MAMI UMAMI Turn Emotional Chaos Into Club-Ready Catharsis on ‘(Don't) think I like you’

Malmö duo MAMI UMAMI have never sounded particularly interested in staying within the lines. Across their releases, Jaquelin Elamiri and Leonard Furby have treated hip-hop, pop and club music less as fixed genres than as raw materials, building something distinctly their own from the collision. Their latest single, (Don't) think I like you, continues that approach with a track that is immediately kinetic but considerably more complicated beneath its surface.

Co-produced with Alex Lopez, the track runs on a restless blend of alt-pop, hip-hop and dance production, with synth-heavy momentum giving its emotional messiness an appropriately physical form. The concept is deceptively simple: two partners leave for long-distance work, and the sadness of missing them mutates into denial, irritation and finally the kind of irrational anger that only makes sense when you’re trying not to admit how much you care. MAMI UMAMI turn that emotional contradiction into the song’s central hook, with the parentheses in the title doing plenty of heavy lifting.

What makes the track particularly effective is the way its arrangement mirrors that emotional progression. Rather than settling into one mood, it moves through denial, anger, bargaining and depression before the chorus offers something brighter and more accepting. There’s a deliberately exaggerated quality to the performance, the kind of theatrical emotional release that works because it knows the feeling is ridiculous and completely genuine at the same time. The result is dance music with a bruised centre: euphoric enough for the club, but driven by the uncomfortable reality of wanting someone who isn’t there.

That balance has become increasingly central to MAMI UMAMI’s identity. Earlier this year’s AFTERwork EP examined pressure, burnout and adulthood within an increasingly connected yet strangely isolating world, while the duo’s live shows have established a reputation for blurring the distinction between gig and performance. Following appearances at Roskilde and Way Out West, (Don't) think I like you feels like a natural continuation of that trajectory, less interested in genre purity than in turning real-life emotional overload into something communal, physical and fun.

At its best, the track captures something much more universal than its specific backstory. The bravado of “I don’t need you” is rarely convincing when you’re saying it because you desperately want someone back. MAMI UMAMI understand that contradiction and, rather than smoothing it out, make it the point. (Don't) think I like you is messy, funny, vulnerable and built to be shouted along to, a sharp example of a duo becoming increasingly confident in making emotional chaos sound this good.

Stream ‘(Don't) think I like you’ here: