#RISINGARTIST : MXMTOON Live at the Shelter

LATELY, SOCIAL MEDIA APP TIK TOK HAS BROUGHT SO MANY NEW ARTISTS INTO THE SPOTLIGHT, ONE OF THEM BEING MIA KNOWN AS MXMTOON. A SOFT SPOKEN ARTIST ARMED WITH A UKULELE IN HAND. WITH HER NEW ALBUM MASQUERADE OUT NOW AND A TOUR THAT IS SELLING OUT LEFT AND RIGHT, WE ARE CURIOUS AS TO WHAT WAS IN STORE FOR MASQUERADE TOUR. SO LET’S DIVE DEEP INTO THAT POOL.

We decided to check out Maia’s sold-out show at the Shelter last night. The show was jam pack with kids and parents all excited to see Maia and her opener Detroit local Chloe Moriondo. When I say they were excited, I mean it. Any mention of their favorite song, screams, and phones out and ready for them to play. Like we had mentioned in the review (you can check it out here), the clapping during the song “My Ted Talk” did happen (granted, it was encouraged by Maia). Overall, we found the show adorable and entertaining to see.

More about Masquerade and Mxmtoon,

In each track on the masquerade, mxmtoon turns her detailed narrative of the most mundane moments into songs with deep meaning, a transformation propelled by her delicate melodies, disarming vocal presence, and utter aversion to self-seriousness. All throughout the masquerade, mxmtoon matches her lack of artifice with the graceful musicality she first honed by studying violin and cello as a child. After writing her first song with two friends for a music class at age 13, she continued writing on her own but mostly kept her output to herself. In 2017, Maia began posting her music on SoundCloud, first only sharing her comedy songs but eventually uploading a heart-on-sleeve track called “feelings are fatal.” “At the time I was like, ‘Whatever—I have 200 followers, I’m just gonna post it,’” she recalls. “But then people really responded to it, which made me realize that I needed to keep my music as candid as possible because that’s what people connect with.”

In her constant questioning and engaging with the world around her, mxmtoon has attained undeniable solidarity with her listeners, ultimately providing some much-needed solace for the shy, the sensitive, the routinely underrepresented. “When I listen to the album, it feels like a musical of the things I’ve gone through and the life inside my head,” says Maia. “I hope people come away from it feeling like the songs belong to them too—like now there’s a piece of art in the world that speaks to their own experiences, even if they’d always felt like they were alone.”