Life & Work with Idalia Buddington of Koreatown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Idalia Buddington

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I grew up in the heights in New York City, and started singing and dancing when I was 3 years old. My goal in life was to be on the kids segment of Showtime at the Apollo, which came on after Saturday Night Live every weekend at around 2am.

In middle school I became interested in acting, and begged my parents to let me take classes at John Casablancas in Paramus, New Jersey — anything to get me to stop emailing my DIY headshots to strangers. The Craigslist gigs section hates to see me coming.

Fast-forward to my teen years, when I realized I wasn’t going to be on Degrassi, but I was very good at talking and dancing and getting in trouble. Naturally, I thought, maybe I could be a star.

I had a lot of big dreams, a fractured sense of self, deep internal turmoil, and the unshakeable belief that I could do literally anything.

I plunged myself into musical theater and joined my high school dance team. I then went to college on a farm in Massachusetts, where I learned about performance art, community-supported agriculture, and labor organizing.

Western Mass has a culture of experimentation – pushing boundaries, blending disciplines, and seeing how far ideas can be stretched before they snap. The music scene was composed of basement shows and pedal boards – anyone could start a band, and everyone did.

I developed the character ‘Frida Precariat’. The name is a play on words meaning ‘free the precariat class’. At the time, I was questioning everything – how to make art, how to live, and how not to be swallowed by a system that demands everything and gives little in return.

Frida is a space where I can dream up narratives of work, technology and resilience. She represents artists in the gig economy, where creatives often experience financial precarity.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Has it been a smooth road? Hunnay, smooth is a fantasy. If the road were smooth, there would be nothing to write about, nothing to wail into a microphone at midnight.

I often find myself completely exhausted – wondering if my real talent is making poor life decisions. During these moments of self-doubt, I have to remind myself that resilience is key. There’s no map, no clear timeline. In Hollywood, you’re often adrift in unknown waters, with a set of instructions in a language you don’t understand.

And then there’s the ongoing sense of rejection, and the work that goes unseen. Being a performer means constantly improving yourself, dancing when nobody’s watching. It means trusting that the work matters, even in times of deep loneliness, even when you feel otherwise.

The emotional rollercoaster of this industry is no joke. One minute you’re on set with your heroes, and the next you’re eating cold pizza alone, surrounded by White Claw Surge.

But struggle isn’t something to endure – it’s something to transform. My creative output was never meant to be easy. Frida Precariat is built on tension, on questioning, on the friction between art and the cost of living. The nature of this work demands constant reinvention, vulnerability, and the ability to navigate uncertainty.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m recording a studio album for Frida Precariat, and I hope it’ll be my best one yet. I’m also training in dance, and available to play your next free-spirited, romantic (but emotionally complex) character.

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
My advice? Go where the art is happening.

The more you are present, the more you start to recognize the people who are on a similar path, and those connections form organically over time. It’s not just about seeking out people who can help you – it’s about contributing to a creative ecosystem and finding those whose work resonates with yours.

It’s about finding people who inspire you and expand your idea of what’s possible. Sometimes that’s a voice on a record, a book that you can’t put down, or an artist who reminds you why you started in the first place.

I just try to stay curious about what makes me happy. Creativity loves momentum.

Most importantly, take every opportunity you can. You never know who you’ll meet or what you’ll learn.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/fridaprecariat
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@frida_precariat
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0AAz5KI6d9DgZ0pDFa8cEJ?si=ZFBmPloxQBehsmIMRYDJ7w

Image Credits
W. Terry