Zephani Jong’s mother would play Mozart to her from the age of three, in the hope of imbuing her daughter with the genius of history’s foremost child prodigy. But it was a visit to the Apple Store, and a tutorial on GarageBand, that had the greater impact, propelling the home-schooled Zeph into the world of production, aged 10. So, too, did the scores of the films she watched, especially Hans Zimmer and John Powell’s work in Kung Fu Panda. “I feel like my music – especially the stuff that’s more orchestrally-based – swells and carries the lyrics, much like scores carry the dialogue and heighten the emotion in a movie,” Zeph, now 24, explains from her home in Los Angeles. Born and raised in Maryland, Zeph’s first EP, 2021’s scared of everything, captured her st...