Mothica
Mothica | |
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![]() Mothica performing in 2018 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | McKenzie Ellis |
Born | March 12, 1995 |
Genres | Pop, rock, electropop, emo, pop punk |
Occupations | Singer |
Years active | 2014–present |
Labels |
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Website | mothica |
McKenzie Ellis (born March 12, 1995), known professionally as Mothica, is an American singer. She grew up in Oklahoma City and began producing music when she was 18 years old. Since 2015, she has produced a dozen albums and singles distributed across several online musical streaming platforms such as on Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp along with numerous collaborations and features with other musicians known by "Nydge", "PUSHER", "Crywolf", and "Icarus Moth". In June 2020, a TikTok video she posted that included her song "VICES" went viral, providing greater notability as a musician and singer.
Early life
Mothica was born McKenzie Ellis on March 12, 1995. She grew up in Oklahoma City, and experienced depression and self-harm, turning to online communities after finding that expressing her struggles in her hometown was taboo.[1]
On January 29, 2011, Ellis attempted suicide. She has additionally experienced assault and domestic abuse.[1]
While she wrote music as a child, Ellis didn't want to be a musician by profession. She began producing music for public release when she was 18 years old.[2] She attended Harding Fine Arts Academy before receiving a scholarship from Pratt Institute for visual web programming, leading her to move to Brooklyn in 2013. In her first year at Pratt Institute, a classmate introduced her to SoundCloud and lent her a MIDI keyboard; the first song she released, titled "Starchild", was played 100,000 times in 24 hours.[3]
Stage name
Ellis adopted the name "Mothica" for her music and visual art at age 15 in reference to the tendency of moths to be attracted to light.[3]
Career
Mothica's first song, "Starchild", was played 100,000 times in 24 hours after she released it on SoundCloud. After learning to produce songs in Ableton, she released an EP titled "Mythic" in 2015. The song “No One” from the EP reached No. 6 on the U.S. Viral Spotify Charts.[3]
Mothica has no record label, publicist, or manager, and describes herself as a self-made musician. In 2020, she began promoting her music on TikTok, later attributing the success of her music career to the app after a June 2020 video of her first time listening to her song "VICES" got more than 5,000,000 views and almost 1,000,000 likes. On the social media platform, where she has more than 500,000 followers, she shares openly about her experiences with depression as well as sobriety and hair loss.[1]
In June 2020, Mothica released a song titled "VICES" which reached No. 2 on the iTunes popular music charts, surpassing "Watermelon Sugar" by Harry Styles.[1] The song also charted on the Billboard charts. In August 2020, she released a 12-song album titled "Blue Hour" which autobiographically discussed her progress toward sobriety;[4] the album also charted.[2] She subsequently released an EP titled "Forever Fifteen" in March 2021.[5] In July 2022, she released her second studio album, "Nocturnal".
Musical style
Mothica's pop music is influenced by rock and emo.[1] Mothica has technically described her earliest songs such as in the Mythic EP as "bummer pop" and dream pop.[6]
Personal life
Mothica has several tattoos. Her first was a geometric cube tattooed on the back of her neck, motivated at the time by enjoyment of architecture and minimalism. She has a sleeve tattoo on her right arm that includes a flying hawk impaled by an arrow as well as the skull of a ram and a fern leaf. She has a tattoo on her back inspired by the painting Lucretia, and tattoos of her song titles "chaos", "heavy hart", "NOW", and "VICES". She also has a tattoo of three moths around a lamppost.[2]
Mothica moved to Los Angeles in 2019 for her career in music, but moved back into her parents' home in Oklahoma City due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her mother Debbie Ellis, also known as "Momica", has assisted her with the production of music videos.[3]
Discography
Extended Plays:
- Mythic (2015)
- Heavy Heart (2017)
- Ashes (2018)
- Forever Fifteen (2021)
Albums:
- Blue Hour (2020)
- Nocturnal (2022)
References
- ^ a b c d e La Jeunesse, Marilyn (April 12, 2021). "Mothica Is Turning Her Trauma Into Pop Bangers". Bustle. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c Preston, Devon (September 8, 2020). "Mothica Breaks Down Her TikTok Success Story, Mental Illness and Tattoo Collecting". Inked. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c d McDonnell, Brandy (August 28, 2020). "Interview and video: Oklahoma singer-songwriter Mothica follows TikTok breakthrough with debut LP 'Blue Hour'". The Oklahoman. Archived from the original on January 22, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
- ^ McDonnell, Brandy (October 21, 2020). "Watch TikTok star Mothica deliver potent stripped-down version of breakout hit 'Vices'". The Oklahoman. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Bocci, Maria (March 12, 2021). "Mothica adds her own touch of pop to Bring Me The Horizon's "Can You Feel My Heart"". EARMILK. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Mythic EP, by mothica".
External links
Media related to Mothica at Wikimedia Commons
- Official website
- CS1 maint: url-status
- Articles with short description
- Short description with empty Wikidata description
- Use mdy dates from January 2022
- Articles without Wikidata item
- Articles with hCards
- Commons category link is the pagename
- Official website not in Wikidata
- AC with 0 elements
- 1990s births
- Living people
- Musicians from Oklahoma City
- Pop musicians
- American TikTokers