Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. When we asked R.F. Kuang what kind of music she'd like to hear at our Get Lit with All Of It event, she mentioned that she'd love to hear from an Asian American indie artist, especially since the novel deals with themes of Asian identity and cultural appropriation. We were thrilled that singer-songwriter Mxmtoon was able to join us. Also known as Maia, Mxmtoon is an Oakland-born, Brooklyn-based artist and ukulele player who has worked with Carly Rae Jepson, Tune-Yards, Merrill Garbus, and Noah Kahan.

She also has a very strong social media game with just under a million YouTube subscribers, and nearly 3 million followers on TikTok. You'll hear my interview with Maia in just a minute, but first, here's her live performance of the song Mona Lisa

MUSIC - Mxmtoon: Mona Lisa

I've always played the part of Shakespeare

I hide behind the ink and pen

I build up worlds and choose a savoir

I write beginning, middle, end

I'm so tired of being a book on the shelf

Tired of stories for somebody else

Think that I'm ready to start a new chapter

I've been looking for some way to turn it around

Looking for someone to give me the crown

And I wanna feel like I finally matter

I wanna be a Mona Lisa

Ah, ah

The kinda girl that you can dream of

Ah, ah

And I always had the words but I don't wanna say it

Wish I could paint a smile on my face

I wanna be a Mona Lisa

So is there anybody out there

Who could change my point of view?

The way that van Gogh uses yellow

Or the self in Frida Kahlo

I could be that for you

But I'm so tired of being a book on the shelf

Tired of stories for somebody else

Think that I'm ready to start a new chapter

I've been looking for some way to turn it around

Looking for someone to give me the crown

And I wanna feel like I finally matter

I wanna be a Mona Lisa

Ah, ah

The kinda girl that you can dream of

Ah, ah

And I always had the words but I don't wanna say it

Wish I could paint a smile on my face

I wanna be a Mona Lisa

[applause]

Alison Stewart: That was the perfect song for a book club.

Mxmtoon: It just so happens to be the right one to do it [laughs].

Alison Stewart: Exactly, the right one. Tell us a little bit about the origin of that song.

Mxmtoon: Basically, as a musician, I just got really sick of nobody writing songs about me.

[laughter]

I think as any writer does, you always use your medium to express and think through the experiences that you've had. Naturally, as a person, I write songs about a lot of other people in my life. I've had partners that I think my ex was a tech bro, so he'd certainly not making any songs about me. I think there was this feeling that I was like, "You know what? As a musician, it would be really nice if it didn't always fall on me to make the art that is about me or my life or whatever it is."

Alison Stewart: When you were an unsung splitter you talked about there being Maia and there being Mxmtoon. Where do they overlap, and then where do they diverge?

Mxmtoon: I would say Mxmtoon as a project is definitely like my saner side of myself. Then Maia is like Gremlin mode. Goblin mode. A little bit more similar to what Rebecca was saying. I think they've definitely-- I've had moments in my career where I feel like the two are very separate, and then they come back together again, I think, depending on the music that I'm writing, obviously, my art is very intertwined with who I am as a person, but I would say, I think my social media presence is very obvious. I'm a 23-year-old Gen Z-er. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: We were talking about earlier 2.9 million followers on TikTok. Over 90,000 subscribers on YouTube. Can you think of a moment in your career when you knew that social media had made a really big difference?

Mxmtoon: Yes, I think the very first moment that I realized that I was probably going to have this insane opportunity to pursue music on a bigger level was when I was 17. I had been posting song covers and original songs to SoundCloud and YouTube, and places like that. I woke up one morning, and I got a bunch of Twitter notices and mentions, and I found out that Hypebeast and Vice had written an article that mentioned me. It was on Snapchat news, which is a really big deal at the time when I was in high school. All of my peers saw it, they were like, "Is this you? Is this you making music?" I was like, "Oh, no. Probably not."

