Emily Nenni

Whenever Emily Nenni is onstage, she welcomes everybody to the dancefloor. The California-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter wants the honkytonk to be a place of escape, where fans can shed their troubles for a few hours and feel safe and free. “You can have trouble whenever you mix late hours and alcohol,” she says. “I’ve been in bad situations before, and I’ve tried to learn from those experiences. But it’s heartbreaking that some people don’t feel safe or don’t feel like they’re allowed to exist in this world. So I’m always watching the dancefloor and making sure everybody’s being respectful.” Or, as she sings on the supremely funky title track to her new album Movin’ Shoes, “Here’s where you dress for you and dance the way that you want to.” Movin’ Shoes is an album about how we treat each other and how we treat ourselves—whether we’re at the honkytonk or not—and Nenni writes and sings like someone who has seen enough shit go down that she’s not going to allow any more, at least not on her watch. “When I was writing these songs, I was thinking about just how hard it is to live in this world,” she says. “How are we leaving our mark in this world? How are we interacting with other people and with ourselves, too? Pain is part of the human experience. The world is so scary, but there’s so much beauty to it. And so much of that beauty comes from how we treat each other and ourselves. That's the album's entire message.”