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The profile · researched 29 September 2026
A sword, a skeleton and a pink dress: hemlocke springs after the viral years
Naomi Udu spent three years refusing to rush the album that a TikTok hit demanded of her. Since February 2026 she has had one, an 81-rated debut called the apple tree under the sea, and she is spending the autumn playing it to arena-sized rooms as MUNA's support.
Concord, Spelman, Dartmouth
Isimeme Udu — Naomi to almost everyone — was born on 16 November 1998 and raised in Concord, North Carolina, outside Charlotte, by Nigerian immigrant parents. The household was Christian and the brief was narrow. She has summarised it as being told to get good grades, do what was needed to become a doctor, and find a husband. That framing matters to the music that followed, because almost all of it is about the gap between the instruction and the person receiving it.
She followed the instruction for a while. A biology degree at Spelman College came in 2021, then a master's in medical informatics at Dartmouth in 2023. It was during the postgraduate years that she began putting unnamed songs on SoundCloud and then deleting them again. The hemlocke springs name arrived properly in 2022, attached to material she produced herself, and the first single under it, "Gimme All Ur Luv", came out in May of that year.
She has been direct about how restrictive the early years felt — that navigating the world as a young Black girl meant having to be more practical than everyone around her, and that dreaming freely was not really on offer. The fantasy costume of the later work is not decoration; it is the point.
The hit that arrived before the artist was ready
"girlfriend" went viral on TikTok in late 2022, and the machinery that follows a viral song arrived with it. A debut album was pencilled in for April 2023. She scrapped that timeline and slowed down, releasing the single "sever the blight" in May 2023 and a seven-track EP, going…going…GONE!, that September. She described those songs as records of her thoughts while moving from the young-adult phase into adulthood, and her self-deprecating streak as a way to cover up impending fears. The EP effectively documents her pivot out of medicine in real time.
The slowdown cost her something. The speed of the rise, with no album behind it, brought a run of industry-plant accusations that trailed her for years. The business infrastructure only caught up later: Dreamshop Management in October 2024, OTM Music for publishing in December 2024.
What she did instead of releasing an album was learn the job from the side of the stage. Between 2023 and 2025 she opened for Muna, Ashnikko, Doja Cat, Chappell Roan and Conan Gray. The Roan and Gray runs in 2025 put her in front of crowds with a deeply worked-out costume culture of their own, which she studied closely, and which left her with a blunt assessment of the physical demand: she had been training before, and afterwards she was seriously training.
the apple tree under the sea
The debut arrived on 13 February 2026 through AWAL: ten tracks, thirty-three minutes and twenty-four seconds, recorded across 2023 to 2025, co-produced by Udu with BURNS, mixed by Mitch McCarthy and mastered by Nathan Dantzler. It is a semi-concept record that uses a maritime fantasy allegory to tell the story of leaving the church she was raised in. She did not plan it that way — she thought of it as a collection of good songs, and only recognised the story while explaining the songs to other people. Elsewhere she has called it a rebirth of herself, made after moving to Los Angeles and leaving church behind.
The sequencing carries the allegory. "the red apple" opens inside the childhood bubble; "sense (is)" is the moment of waking up to a wider world. "heads, shoulders, knees and ankles" sets medieval diction over 140bpm drums. "moses" runs biblical imagery through gospel-inflected production. The video for "the beginning of the end" casts her as a warrior in a Rocky-shaped training narrative, and she has been explicit about the weight of a young Black woman taking the fantasy-protagonist role usually handed to white men. During production she deliberately avoided reference tracks, wanting to stay as a-influential as possible, which is audible in a record that wanders between Avril Lavigne-shaped pop-punk, early Scissor Sisters electroclash and 2000s R&B without settling.
Critics largely came down on her side. The album holds 81 out of 100 on Metacritic, with a 9 from Clash and five stars from The Skinny at the top end, four from DIY, and a C+ from Paste as the clearest dissent. NME's verdict was that the wait was justified and that it vindicated the early hype, calling her one of the most flamboyant and honest artists working in pop.
