TikTok Star Emma Harner Unveils New Album, ‘Taking My Side’

If you’ve been on TikTok or Instagram lately and stumbled across a girl with mind-blowing guitar skills and a voice that hits you right in the gut—chances are, you’ve already met Emma Harner.

The rising singer-songwriter and guitarist just dropped her debut EP, Taking My Side, and announced her very first headline tour. It’s called The Taking My Side Tour, and it’ll hit four cities—Los Angeles, New York, London, and Berlin. Honestly? Not bad for a girl who got her start posting dreamy guitar videos on TikTok.

Emma’s debut is the kind of record that sounds like growing pains in real-time, in the best way. Across five tracks, she explores friendship fallouts, self-worth, heartbreak, homesickness, and everything else that hits a little too hard when you’re in your 20s. But instead of sugarcoating it, she lays it all out with intricate guitar work and gut-punch lyrics that feel like she’s been in your group chat. “’Taking My Side’ is a collection of songs from a time in my life when I was going through some big changes,” she shares. “The title is a reference to the song ‘Yes Man,’ which is about a friendship gone awry. To me, ‘taking my side’ means putting myself first, not being such a pushover, and recognizing when someone is working against me.”

And it’s not just the lyrics doing the heavy lifting, Emma’s guitar playing is unreal. Seriously. If math rock and bedroom folk had a baby raised on heartbreak playlists and music theory homework, it might sound like this. Her fans love her for the way she mixes emotional honesty with mind-blowing fingerwork, and Taking My Side shows off both in full color.

If you’ve been following Emma for a while, this release feels like a full-circle moment. She first caught the internet’s attention with her viral covers on Instagram and TikTok, but she really started turning heads after her debut single, “When You Mean It,” premiered as a Zane Lowe World First. Since then, she’s opened for artists like mxmtoon, Tiny Habits, and The Bygones, and toured as direct support for Orla Gartland across the U.S. and Europe. Not to mention, she’s been shouted out by Rick Beato and featured in Guitar.com, Fretboard Journal, and EARMILK.

And now? She’s taking the lead.

The EP includes two previously released tracks—“False Alarm” and “Do It”—plus three new ones that go just as hard: “Yes Man,” “Lifetimes,” and “Again.” Each one is packed with tiny emotional gut-checks. “False Alarm” captures that weird, hollow feeling of being far from home. “Do It” is about miscommunication and messy endings. “Yes Man” unpacks what happens when people-pleasing goes too far. “Lifetimes” is floaty, existential, and kind of devastating. And then there’s “Again”—the closer that aches in slow motion.

“Through it all, I think I just wanted to be honest,” Emma says. “These songs were a way of working through things, but also figuring out who I am now. I didn’t want to hide any of it.”

Even cooler? You can now pre-order Taking My Side on limited-edition vinyl—a 12″ pressing that feels like the perfect keepsake for fans who’ve been with her since day one. And for those who want to see her live (and cry in a crowd, respectfully), the tour kicks off this year, with tickets going on sale July 18 at 10AM local time at emmaharner.com/shows.

And honestly? Since Emma is inviting everyone else into her feelings, We’re all better for it.

Preorder the Taking my Side Vinyl

Stream the Taking my Side album

Read more Music articles from KLATMAG

Written by Angel Joanne Okonkwo

Photography by Sydney Tate

Listen to Emma Harner’s Yes Man Video