwegian duo

Röyksopp Röyksopp (), a Norwegian electronic music duo from Tromsø formed in 1998. The duo consists of Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland. Berge and Brundtland were introduced to each other through a mutual friend in Tromsø, Norway. They enjoye ...

from 2015 to 2017. She is also a visual director for all her projects and the founder of the independent label To whom it may concern.

Early life

Born in

Linköping Linköping () is a city in southern Sweden, with around 105,000 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Church ...

, Lee grew up in the small village of

Fågelsta Fågelsta is a locality situated in Motala Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 297 inhabitants in 2017. It is located 9 km south of Motala. History Fågelsta grew around a railway line between Hallsberg and Mjölby, which began ...

with her mother and siblings. No one in her family had any musical background but Lee had an interest in music as a young child, and ran away from home to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in her teens due to trying conditions at home. In 2002, Lee moved to

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, where she became a part of the underground indie scene. She started recording her own records that were released through her website until she was signed by the Swedish indie label,

Razzia Records Razzia Records is an independent record label based in Stockholm, Sweden. It is part of the Family Tree Music group along with Catchy Tunes and Family Tree Music, which are together distributed by Sony Music. The label is run by Martina Ledinsky ...

, in the spring 2007. She released two solo albums and one EP through Razzia Records between 2007 and 2009, but left the label in 2010 and started the independent label "To whom it may concern." to release the audiovisual projects of

Career

Lee was briefly part of the

Eurodance Euro-Dance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG, Euro-electronica or Euro) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in Europe. It combines many elements of hip hop, techno, Hi-NRG, house music, and Euro-Disco. This ...

duo Rolling Circus between 1998 and 1999, who released the album ''On The Run'', produced by Swedish musician Hans Edler. After signing with the Swedish label

, she then released her first solo album ''10 Pieces, 10 Bruises'' on 10 October 2007. The first single was "Dried Out Eyes," followed by "And Your Love," a duet with

Ed Harcourt Edward Henry Richard Harcourt-Smith (born 14 August 1977) is an English singer-songwriter. To date, he has released six studio albums, two EPs, and thirteen singles. His debut album, ''Here Be Monsters'', was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Priz ...

, who also produced three tracks on the album. Lee produced the rest of the record with her collaborator,

who is a member of Travis in London.

Supergrass Supergrass are an English rock band formed in 1993 in Oxford. For the majority of the band's tenure, the line-up consisted of brothers Gaz (lead vocals, guitar) and Rob Coombes (keyboards), Mick Quinn (bass, backing vocals) and Danny Goffey ( ...

drummer

Danny Goffey Daniel Robert Goffey (born 7 February 1974) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the drummer and backing vocalist for Supergrass. He briefly toured with Babyshambles in 2010, following their drummer's departure. C ...

plays drums on the record. Some songs were recorded in Goffey's house in England. In September 2008, she released a five-track EP titled ''This War''. Her second studio album ''This Is Jonna Lee'', produced by

and Lee herself, was released in February 2009. In October 2009, she released a version of the industrial electro band

Nitzer Ebb Nitzer Ebb () are a British EBM group formed in 1982 by Essex school friends Vaughan "Bon" Harris (programming, synthesizers, drums, vocals), Douglas McCarthy (vocals), and David Gooday (drums). History Initial releases (1983–1987) The g ...

's song "Violent Playground". The band celebrated it by uploading Lee's version on their website along with an interview with her. Between December 2009 and December 2016, Lee has released music and films under the pseudonym

together with producer

and their visual collaborators. Lee worked as a presenter for the live program P3 SESSION

Sveriges Radio P3 P3 (''Sveriges Radio P3'' or ''pe tre'') is a mainstream CHR-formatted station operated by Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcasting organization Sveriges Radio. The P in P3 originally stood for Program (''Programme'') but today has no ...

between 2009 and 2011.

iamamiwhoami

In March 2010, there was considerable speculation that Lee was the artist featured in the

viral marketing Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way tha ...

videos on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

uploaded by the mysterious

, although her management claimed to be unaware of her involvement. According to rraurl.com and

MTV Brasil MTV Brasil was a Brazilian over-the-air television network owned by Grupo Abril focused on the youth. The network was launched on 20 October 1990, as the first specialty television network to broadcast over-the-air, becoming the local version ...

