min.a talks about the making of her latest EP, cultural identity, her time on South Korean reality TV, and much more
“I have this death grip on the title of producer,” min.a explains over a FaceTime call. “I have to constantly tell people that I’m an artist but I also produce my music.” As a woman in the music industry, the New York University music student faces questions over her position frequently. With SoundCloud saturated by male producers, min.a shines a light on the experience of producing as a female—frequently being asked who her producer is, or being told that she’s good “for a female producer.” Fueled by “an intense urge” to prove herself while simultaneously bringing to light questionable attitudes within the music scene, min.a’s sound is refreshingly forward-thinking and resonates as an empowering listen.
Since 2018, min.a’s songs can be found across a variety of streaming platforms, with her SoundCloud becoming a home to a variety of impressive demos and one-offs. Last year she released her debut EP glitch. Staying true to its name, the 5-track release alchemizes bedroom pop with R&B and electronic influences, creating a distinct warped effect. After studying abroad in Europe, she found herself influenced by Berlin’s electronic scene and proceeded to release Hi-Fi: an intimate EP building on her glitch-pop style and experimental approach. However for min.a, this artistic freedom she currently embraces wasn’t always accessible.
Having settled in California after moving between states, she soon found her childhood uprooting and moved to South Korea due to her parent’s work-related reasons. Growing up, music had always been a significant part of her life; her mother and grandfather were musicians, so picking up instruments from a young age felt inevitable. However, her transgression further into music took a less traditional form. As a Korean-American brought up in environments consisting of cultural dichotomies, min.a found herself addressing the combination of feelings surrounding her heritage after becoming a finalist on Korean TV competition K-Pop Star. While formative and a learning experience, the young artist then found herself straying from the illiberal constraints—in both sound and image—that came from the show, beginning to establish her narrative as an independent artist.
Now 20-years-old, min.a is establishing her own experimental space as a creative, taking on board her experiences as an adolescence in the industry alongside the independence her college course has given her. Transgressing into identity politics, plans for the future, and BTS, read our interview with min.a below.
What were your early inspirations when getting into music?
I grew up being around my Grandpa a lotVhe was a violinist and my favorite person in the entire world. I was like this tiny baby following him around everywhere and doing everything that he did until I was like, Oh I want to start playing the violin. That gradually shifted into piano lessons and guitar lessons and that sort of thing. But I don’t know, I’ve been singing forever. I don’t think there was a definitive point where I started, but when I was like 4 or 5 started to play instruments. I think I just always knew that that sort of creative field is what I wanted to get into ‘cause my mum is also a musician; she majored in the flute and minored in the piccolo. I grew up in a household of music.
You took quite an unconventional route into music, having appeared on the South Korean talent show K-pop Star. Has this unusual beginning influenced the way that you approach creating music now?
I don’t know if it’s necessarily affected my sound directly per se, but I think it’s affected me knowing that I didn’t want to make straight-up classic K-pop. I didn’t want to make dance music, be an idol, sign to a label, and learn to dance. There’s a very hyperfeminine expectation in K-pop as a female and that’s just not something I’d want to pursue because it’s not me. I more identify with baggier and more monotone clothing. I think it’s more influenced my personality, I have a lot more control over the narrative of my identity and as an artist and a producer. I think I realized through the experience on K-pop Star that I wanted to have more control over my career and being a K-pop star doesn’t necessarily lend itself to that. You’re kind of told how to look, how to act, what kind of music to make. So, I think it more so influenced me as a person rather than my sound.
Sounds like an intense experience
So intense. I was a freshman in high school; I didn’t know much about the world or much about myself. I was a little chubbier then and being on a show in a culture where being thin is the classic expectation of beauty was a little too much for me, and it has unfortunately manifested in different sorts of trauma and like insecurities that I have now. It’s a lot to take in being so young.
How did you find the transition into min.a, and being fully in control of all aspects?
So, I’m a current student at NYU Tisch’s Clive Davis Institute. I had been learning about production before I went to college; I started producing sophomore year of high school, and through the experience of college I had more and more practice and guidance. My major is recorded music so it’s an umbrella term for everything: the creative side of learning how to perform, how to sing, and how to produce. But, it’s also the music business side, figuring out how to brand yourself and what your identity as an artist is. Through that push I realized I still wanted to be connected to my identity as a Korean-American, even if that didn’t translate directly to my music. I’ll try and will continue to try to write lyrics in Korean, but I think the first thing I thought about was that my Korean name is Minah, and I want that to be central to my roles as an artist. Being in college, I think that’s when it all came into play. Being told you have to figure out what you want your story to be, who you want to be, and learning how to take control of that. Especially as a woman you know, it’s difficult to maintain control of that. I think once you are taught how to be completely independent and how to take control of your narrative, it’s an empowering thing to be able to say, ‘I have this knowledge and I’m not going to let you tell me what to do.’
Do you feel like your gender influences how you’re seen as a producer?
Yeah definitely, because I do identify as she/her, and even though I’m not hyperfeminine I would say according to stereotypical gender norms, I still identify as a female. There’s a lot of privilege within that and I get to follow more traditional rules when it comes to that aspect of my career, but I guess because of that privilege it’s not something that I necessarily think about too much.
The immediate question to any sort of female artist is ‘Oh, who’s your producer?’ I know that it’s not directly meant to be demeaning, it’s just the automatic assumption of ‘You’re a woman so you don’t produce.’ It’s a little frustrating and I feel like I have this intense inner urge to prove myself to people.
What did the creative process for Hi-Fi look like, and were there any particular inspirations behind it?
