The average 21 year-old is not a national pop star. Maia, who is more famously known as mxmtoon (em-ex-em-toon), is an exception. Hailing from Oakland, California, Maia has over 923,000 followers on Instagram and 2.6 million followers on TikTok. Her career in music began in middle school when she started playing the ukulele and posting videos of herself online. She sang covers, but she eventually began posting original songs that focused on vulnerability, intimacy, loss, and desire, and these themes quickly defined her music. Her music is categorized as “bedroom pop,” which is characterized by lo-fi (low quality) hip hop beats and vocals. The music is intentionally imperfect and has a static-like quality to them, unlike the recordings done in professional recording studios. Surprisingly, the music that Maia listens to does not imitate the music she creates. “Admittedly I don’t actually listen to a lot of songs that mirror the music I end up making. I love funk music, 90s pop rock, or K-pop. My music taste is a little hectic and all over the place, but I think that allows me to have weird inspirations or understanding of what sort of things I like and want to make,” she tells H3R.

Maia released her first song “1-800-Dateme” during her junior year in high school, but “Feelings Are Fatal,” which was released in 2017, was Maia’s first successful single. “Feelings Are Fatal” documents the effects Maia’s anxiety and depression have on her relationships and life, and it quickly racked up millions of streams on Spotify. Later that year, she released 12 more singles, and the overwhelmingly positive response to her music was unexpected. In H3R’s interview with Maia, she admitted: “I honestly never even dreamed of becoming a musician because it felt like such an unrealistic dream. In some weird way I think it just found me, and I’m really lucky that it did. I’m really thankful I got to keep pursuing music, but I think it really just knocked on my doorstep and I had to make a decision if it was something I wanted to continue. I landed on the conclusion that the only goal I’ve had in my life is to positively impact people in some capacity. I realized I could keep doing that with music, and I have!” In fact, Maia had very different plans for her future. In an interview with the New York Times, Maia said: “I definitely just thought I was going to go to college on the West Coast and move back [to my hometown] to be a teacher. That was the life plan, until all of a sudden it wasn’t at all.” Shortly after she graduated from high school, Maia acquired managers, a publicist, a lawyer and a touring agent to help her budding music career.  She held her first live performance at the Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles, California in 2018, and that same year, she released plum blossom, her first EP (extended play), which addresses relationships, loneliness, and confidence.  She promoted the EP on a five-city tour in March 2019, and shortly after, she released the masquerade, her debut album about her coming-of-age story. The album included  acoustic and studio-produced versions of each song so Maia could remain true to her music style. In May, she released a music video for “Prom Dress,” a song about high-school angst she created in high school. The video has over 27 million views on Youtube, and the song has 161 million streams on Spotify. When H3R asked Maia about the moment in her career she’s most proud of, she said: “I was so proud when ‘Prom Dress’ hit gold. I never expected a little song I wrote in high school to ever turn into what ‘Prom Dress’ has become over the last few years! I wasn’t very confident in myself when I was the 17 year old who wrote that song, and now being able to know that the words I was so scared to share with others made a song that went gold is so cool! Now I can look at that song as my 21 year old self and feel so proud of not only how far I’ve come professionally but also personally.” 

In September 2019, she embarked on the Masquerade Tour, which covered multiple cities in the U.S. as well as Europe. Maia’s team intentionally scheduled the tour so that Maia could take care of her mental health, which she admitted has been a struggle. She says that the most challenging aspect of her career is  “most definitely trying to balance my mental health alongside my job. Having your hobby suddenly become your career overnight is still something I think I’m actively trying to wrap my head around. It’s hard to grow up online in front of hundreds of thousands of people, but I’m getting better at finding ways to help myself process and cope through that as I get older.” Despite her struggles to balance mental health with fame, Maia has always been open about her struggles and identity. As a bisexual Chinese-American artist, she wants to make sure her fans’ voices are heard and validated. “Representation is obviously such a huge issue that I try to address, especially as a mixed-race woman of color,” she tells Business Insider, “And I have a lot of privilege to have this platform, and be able to speak on my experience, and hopefully lift up the experiences of other people that I might not necessarily understand.” Her thoughtfulness and consideration are evident in her song lyrics. She often writes her love songs from a gender neutral perspective so that everyone can enjoy them. When H3R asked her for songwriting advice, she said: “Tell your story. Don’t try to write as someone you’re not, because you’ll always be better at knowing yourself. Take time to sit and understand how interesting you are and how worthwhile telling your truth is. People can copy other individuals and art styles all the time, and sometimes cool things happen out of that, but no one can do you better than yourself. Write personally, produce in ways that excite you, be as authentic as possible.”

In April 2020, Maia released dawn, another EP with seven songs, as the first part of her dawn & dusk album.  The title of the EP and the album art allude to the sense of hope the music seeks to inspire in listeners. In an interview with Business Insider, Maia describes how she wanted dawn to be about “...this mindset that even through hardship, the sun will rise and it will still set, and things will still resume.” She adds that there is “a regal sort of attitude” that comes with the reassurance that everything will be okay. The theme of her album is especially relevant during the global COVID-19 pandemic, but it also serves as a reminder for people who may feel overwhelmed by their responsibilities and duties. 

The second part of her album, dusk, encourages people to find beauty in moments of stillness, isolation, and darkness. In an interview with MTV, she says: “I think the more comfortable we can be in our own company, the easier it is for us to recharge and face the world head-on again.” Even though most of dusk was created before the pandemic, its message is nonetheless relevant. The pandemic forced individuals to be still, and it provided an opportunity for introspection and personal growth.

Earlier this year, Maia released her single “Creep,” which details a person’s internal struggle with their desire to confess their feelings for a woman and their self-confidence. The new single, like many of her songs, reflects Maia’s introspection and self-awareness, and H3R wanted to learn more about Maia’s creative process.  “I keep a journal with me that has different emotions or ideas that I’m thinking about on any given day, and when I get to work with producers I’ll usually brainstorm with them about what production would suit the words. If I’m working alone, I don’t do anything super complicated, I typically just pull out a ukulele and get a few chords that I think work, but I love to then send that off to producers to see if they have anything to add. I hear melodies very clearly though, it’s like the way a painter looks at a canvas. I can just hear and picture what the songs need to sound like, I just have to find the right words,” she tells H3R.

What initially started as a hobby turned into Maia’s life in the span of a few years. Now, Maia has over 5.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and her song “Falling for U” has over 216 million streams.  In addition to a distinguished music career, Maia also has a podcast, 365 Days with Mxmtoon, that she updates daily. She posts 10-15 minute episodes about current, funny and bizarre events, and her enthusiasm is captivating. Maia is slated to perform at Outside Lands in October and the Power of Pride Festival in December. Be sure to grab tickets as soon as possible! □

Article Credits

Instagram: @mxmtoon

Twitter: @mxmtoon

Twitch: @mxmtoon

Youtube: @mxmtoon

Facebook: @mxmtoon

Podcast: 365 Days with Mxmtoon

Website: mxmtoon.com