, the music video for iamamiwhoami's track, "o" was directed by Viktor Kumlin, who's also the director of Lee's music video, "Something So Quiet". This later proved to be wrong. Lee eventually came to be unofficially identified as iamamiwhoami, when she released the music video titled "t" on her channel. She also appears identifiable in the forthcoming music videos released and has performed live at the 2011 Way Out West Festival in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

, Sweden. The project has garnered award nominations and has won a

Grammis The Grammis are music awards presented annually to musicians and songwriters in Sweden. The oldest Swedish music awards, they were instituted as a local equivalent of the Grammy Awards given in the United States. The awards ceremony is generall ...

Award in 2010 for being 'Innovator of the Year'. iamamiwhoami's debut album ''kin'' was released in June 2012 under the label To whom it may concern. via Co-Operative Music, and Lee was credited as the artist, co-producer, songwriter and visual producer of iamamiwhoami, officially confirming that she is iamamiwhoami (which was already known by then). Lee eventually did an interview with

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

in August 2012, and confirmed that she was in the "process of developing iamamiwhoami", also commenting that she was still the "same person", but "found other sides of erself. In March 2022, Lee announced a new iamamiwhoami audiovisual album, '' Be Here Soon.'' The album was released on 3 June 2022.

ionnalee

On 24 February 2017, To whom it may concern., alongside

Comme des Garçons Comme des Garçons (also known as CDG) is a Japanese fashion label based in Paris that was created and led by Rei Kawakubo. Its French flagship store is located in Paris. This label owns a world-wide store chain featuring various lines of prod ...

and

Dover Street Market Dover Street Market is a multi-brand retailer originally located on Dover Street, in Mayfair, London. It has stores in New York City, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing and Los Angeles. Dover Street Market was created by Rei Kawakubo of Japanese fashion ...

, announced the release of a new single by Lee, "Samaritan", and that it was to be released under the new artistic alias of ionnalee. Following the announcement, an Instagram account for the project was launched. One week later, it was announced that To whom it may concern. would be releasing the single on 10 March. The

YouTube channel uploaded a teaser for the accompanying music video for "Samaritan". The official music video was released on 10 March on the same channel. On 2 June 2017, the second single "Not Human" with its accompanying music video followed. A third single, "Simmer Down", was released on 6 October 2017. A fourth single, "Gone", was released on 24 November 2017, followed by an announcement of ionnalee's third studio album, ''

''. The album was released on 16 February 2018 on her label To whom it may concern. On the same day, she revealed an album visual feature film directed by Lee herself alongside director of cinematography and head producer John Strandh to accompany the album. On 2 February 2018, ionnalee launched a campaign on

to fund a world tour for ''Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten''. The pledges included things from universal tickets to the city of choice of the pledger, ionnalee merchandise, props from iamamiwhoami and ionnalee visual projects, to a unique, life-sized, handmade bust, crafted by ionnalee herself. The campaign reached 100% funding within five days, gathering the amount of 375,000 SEK. Later on, more stretch goals were added, in order to bring the tour to more cities. On 15 March 2018, the campaign came to its close, with a total of 750,187 SEK raised. The tour started on 9 May 2018, at

Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

, in London, and in the course of 2018, will spread across Europe, North and South America. On 3 February 2019, ionnalee announced the release of a new single "Open Sea" set to be released on 8 February 2019. On 4 February 2019, it was announced that ionnalee's upcoming second solo album ''

'' is set to be released on 31 May 2019. On 10 February 2020, ionnalee announced a tour, entitled ''Kronologi'', of North America to celebrate the tenth anniversary since the start of the iamamiwhoami project. Unfortunately, the plans for the tour were placed on hiatus due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. On 10 April 2020, ionnalee started releasing unheard tracks from the past ten years under the banner of ''Kronologi''. On 2 September 2020, ionnalee performed her third live-streamed concert, titled ''Konsert'', in place of her canceled ''Kronologi'' tour. The concert was streamed for free on YouTube. She performed alongside her longtime collaborator Class Björklund. The concert featured guest appearances from TR/ST,

Imogen Heap Imogen Jennifer Heap (born 9 December 1977) is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. Her work has been considered pioneering in pop and electropop music. Heap classically trained in piano, cello and clarinet starting at ...

Zola Jesus Nika Roza Danilova (born Nicole Rose Hummel; April 11, 1989), known professionally by her stage name Zola Jesus, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her music has been noted for combining elements of electronic, industrial, ...

and Tungorna.

Artistry

Musical style

Jonna Lee's early projects have been described as

folk-pop Folk-pop is a musical style that may be 1) contemporary folk songs with large, sweeping pop arrangements, or 2) pop songs with intimate, acoustic-based folk arrangements. Recording production values created a unblemished style that appealed to ...

