Meet Madi

Today we’d like to introduce you to Madi.

Madi, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Whenever people ask me how I got to music today, it’s almost a story of two chunks. Firstly, music was quite an interesting exploration for me, as I always did music but never really found my voice until I was 13 or so. I’d been writing incredibly dark and horrific songs since I was five or six (my mom always recalls how she would find these alarming and sad pieces of writing in the trashcan!), so songwriting was a passion that came with ease. I picked up the instrumentation part of my music in middle school and began hopping around to different coffee shops, comedy clubs, open mics . . . You know the drill. I was an absurdly “normal” hometown songwriter gal who took her guitar everywhere and became a favorite of the older crowd who needed a break from their average cover band concerts. It was really the thought that I might be “just like everyone else” and “just another girl with a guitar” when I realized that I was only trying to do what I thought was right. That, and I was also impersonating my idols (at the time, very indie-jazz singer-songwriters) — nothing was from the heart.

I grew up on a wide variety of music– reggae to new wave to pop to R&B– however, my dad’s love for artists like Depeche Mode and The Cure caught my attention, and most particularly, the synthesizer. After immense research on analog and gear, I picked up a Roland Gaia and truly dove into electronic music. I never looked back on the singer-songwriter life. Shortly after I learned how to become the best I could be on Ableton and tried to fulfill the role of an emerging female producer.

Although I can attribute much of my career success to top-lining for a lot of EDM producers– because without a doubt, it definitely is fun– my love for electronic music came from an entire decade of exploring every other faction of music. I really dipped my toes into everything, and electronic music latched on and has resonated with me ever since.

Now that I’ve described the “HOW” I got into music, the reason “WHY” I have stayed with music is another segment. While my childhood had incredible moments of community, love, joy, celebration, and happiness, there was evident darkness and pain that I suffered. I can say that some of it was triggered from relationships I watched and just my perspective as a kid, however, the most significant event(s) in my life surrounded my medical story. I was overprescribed an atrocious medication, used as a chemotherapy drug for cancer patients, which resulted in incredible side effects that lingered throughout a good amount of my high school life. A lot of side effects were mechanic and included a lot of chronic illnesses, but the most draining was my fight with severe depression. It was the first time in my life where I felt completely disassociated with myself, and my relationship with music suffered the most.

Although I’m perfectly healthy, motivated, and uplifted from years of recovery and healing, I do have bipolar disorder– something I had sensed since I was young– and have used my music the past couple of years to navigate through my mental health. I’m not ashamed to talk about mental illness whatsoever, as I feel that life is too harsh (we’re only human!) sometimes that we need a platform to amplify these conversations. I know that for myself, I intentionally save all of my passive aggression, anxieties, fears for my songs — almost like when you bottle up so much and then finally let everything out in one scream. Music is too poetic and romantic for us to not include these emotions and explicit stories; for that, the struggles I face are almost little blessings as I learn new things about myself every time that I make music. The light and the dark, the sadness and the excitement, and the lonely and the hungry — these opposites are things that I am incredibly excited to talk about in my upcoming music, as these opposites are some examples of things I have faced. Music is all of these things and all of these opposites, and my story includes them as well.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Finding yourself when music has firstly found you is I think one of the largest struggles as a young artist. I had my first record deal opportunity when I was 17 and I was so, so eager to make decisions and make headway for a “guaranteed” career. However looking back, I would have never trusted my 17 year old self to make decisions, and I wouldn’t entirely have wanted someone else to make those decisions for me either. At the end of the day, feeling validated in your self-worth as both a woman and artist is a process. I convinced myself back then that I would figure out who I was throughout my career or that the quick learning curve would shape me, and while I’m sure that for many young artists who have made it can attest that that is possible, for me, I wasn’t ready. I needed the life experience, the patience, the loneliness, the ache, and the silence that an immediate career wouldn’t have given me.

I don’t think I grasped the tangible, fixed blueprint of my story or what I would become until the past six months or so, and I’m sure that in a couple of years down the line, I’ll laugh at even that!

I really struggled with most importantly what I wanted to say, and HOW to say it in music, especially when I felt as though I was competing with a clock. I imagined that being young and having it all “figured out” was the only path for success; in reality, taking a step back, not letting life rush, and learning from the others around me and the others I had yet to meet was the real self-discovery.

Please tell us about your work.
The “Madi” project was born out of finding myself (as mentioned previously) and also discovering the genre of dark pop. While there’s so many brilliant artists in this niche, especially women (BANKS, Sevdaliza, FKA Twigs), I think that I’ve always wanted my music to steer away from being as sophisticated, eloquent, and other-worldly (I remember when I’ve seen these artists perform, it was like a fantasy– they were separate goddesses), and I wanted my music to rather be more gritty and dirty and aggressive. I wanted the emotions of punch and adrenaline to be transpired through production, contrasted by an incredibly wispy and fragile voice, additionally contrasted by these very specific stories of my life.

I’m most proud of the growth of my team, first of all, as I am continuously inspired and surrounded by the most incredible people (music business and non-music business) and also the growth of my story. A lot of people search long and hard for their voice, and I’m fortunate enough to have been put in situations that have forced me to really self-reflect at a young age. I never felt the need to fabricate a brand or an aesthetic, or even really concentrate on picturing what future shows/albums/videos may be, because all of these things have been built up over 20 years.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My best memories have always been at the San Clemente Pier, where I truly was “raised.” A lot of the times now I take the train down on a weekend to sort through all of the latest music and to also sort through my own thoughts on my own music. The entire train ride is the most tranquil experience, especially when its destination is a place that fills me with nothing but reassurance that I am alive, well, and healthy. This place and the memories I have here– holidays, beach days, brunches, etc.– is a kind of magic that gets the best songwriting out of me. It takes me back to youth and I really play between the past, present, and future in the mind because I feel so nostalgic here.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5KtyvSnzn6NcqukCOsjfe0?si=0aIQuT6iRGS1omGfYqSR_w
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credit:
Shelby Sparks, Hoodvish

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