Where she stands now
By mid-2026 the album had landed on best-of-the-year-so-far lists at Rolling Stone, Billboard, NME, Stereogum and The Fader. A new single, "gloria!", followed on 17 September 2026, with a video directed by Jackie! Zhou and shot in the Mojave Desert. Her explanation of the song keeps the album's armoury imagery going: shitstorms are regular, personally and globally, so the job is to get up, grab a sword and go.
She has been unsentimental about the trade in interviews this year, saying the rose-coloured glasses are off and that it is hard to be freely creative while doing the sums on what the career costs. What she wants is stated plainly — to be an alt pop star, equally catchy and experimental.
The immediate work is a support slot, but a large one. She is out with MUNA across North America from 17 September to 21 October 2026, a run that includes both editions of All Things Go — Washington, D.C. and Queens — plus a Brooklyn Steel date on 27 September and rooms she has not previously played: two nights at Roadrunner in Boston on 1 and 2 October, Toronto's Queen Elizabeth Theatre on 6 October, the Salt Shed in Chicago on 9 October, Santa Barbara Bowl on 17 October, Frost Amphitheater at Stanford on 18 October, and Red Rocks on 21 October to close.
Building a show out of props and stamina
The headline run came first. The Apple Tree Under the Sea Tour was announced on album release day, went on sale on 20 February, and played from 15 May to 14 June 2026, with a single Canadian date at Toronto's Mod Club on 2 June, Governors Ball on 7 June and Bonnaroo on 14 June bracketing the end of it.
The staging that emerged is small by design. At a sold-out Wonder Ballroom in Portland on 22 May, she opened for herself — a support slot of storytelling and props performed in character — then came back in an enormous iridescent pink dress for the set proper, backed by two musicians, one on bass and keyboards and one on drums. The props were a skeleton wearing the purple-and-blue wig from the album cover and a papier-mâché sword. Spectrum Culture's Holly Hazelwood read it as deliberate: no separation between artist and fan, no smoke and mirrors to keep her fans at arm's length, with the honest caveat that a few songs still needed road time, and the prediction that rooms that size would not hold her much longer.
By the European leg the structure had firmed up into two named acts. At The Garage in London on 8 July, with Ruti opening, she played seventeen songs: Act I ran the album's opening arc in order, from "the red apple" and "sense (is)" through "stranger danger!", "heavun", "head, shoulders, knees and ankles", "the train to nowhere" and "the beginning of the end"; Act II reached back for "gimme all ur luv", a cover of Depeche Mode's "Fools", "w-w-w-w-w", "moses", "set me free", "going…going…GONE!", "enknee1" and "girlfriend". The viral song sat mid-set rather than last. The encore was "sever the blight" and "be the girl!"
The show, now
A hemlocke springs headline set in 2026 runs about an hour plus an encore and is built around performance rather than production. At the sold-out Wonder Ballroom in Portland on 22 May she opened for herself with an in-character set of storytelling and props, then returned in a large iridescent pink dress, backed by two musicians — one on bass and keyboards, one on drums. The only staging is a skeleton wearing the purple-and-blue wig from the album cover and a papier-mâché sword. The setlist is drawn almost entirely from the apple tree under the sea and going…going…GONE!, and by the London show at The Garage on 8 July it had settled into two acts and an encore across seventeen songs: the album's opening run in sequence, then a second act of older material plus a cover of Depeche Mode's "Fools", with "girlfriend" placed mid-set rather than saved for the end, and "sever the blight" and "be the girl!" as the encore. Support in London was Ruti. Reviewers have noted a young crowd that knows the three-month-old album word for word, and rated the closeness between her and the room as the main asset — Spectrum Culture's verdict was that there was no separation between artist and fan and no smoke and mirrors, with the qualification that some songs still needed more nights on the road. Through autumn 2026 she is playing a shorter support slot on MUNA's North American run, in rooms up to Red Rocks on 21 October.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · diymag.com · readdork.com · nme.com · spectrumculture.com · setlist.fm · songkick.com
Pictures
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited
CamilaAlves.raf · CC BY-SA 4.0
