DIVA met up with Maia aka mxmtoon to talk about revisiting her 17-year-old self and her first EP plum blossom
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGE BY JOELLE GRACE TAYLOR
When 17-year-old Maia started her project mxmtoon, she didn’t expect anyone to listen to the songs she was producing. Armed with an untuned ukulele and a notebook full of teenage heartbreak, vulnerability, and angst she wrote her first EP plum blossom. Quickly these songs found their place on the internet, inspiring and touching people across the world and taking Maia into superstardom.
Now at 23, Maia is returning once again to these original songs. From her debut single 1-800-DATEME to sentimental tracks like Hong Kong, the singer-songwriter has revisited her teenage self to re-record these tracks.
“It’s really exciting to think about how I wrote those songs with zero understanding that they would ever reach people outside of myself,” she tells me at AWAL HQ in London as she gets ready to go curling. “I wanted to go back to these songs with the perspective of being 23 and collaborating with my younger self. The 17-year-old girl wrote it but the 23-year-old girl is there to figure out how to make it sound better.”
Since the release of plum blossom in 2018, Maia has gone on to do many things. She’s released two more albums. She came out as bisexual. Moved to Brooklyn. She has gained over 2.9 million followers on TikTok after her song Prom Dress went viral. She’s even worked on some of her favourite games like Life Is Strange and Sims.
For the last five years, there has been a digital trail of Maia’s life online from her music to her YouTube videos. Being 17 is never easy, but being a teenager in the public eye comes with its own set of challenges. Despite this pressure, Maia wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“It’s really interesting to have thousands of people watch you growing up. I don’t think I would wish that on someone else,” she laughs. “My worldview has been informed by people who listen to my music, and my interests are also largely fuelled by stuff that I interact with on Twitter from my listeners. It’s a peer-to-peer relationship. I feel eternally grateful that I’ve gotten to grow up alongside so many people.”
After choosing not to go to college at 17 to pursue music, Maia was initially worried about losing a sense of her peer group. However, her fans and listeners have filled that gap. Unlike your traditional concerts, Maia’s shows feel more like friends meeting up to sing, dance, and make references to Hunger Games edits of Josh Hutcherson.
It was in fact through interacting with her audience that Maia had the courage to come out as bisexual. In 2018 there wasn’t a whole lot of bisexual representation in the music industry, but it was watching her fans live as their authentic selves that prompted her to come out online.
Maia has collaborated with a number of huge industry names like Noah Kahan and Ricky Montgomery, so who’s next? “Lucy Dacus would be a dream,” she gushes to me.
As we look to the future with the new year on the horizon, Maia’s new EP is a reminder to also reflect on the past. Before Maia can head off into the frosty Tuesday morning to go curling, I ask what she would tell the 17-year-old who wrote plum blossom.
“Tune your ukulele!” she laughs. “There was a period of time where I thought my lyrics were too silly and that people would make fun of them. I wish I could go back in time and tell her to not stop writing by herself. But there’s so much magic in the vulnerability that you can capture when you’re a teenager. There are no rules for yourself in how you create art. It’s really special.”
DIVA magazine will celebrate 30 years in print in 2024. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
