Producer and Singer Ace Tee on Her Latest EP ‘Ace X’

When producer and singer, Ace Tee’s hit R&B joint, “Bist du down,” exploded across the internet in 2017, music blogs and style mags gleefully compared her sound to a modern day TLC with the twist of German lyrics. 

“At first it was definitely a little bit overwhelming,” she tells us of suddenly being in the global glare of the hype machine, “but I knew I was made for this and this is what I always wanted to do, so I quickly got used to it. I learned to work with those achievements and turn them to my advantage.” 

Notable collaborations included working with Chanel and releasing a streetwear collection with H&M, while always looking ahead to her next record. Three years later, she’s back with her latest EP, Ace X. This time around, the R&B aesthetic is futuristic and moody, and her trademark husky vocals are overlaid on complex beats and restless bass lines. She hasn’t felt the weight of her earlier success on this record though: “During the time between Tee Time and Ace X, I worked a lot with fashion brands and expressed my creative mind there. For Ace X I didn’t do anything different than I did before, so there wasn’t a lot of pressure involved.” 

Wryly refusing to tell us how many iterations there were of Ace X before she was happy to release it to the world, Ace hints that it may have been quite a few: “I made a lot of songs that I liked in the beginning but then after a few times listening to it or after a few weeks I didn’t like them at all so now they’re just lying around. I have a lot of songs that I started or even already have finished. My opinions change quick so I need to be very satisfied with what I do all the time.” 

The drive to perfection in all that she’s doing is why she 

realized she could teach herself production better than college could, and why she retains creative control on her own songs and directs her videos. “My mind is full of ideas and it’s not always easy to explain what kind of picture I imagine something to be. Over time I arranged my own team I know I can trust with my ideas. It’s definitely easier working with people like Lea Resech and Wassili Franko that understand my vision, but in the end it’s my video or song, so I want it to be completely under my control.”

 

@acetee