I realized in that moment my parents had no idea that I was making songs. I think that convergence of my real-world community, finding out about who I was online, made me realize that, "You, guys, digital footprints are real. Digital footprints are real."

Alison Stewart: How do you protect yourself? How do you engage with social media?

Mxmtoon: More than I would like. I definitely need to download whatever app you are talking about to limit my screen time. I think as I've gotten older, I've become less compulsive about my use of social media. It definitely is really easy because I think it uses FoMO as such a big tool for people to pay attention to what's going on online. I'm definitely victim of feeling like I'm missing out completely whenever I'm not scrolling through all of my feeds.

I think I'm realizing that it's-- I think when I started making music, I was 17 obviously, and you have very little ability to not get addicted to social media when you're a teenager. I think I'm getting better at it, but it definitely is I'm deprogramming myself and how I use TikTok and stuff now as an adult.

Alison Stewart: We heard about Rebecca's writing process. What's your writing process? Do you set aside time every day, or you are somebody who walks around with the Notes app, and when it hits you, you record something?

Mxmtoon: I think it depends on what I ended up writing. I definitely find myself gravitating, ironically to short form as a way to get into a longer format of a song. I'd be embarrassed to admit how many tweets of mine have actually turned into lengths of songs that I put on albums. I think definitely I like to write on the Notes app. I always use RhymeZone sometimes as a tool to make sure I have some generation of ideas to help me along the process when I'm writing music, I think it really does depend. Sometimes there's a melody that comes to me, I put it in a voice app and voice memo. I wish there was more structure now that I'm thinking about it. It's a little disorganized.

Alison Stewart: What do you do when you get stuck? When there's a song that's in your throat, or it's just not quite coming out?

Mxmtoon: I try to give myself a lot of distance from it. I think it can be really easy as a perfectionist to get into this thought spiral of feeling like, "I need to get this right in this moment. It needs to be perfect, and I can't look away from it because it'll lose this moment that I want to work on it." I think I felt that way earlier on when I started working in music. Now I understand the importance of stepping away from something and giving yourself the time to breathe, the time to experience, the time to reflect before you come back into it. I think oftentimes that is far more productive than just sitting there and hitting my head against a wall over and over trying to find the right lyrics.

Alison Stewart: You released your debut EP, Plum Blossom in 2018. You were 18 at the time, is that right?

Mxmtoon: Yes.

Alison Stewart: You're going to release a new version of the EP next month?

Mxmtoon: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What made you want to revisit those songs?

Mxmtoon: I've recorded most of it on GarageBand.

[laughter]

I think that was a large part of it. It was definitely I think from a technical execution level, I really felt like I've progressed a lot as an artist in the tools and the vocabulary that I have now is much greater than I had when I was 18. I'm 23, which is still very young, and I'm still learning a lot about who I am and the music I want to make. I think there was this big, looming feeling of thinking about my first EP release and how I started my music project and presented myself to the world on a larger level. Realizing that I can still remember exactly what I wanted my songs to sound like at the point of when I was 18.

What a privilege to be able to still recall those thoughts and feelings and now act upon them and be able to do my younger self a little bit of justice. I think that's a beautiful thing to honor her and thank her for the work that she put in when she was 18 and I don't know. I have a lot of empathy and respect for, I think, my teenage self and for teenagers as a whole. I think they have so many big ideas. I had so many big ideas, and I feel like it's my responsibility to at least pay attention to my own younger self's wishes.

Alison Stewart: It's lovely. You're on tour now?

Mxmtoon: I am going on tour in December.

Alison Stewart: Going on tour. You're going to be back at Brooklyn? I think it's sold-out.

Mxmtoon: Yes. It is sold-out, sorry.

Alison Stewart: You have to come back again.

Mxmtoon: I will. I live here, so I'll be back.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: What are you going to play for us? You're going to play us out.

