This story originally appeared in i-D’s The Royalty Issue, no. 370, Winter 2022. Order your copy here.
If you were wondering what Maluca Mala has been up to, here’s your answer. After taking a bit of a hiatus, prolonged by a certain unprecedented world event, the Bronx-born artist has been working and is finally ready to bless us with her new project.
Maluca first came on the scene as an originator of the genre-bending sound that was a convergence of electronic, hip-hop and the plethora of cultural sounds attributed to her Afro-Latino roots. Notably, her 2009 single “El Tigeraso”, featuring Diplo, became an anthem for the youths of the deep-rooted Dominican community in New York City. An unmistakable product of her culture and New York City in the 90s, “Growing up I was an alt Latina, and so we would start our night at a bachata club in Williamsburg and then end up at a drum and bass party,” Maluca says. “So just being around so many different genres and styles of music really influenced my musical vernacular now.”
Subscribe to i-D NEWSFLASH. A weekly newsletter delivered to your inbox on Fridays.
Her forthcoming project, which is still in the works but is slated for release at some point soon, will be a departure from the palpitating BPMs of “El Tigeraso” and will be more vulnerable. Some elements will remain the same; she’ll continue to include Spanish and she will forever be inspired by the city that shaped her. “The whole project is inspired by my youth and this quintessential New York story. I feel like New York is the mother who just allows you to be who you really are. I really wanted folks to hear the album and think, ‘I wanna go there so that I can be that.’”
What did you listen to growing up that influenced you?
Well, my dad was in the music industry. He was in marketing and A&R, and worked with Tone Loc and Samantha Fox and the Jungle Brothers, so I would listen to a lot of his music and the artists that he was working with. He had an amazing vinyl catalogue, so we would listen to disco and Sade and new wave, and of course salsa, merengue and bachata. And then, when I was thirteen, I started going to clubs and weird after-hours parties and lofts with a lot of electronic music and techno and hip-hop.
So at what point did you start making music and when did you think, “Okay, this is what I wanna do”?
I started playing the piano at around fourteen. I was always very musical. I used to love to sing in public bathrooms and my mom would be like, “What are you doing in there?” ‘Cause like the whole restaurant could hear me sing and I would be like, “I’m just washing my hands.” But I didn’t think that would turn into a career. In college, I was making music for fun – I was trying to be an art therapist but my roommate was a music major, and she really encouraged me. I was making music on a really ancient DAW programme, and drum and bass and jungle music.
You’ve been part of the underground music scene for a minute, and I’ve read you describe your sound in the past as “tropical punk”. What has your sound evolved into now?
I guess I just used the word punk then because my sound was pretty left-field. When I first started making music I was kind of breaking rules, rapping and singing in Spanglish and using electronics. I guess that act in itself was kind of punk, but my music isn’t. I think the music that I’m making now isn’t as DIY – actually, it’s not DIY at all, it’s a little bit more polished – but it still has the same influences. The next single that I’m releasing is a drum and bass track.
So tell me about your new project…
I’m releasing a new single which is gearing up towards a full-length project. I’m super excited about that. The sound on this album is very Maluca in terms of the genre-bending, but it’s a different sound.
Amazing. Are you gonna put it out independently or do you have plans for the rollout of it at all?
Yeah, I’m putting it out independently. I’ve done the music industry machine with labels and stuff, so I’m excited to have autonomy and control over my music and my narrative.
What inspired you to start working on this new project and what was the creative process like?
I held a writer’s camp in Joshua Tree in 2018 and I invited all my favourite people, producers, writers, and we stayed in this really cool house from the seventies that looked like someone’s grandma lived there, and we worked with all the genres. My music is really an ode to New York. It really is the jump-off for how I feel, just everything that I do, sonically, aesthetically, and so I had these sounds, these genres that I wanted to work with. We would put them in a bowl and producers would pick different genres and we would be like, “Okay we’re gonna work with these two today.”
So let’s talk about this resurgence of Latin music and Latin artists breaking out and dominating mainstream charts…
I think it’s great. When I started making music, I would go to the Dominican Republic every year and I remember, it was Killing Me Softly or one of The Fugees songs that was big back then and none of my friends knew what the words meant, so they would all come over to my house and I would translate for them. And I just thought, this is so wild, I only hear Spanish music on the radio out here. I don’t hear it on like, Hot 97, you know what I mean? And I don’t hear Americans singing or rapping to their favourite song that’s in Spanish or French. I remember even just travelling around Europe and being like, why don’t we know French rap? And just feeling like that’s so wild and strange. So when I started making music, I was like, I want to sing and rap in English and Spanish. I want Americans to be singing my shit, the Spanish shit. So now that there’s such an explosion, or like a renaissance of Latin music, I just think it’s so cool to see non-Spanish speaking people speaking Spanish.
“It’s about being authentic and being real. I just try to focus on the people who wanna fuck with me.” Maluca
Yeah and even outside of Latin music, I feel like there’s a resurgence of international music in the mainstream right now, with afrobeats, dancehall and even K-pop. Why do you think this is happening?
I think the universe is like, it’s our time to shine, you know? And also, the internet and having access to so many people online. But I love it. We’re breaking out of homogenous whiteness, which I think is fab.
Same! So as someone who’s been in the game for a minute, and having seen what the music industry was like pre- and post-internet, how has that shift affected you? It’s kind of a gift and a curse.
Yeah, it’s so interesting. I remember what it was like with no internet, and I remember what it was like to have MySpace and I don’t know, there’s something about what’s happening now. I do have social anxiety and so that’s connected to the internet and Instagram, I guess. But I love getting to know new people and meeting new friends and connecting with people that I’ve never met. But then there’s this weird dark side where I see people IRL and a lot of people do not know how to communicate. People don’t even like to call each other anymore. And I’m like, I have carpal tunnel. I can’t do the texting, I need to talk. I don’t know, when I was growing up we were so much more autonomous and free thinking, and now there’s this obsession with celebrities and an obsession with this uniform and wanting external validation, but also desperately wanting to fit in and be accepted and be liked – literally be ‘liked’. I remember growing up it wasn’t like that so much – we weren’t confined to boxes, like squares on a screen, Do you know what I mean?
Yes, literally.
Yeah. Me and my friends were just wild and into the shit that we wanted to be into. I have this conspiracy theory that it’s because these kids don’t have a new drug. Every generation had a new drug to fuck with and it had a vibe that went with the drug and you know, we had ecstasy. It’s just like these kids are just into ketamine and eating ass. They don’t even like normal sex. You just eat each other’s ass. Maybe they don’t like to look each other in the face because of social media?
Social media definitely doesn’t help social anxiety. How do you get around that but also deal with the pressure of having to use it for your music?
I just get all esoteric with it. Like, listen, we’re just a bunch of spinning balls, nothing matters. Who cares? Numbers go up, numbers go down. I also try to really turn my mind away from what I don’t have and focus on what I do have, which is fans who love me and who are diehard and who I can connect with. It’s about being authentic and being real instead of trying to grab at things that you think may get more followers or more this or more that. I just try to focus on the people who wanna fuck with me.
Do you have advice for up-and-coming artists trying to make it in this weird world we’re living in now?
Um you know, just eat ass and stay off Instagram and make your music.
Credits
Photography Abdul Kircher
Fashion Alejandra Hernandez
Hair Bee The Hairstylist
Make up Valerie Vonprisk using Dior Beauty
Maluca wears all cothing model’s own
Casting director Samuel Ellis Scheinman for DMCASTING