We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Minzie a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Minzie, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
My most meaningful project is my ‘COLOURS’ EP.
It’s almost like a time capsule of my personal experience with love. loneliness, change and relationships, as a teen / young adult.
I made most of those songs during lockdown, in secret. I don’t think I’d told my parents that I had used my student finance to buy recording equipment. I was experimenting with how to put my feelings out in the open, because it was so tiring keeping everything inside.
It was me and my two friends, Jae and Saiga, having fun playing around with beats and ideas. I probably would never have made the EP if I didn’t have their encouragement.
COLOURS is the project that really got people to notice me and realise my potential. I was shocked when three songs were picked up by DYNMK – a playlist that featured a lot of my favourite artists at the time.
I still get people messaging me about it, and to have had little to no experience releasing independently before that, I didn’t have many expectations when I dropped it.
I think it was just right time, right place and a lot of hard work to make something that I’m still proud of to this day.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
For those who don’t know me, I’m Minzie. I’m an indie singer from East London. I make a lot of dark-rnb / dark pop music, but I don’t think theres a specific genre that really encapsulates what my vibe is. If I had to describe it, it would be moody, seductive, almost like a haunting comfort. My lyrics usually feature intense love, loss, lust or longing, on a spacey type beat.
By the time this comes out, I would have just turned 24, and my new song ‘need u’ would have just dropped. I’ve been messing around with music for as long as I can remember, staying back afterschool to write songs in secret, bothering my uncle everyday to record together and teach me what he knows. It was kind of hard, growing up you were judged really harshly, and almost bullied for being different and wanting to stray from the norm, but I couldn’t ignore the urge I had to create and
I only started releasing around 2022, but since then, I’ve grown so much both as a person and as an artist. I found a genre that sits well with me, but also pushes me to be unique. I’ve also developed a strong fan-base. I love my listeners so much, I get messages all the time telling me to keep going and how much my music means to them. I never really made music for an audience, but having one makes it so much more special.
I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. My EP hit 1 million streams in April, I’ve got over 100k listeners on Spotify, these are numbers I would have never imagined for myself, but once I found my footing and built the momentum, I want to keep achieving for myself, but also for my listeners who have been there with me every step of the way.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson I had to unlearn was to stop comparing myself. I think growing up, it’s been heavily normalised to compare yourself to the others, the funny one, the smart one, the pretty one, and wonder why you’re different.
I had to unlearn it, simply because it was doing more harm than good. It’s good to want to do better, or be more like someone you respect or look up to, but it got to a point where I would subconsciously hate myself or try to find flaws in other people.
Nowadays, I try to limit my comparisons to past versions of myself, at the end of the day I am my own person. I want to do things for myself, achieve things for myself, not because I want to one-up someone else. I truly believe that no-one else can really do what I do, the way I do, so why should I try to do what they do?
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I think the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is watching the hard work pay off in real time. I’m always learning something, trying something new, figuring out a new trick, not only for myself but for my listeners too. I love it when they tell me their favourite song and why it resonates with them, or perhaps a favourite lyric or a little harmony in the background that I didn’t think anyone would notice. It’s nice knowing that there are people out there who don’t even know me, but find comfort in my words and my melodies.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minz1e/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Minz1e
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/minz1e
- Other: TikTok: @Minz1na
Image Credits
@shakzshots