Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maia Zakay. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Maia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I only began making a full-time living from my music career about a year ago now when I started livestreaming consistently on TikTok every night. I gained over 80 thousand followers at a very quick pace, created a huge family-like fanbase who came to watch me sing for the world, and it was all done through TikTok livestreaming on my phone. The way I would receive money is by selling my merch on there and by receiving the TikTok gifts the app provides for people to send to their favorite creators. The amount of support I received was mind-blowing and all thanks to TikTok and my supporters on there, I was able to quit my terrible 9-5 cookie store job. I hated that 9-5 job because it was nowhere near my purpose or passion for life, which is to create music and art that helps people through whatever they are going through.

Maia , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Maia Zakay. I am a 21 year old singer/songwriter for R&B/POP music. I am also an actress, model, live-streamer, entertainer, and mental health advocate. I love to use my social media platforms to spread positivity and my ART forms, which are all of the above!

I didn’t take my music career seriously until I was 16 years old where I was going through some extremely difficult times in my life and needed a way to let out all the bad emotions weighing me down for so long. I decided to play around with a beat on Youtube and sing exactly how I was feeling to make a song that could express how alone I was at the time. After I finished the song, I felt like I had just came out of the best therapy session in the world and that’s when I realized how much music and songwriting helps me feel better. My dad overheard me singing my new song and asked me, “who sings that song?” and I told him I just created it! He thought it was so amazing and couldn’t believe that I did that all by myself so he immediately picked up his phone to try to find any contacts that could find me a music producer/engineer to help me make my ideas come to life. I was very lucky that I had a parent who believed in me more than I did at the time because this was truly the start of my whole career.

That first day in the music studio with my first real engineer, was the day I fell in absolute love with learning how to engineer my own music. So over the next couple years, I worked with that engineer to learn how to create my own music at my own home studio that I saved up enough money to build in my house. From then on, I have worked with over 100 different engineers/producers to learn as much as I can from them to find my sound and hone my craft.

I have put out over 26 original songs on ALL MUSIC PLATFORMS and the reaction of strangers from all over the world of them telling me how much my music has helped them or even saved their lives, was when I knew I had to do this for the rest of my life and take it seriously.

My new EP called “Manifest” is coming out very soon and I can’t wait to show it to the world because it is the most proud I have ever been of any of my previous work!

I am going to start performing at more live shows in-person now that I really feel like I know who I am as an artist and as a human being with the clear message I want to spread of being REAL.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I lost my voice for half a year and couldn’t talk or sing at all. It was the most frustrating and scary experience of my entire life because every doctor I went to had no idea how to fix me. I went through a bad suicidal time period during these hardships and lost all hope for my future. I ended up finally finding the right doctor who gave me the surgery I needed to treat my problems. During the recovery process, I realized that I was taking my time in life for granted and wasn’t cherishing the gifts and talents given to me from the universe. I try to look back on that moment whenever I feel like giving up on my dreams because the music industry can get very difficult at times. I made a promise to myself and the universe that I was never going to take my voice for granted again, and now I use it loud and proud everyday to help as many people as I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.maiazakay.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maiazakay/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maiazakayyy/
• Twitter: https://x.com/MaiaZakay?s=20
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1AO8FvNaA5baB3fSCoa89A
• Other: MY MUSIC ON ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS: https://songwhip.com/maiazakay