Mxmtoon: This next one is actually from my very first EP. It's called Feelings Are Fatal. It was one of the first songs that I think defined me as an artist and the stories that I wanted to tell in large part about the intersection of my identities of growing up in a Chinese household and not talking about mental health. Then realizing that I was bisexual and then not talking about my sexuality. I wrote this song that was really about feeling constricted and not being able to express who I was to my closest community, and it ended up going a lot more viral than I ever expected it to. This is Feelings Are Fatal.

MUSIC - Mxmtoon: Feelings are Fatal

I'm happy for you, I'm smiling for you

I'd do anything for you, for you

It's always for you and never for me

And I need it to stop, so let me tell you, please

I'm always sad and I'm always lonely

But I can't tell you that I'm breaking slowly

Closed doors, locked in, no keys

Keeping my feelings hidden, there is no ease

I need it to stop

And I want to be able to open up, but

My feelings are fatal

My feelings are fatal

How many times must I keep it inside?

And I need to let go and I swear that I've tried

But opening up means trusting others

And that's just too much, I don't want to bother

So I'll keep it inside, I'll bury it deep

I know it's not healthy, but you won't hear a peep

Though I'm always sad and I'm always lonely

I could never tell you that I'm breaking slowly

Closed doors, locked in, no keys

Keeping my feelings hidden, there is no ease

I need it to stop

And I want to be able to open up, but

My feelings are fatal, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh

My feelings are fatal, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh

My feelings are fatal, oh-oh, oh-oh

[applause]

Mxmtoon: Thank you so much. I have one last one to close out this event, I guess. It's my most viral song. It blew up on TikTok, as things do nowadays. I will now be singing a song about my senior year in high school for the rest of my life. This is called Prom Dress. So glad. All right, let's sing about being 18 and sad.

MUSIC - Mxmtoon: Prom Dress

I'm nearing the end of my fourth year

I feel like I've been lacking, crying too many tears

Everyone seemed to say it was so great

But did I miss out, was it a huge mistake?

I can't help the fact I like to be alone

It might sound kinda sad, but that's just what I seem to know

I tend to handle things usually by myself

And I can't ever seem to try and ask for help

I'm sitting here, crying in my prom dress

I'd be the prom queen if crying was a contest

Makeup is running down, feelings are all around

How did I get here? I need to know

I guess I maybe had a couple expectations

Thought I'd get to them, but no I didn't

I guess I thought that prom was going to be fun

But now I'm sitting on the floor and all I want to do is run

I keep collections of masks upon my wall

To try and stop myself from revealing it all

Affecting others is the last thing I would do

I keep to myself though I want to break through

I hold so many small regrets

And what-ifs down inside my head

Some confidence, it couldn't hurt me

My demeanor is often misread

I'm sitting here, crying in my prom dress

I'd be the prom queen if crying was a contest

Makeup is running down, feelings are all around

How did I get here? I need to know

I guess I maybe had a couple expectations

Thought I'd get to them, but no I didn't

I guess I thought that prom was going to be fun

But now I'm sitting on the floor and all I want to do is run

All I want to do is run

All I want to do is run

All I want to do is run

I'm sitting here, crying in my prom dress

I'd be the prom queen if crying was a contest

Makeup is running down, feelings are all around

How did I get here? I need to know

I guess I maybe had a couple expectations

Thought I'd get to them, but no I didn't

I guess I thought that prom was going to be fun

But now I'm sitting on the floor and all I want to do is run

All I want to do is run

[applause]

Alison Stewart: That was singer-songwriter, Mxmtoon, performing Prom Dress live at our Get Lit with All Of It book club event with R.F. Kuang. It was a special evening, and thanks to everyone who came out to the sold-out show. Maybe you missed October's Get Lit. You can still grab tickets to our November event. We are reading Rouge by Mona Awad. Free tickets for the November 27th event are available now. You can head to wnyc.org/getlit to find out more. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I will meet you back here next time.

 

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.