. Her and

's project,

, was considered an

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

act, drawing a mix of styles, including

electropop Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a re ...

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...

art pop Art pop (also typeset art-pop or artpop) is a loosely defined style of pop music influenced by art theories as well as ideas from other art mediums, such as fashion, fine art, cinema, and avant-garde literature. The genre draws on pop art's ...

and

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

. Her music, under the moniker ionnalee, has been termed as electropop,

indie pop Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and sub ...

and art pop.

Influences

Lee stated that she is influenced by

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the ...

Cocteau Twins Cocteau Twins was a Scottish rock band active from 1979 to 1997. They were formed in Grangemouth by Robin Guthrie (guitars, drum machine) and Will Heggie (bass), adding Elizabeth Fraser (vocals) in 1981 and replacing Heggie with multi-instrum ...

Depeche Mode Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in Basildon, Essex, in 1980. The band currently consists of Dave Gahan (lead vocals and co-songwriting) and Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, co-lead vocals and main songwriting). Depeche ...

, Christopher Nolan,

Air The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

and

Vangelis Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( el, Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; el, Βαγγέλης, links=no ), was a Greek composer and arranger of ...

. She also added that she enjoys listening to

Blood Orange The blood orange is a variety of orange ( ''Citrus'' × ''sinensis'') (also referred to as raspberry orange) with crimson, almost blood-colored flesh. The distinctive dark flesh color is due to the presence of anthocyanins, a family of polyp ...

, Arca, Denis Villeneuve, Chromatics,

Four Tet Kieran Hebden (born September 1977), known as Four Tet, is an English electronic musician. He came to prominence as a member of the post-rock band Fridge before establishing himself as a solo artist with charting UK albums such as '' Rounds'' ( ...

Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...

Todd Terje Terje Olsen (born 1981), known professionally as Todd Terje, is a Norwegian DJ, songwriter, and record producer. His stage name is a homage to house music producer Todd Terry. Called "King of the summer jams" by ''Mixmag'', "one third of the Ho ...

Disasterpeace Richard Vreeland (born June 29, 1986), better known by his stage name Disasterpeace, is an American composer and musician. He first got started in music after learning the guitar in high school and started writing music around the age of 17. Kno ...

and Mozart. She has mentioned

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

and

Chaka Khan Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan (), is an American singer. Her career has spanned more than five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Known as the " Qu ...

albums owned by her mother as her favorites when she was young.

Awards, accolades and recognition

''This Is Jonna Lee'' was chosen as the "Next Big Thing" on iTunes USA's front page in May 2009. Lee performed at

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

in Austin, Texas in March 2010. After SXSW, she was in the Top 5 for the SXSW 2010

Next Big Sound Next Big Sound (NBS) is a New York-based company which provides analytics for online music. The company analyses the popularity of musicians in social networks, streaming services, and radio. The company was acquired by Pandora Radio in May 2015. ...

list, which tracks how fast music artists are adding fans across various social networking platforms. In 2010, Lee received a Manifest Award nomination for Best Singer-Songwriter. In December 2018, Jonna Lee received a cultural achievement award from her hometown

. Lee was nominated in 2019 for Best Synth Album of the Year for her album ''

'' at the Swedish independent music awards Manifestgalan. Lee has won three awards as

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums

Extended plays

Compilation albums

Singles

Guest appearances

Remixes

Albums with iamamiwhoami

* ''

Bounty Bounty or bounties commonly refers to: * Bounty (reward), an amount of money or other reward offered by an organization for a specific task done with a person or thing Bounty or bounties may also refer to: Geography * Bounty, Saskatchewan, a g ...

'' (2010–2011; compiled in 2013) * '' In Concert'' (2010) * ''

Kin __NOTOC__ Kin usually refers to kinship and family. Kin or KIN may also refer to: Culture and religion *Otherkin, people who identify as not entirely human *Kinism, a white supremacist religious movement * Kinh, the majority ethnic group of V ...

'' (2012) * ''

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

'' (2014) * ''

Concert in Blue ''Concert in Blue'' (stylised as ''CONCERT IN~BLUE'') is an in-studio live performance installation, also released as film, (the second live release) by Swedish audiovisual project iamamiwhoami, led by singer-songwriter Jonna Lee. It was release ...

'' (2015) * ''Be Here Soon'' (2022)

References

External links

*
To whom it may concern.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Jonna 1981 births 21st-century Swedish singers 21st-century Swedish women singers English-language singers from Sweden Living people Swedish electronic musicians Swedish women singer-songwriters Swedish singer-songwriters Swedish music video directors Swedish pop singers Swedish women in electronic music