Mitski

Mitski Mayawaki, or more commonly known as Mitski, was born in 1990 in Japan to a Japanese mother and an American father. She moved around a lot as a child, living in Turkey, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and finally landed in the US, where she studied music at Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music. She grew up listening to her father’s American folk records and her mother’s Japanese pop CDs, which strongly influenced the style of music she went on to create. Starting with classical piano compositions and transitioning into more heavy, rock guitar sounds, MItski self-released 2 albums, 1 through Double Double Whammy, and 2 through Dead Ocean, the label she is under currently. Her first 2 studio albums, Bury Me at Makeout Creek, and Puberty 2, garnered critical acclaim, and on February 2017, the Pixies, an American alt rock band, announced her as a supporting act on their US tour. In October, Mitski also opened for Lorde on the US leg of her Melodrama World Tour, and released her fifth album, Be the Cowboy, in May 2018.  

Mitski has spoken about her identity many times in interviews, calling herself “half Japanese, half American but not fully either”, and talked about growing up lonely and not belonging, themes that appear prominently in her lyrics (‘Your Best American Girl’ on Puberty 2 is a good example of confronting identity).  She also explores issues of femininity, adolescence, sadness and happiness through her music.  Through music, Mitski aims to make listeners feel connected to each other in this lonely world, hoping to remind us all that we’re the same, we’ve experienced similar things, and we belong.

Although she wants her music to have the power to unite, Mitski doesn’t want to be placed on a pedestal and made the ideological representative of Asian American women in alt rock, especially in this unstable political climate now.  She states that she doesn’t know that much about politics, law, or US history, so looking up to her as an authority or figurehead would be dangerous.