I was studying abroad in Berlin and that’s when I started this EP. I didn’t start it having planned to make an EP, it was just like, being in music school you do what a music student does and you make music. It just so happened that I had 4 songs that sounded kind of cohesive together and I hadn’t released a full body of work for a while. But I think with it being the epicenter of clubbing and electronic music, you can hear the influence of Berlin. I was taking a music production class that dealt a lot with harsher sounding electronic music; my first EP was a lot more about harsher sounding things, but with Hi-Fi I wanted it to be a cohesive mix of softer pop delving into the more manipulating electronic music.
Your production itself is very distinct. Do you have a particular method in regards to producing that lead you to this sound?
It’s kind of just shits and giggles [laughs]. Like, I’ll buy a pack of samples or get drum samples from a friend. I think I was heavily influenced by Billie Eilish’s new album while making Hi-Fi. With her and her brother, it’s so interesting and inspiring to know they created a Grammy-winning fucking award album in their bedroom. And that’s what I do. I don’t have a fancy studio. It’s literally just me at my desk in my apartment with a mic making music on my computer and recording. So I think it was more like I just wanted to get a system down in Berlin; I couldn’t make the same quantity of music so I wanted to make higher quality music. I don’t know, it’s really nice to think that people find my production style unique because you can’t help but think ‘I’m doing what everyone else is doing’ or that it isn’t good enough and people won’t want to listen. But, I don’t know if I necessarily have a set system with production if that makes sense.
Are there any takeaways you want Hi-Fi’s listeners to have?
I guess the biggest thing is that I want them to like it. I hope they see some sort of growth in my music if they have been listening since glitch. I don’t know, I mainly put this EP out to get music out because I have been sitting on these songs since like October and it was like, if I don’t put these out they will literally just sit on my laptop forever. But I want them to take something from it as I hope it means something to them; that they like the music enough to listen to it more than once. It’s crazy that people I don’t know have been like, ‘Your music means something to me,’ so I hope they can get that sort of connection to it. But I think the biggest thing is I just want them to enjoy it, to stick with me and come back.
Having experimented with various styles of music, how do you feel about the concept of genre as a whole?
I think instead of defining music as a genre, it’s easier to describe what it sounds like instead of categorizing it into tropes. Especially the word ‘pop,’ because it’s difficult to be like ‘Oh that’s pop music’ because literally all it means is what’s popular at the time. So, after that’s gone, what the fuck are you going to call it. I think it helps on one hand as a producer—to take certain tropes and be like, ‘what if I use this with this, that’s something someone hasn’t done before.’ But at the same time, I think they’re stupid to be quite honest, I think it’s just people being lazy and not wanting to dissect a sound. Like, pop music in Korea is so different to pop music in America but the default is always American pop music.
Having lived in both South Korea and America, can you tell me more about the influence of these differing environments?
I grew up in South Korea from 6th grade to my sophomore year of high school, but I think that more so affected who I am and my personality. Being in Korea, I listened to a shit ton of K-pop, was a fangirl and did all of that—like, I am a huge fan of BTS. I still try to stay into those groups and make sure that I continue to listen to K-pop because it’s something that I enjoyed as a kid and it’s a part of my culture that I think is really empowering. But when I moved to the States, that’s when I really got into producing and came to the program that I’m in today. The music is significantly different, like you have artists like Banks and Billie Eilish. I think I want to emulate that sort of music rather than kpop, and so I think in that sense it’s affected my artistry.
You mentioned it had a greater influence on your personality. Can you talk me through that?
I think it made me really conservative because I had to dive into this hyperfeminine personality and try to really focus on being pretty or trying to be skinny. There’s a lot of body dysmorphia and eating issues that came from that experience that I’m still honestly struggling with today because body standards are very different in the States than Korea. Like, plastic surgery is a norm whereas in the US it’s viewed as something extravagant and abnormal. I have a very mixed view of the world I guess. I have in the back of my mind all of the beauty standards of Korea and I struggle with the idea of being skinny is being pretty and that being more feminine is more correct. Like, when I lived in the States I was like Fuck that, I don’t wanna wear dresses anymore, I don’t want to wear a skirt, I fucking love the color black. I felt like I could experiment more with fashion and with the overall aesthetic here than I could in Korea. It’s a lot more conservative there when it comes to style, whereas in the States people don’t give a shit. Both of those places are my home in very different senses, but I don’t think that I would have the artist personality or just the general view of the world that I have without having lived in both and I’m very grateful to have been able to live in Korea as a Korean-American.
How do you find balancing your studies whilst being a solo artist?
Sometimes it feels like school is a hindrance to my music, if that makes sense? It was really interesting, like in Berlin I was there for music school but I found I didn’t have time to make music. I was pushing myself to make music as much as possible and that’s why all of the songs for Hi-Fi came out, because I was constantly stressed about not having enough time to make music. In a month I’d only made one song and I was like fuck, back in New York I was making 6 or 7 in a month and the fact that I only have one to show for an entire month is really scary. But then like, there are people I would not have met and skills I would not have without being in school.
What’s next for min.a?
Right now I have a couple of songs that I’m working on that delve into more of the electronic side of things. But, I’m working with a producer who makes more traditional pop music and I think that it’ll be interesting to have something with a poppier sound but glitchy production too. But, I don’t know, I’m pretty open to working with anyone or delving into any sort of genre, so I don’t necessarily have a direction I want to head in, I just want to have as much experience as possible working with different people. I feel like you can get stuck doing it all by yourself.