Mxmtoon

Maia, known professionally as mxmtoon, is an American singer-songwriter and YouTuber.

Her music is characterized by emotionally transparent, confessional lyrics, and often employs the ukulele.

Maia was born on July 9, 2000, in Oakland, California; she grew up near Lake Merritt.

Her mother is Chinese-American, and her father is German and Scottish.

While at school, she enjoyed taking art and architecture classes.

She became interested in music from a young age; her brother took violin lessons, and in first grade, Maia joined him.

A few years later, she began playing classical cello and trumpet.

In fifth grade, she auditioned for her school rock band.

Expecting to audition for cello, she was instead asked to sing Oasis' song "Wonderwall," and ended up joining as a vocalist, where she recalls singing "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World.

In sixth grade, she began playing guitar, learning in part from her father.

Maia first coined the name "mxmtoon" on her Instagram account, where she drew cartoon sketches.

She started a YouTube channel in September 2013, and began playing the ukulele in middle school.

She wrote her first song at age 13.

Maia began self-releasing songs in secret in 2017, before the size of her online presence became too substantial to conceal.

In addition to involvement with music, Maia is a streamer on Twitch, has made a podcast, and has released two graphic novels.

She has collaborated with artists such as Cavetown and Chloe Moriondo, and resides in Brooklyn, New York City.

Maia began self-releasing songs on YouTube under the online alias "mxmtoon" in 2017; the name is derived from her initials.

Although she started her career secretly, subsequent growth of her online presence compelled her to disclose her activity in this field to her family.

Her early oeuvre was recorded with GarageBand in her parents' guest bedroom, and percussion tracks were created with found objects such as hair straighteners.

After initially attempting to write comedy songs, she began writing in a confessional style.

Her 2017 collaboration with lo-fi producer Peachy, "Falling for U," became an early signature song; it has since garnered more than three hundred million streams on Spotify.

She released her first EP, Plum Blossom, in 2018; her debut album, The Masquerade, was released in September 2019.

This was followed by the twin EPs Dawn and Dusk in 2020, and second studio album Rising, which was released on May 20, 2022.

In 2018, Maia released her debut EP, Plum Blossom; It was accompanied by the "Plum Blossom Tour," scheduled for the March of the following year.

She was planning to study architecture after graduating from high school, until her music went viral in April 2018.

While it was initially scheduled for five US shows with fellow Californian singer-songwriter Khai Dreams in March 2019, it sold out and was extended to include additional concerts in North America and Europe, including opening appearances for bedroom pop YouTuber Cavetown.

After high school, Maia took a gap year by postponing college to focus on her music.

Maia's debut studio album, The Masquerade, was released on September 17, 2019; the album peaked at number 45 on the US Indie Albums Chart.

"Prom Dress," the lead single, found considerable usage on social media platform TikTok, where it has been used in over a hundred thousand videos.

The album's release had been accompanied by 21 Days, a podcast in audio diary format by Spotify that concerned Maia's activities while working on the project in New York City.

To support the album, Maia embarked on The Masquerade Tour, of North America and United Kingdom, in the same month of the album's release.

Her first graphic novel, The Adventures Of mxmtoon: The Masquerade, began selling in October 2019.

In the succeeding month, Maia signed to the label of Kobalt Music Group, under a global publishing deal.

She released a remix album, The Masquerade (The Edits) soon after, and recorded "Prom Dress" in Simlish, the fictional language used in The Sims games.

Maia released her first single of 2020, "Fever Dream," in January.

"Fever Dream" was followed by EP Dawn in April; accompanying EP Dusk was released in October.

In an interview given in the interregnum between the releases of the two EPs, Maia detailed an intention to make music that "gracefully said thank you and goodbye" to her past work.

Dawn and Dusk were soon amalgamated to form album Dawn & Dusk; in the meantime, she also started a daily history podcast, 365 days with mxmtoon.

Maia was featured in Dork 's Hype List of 2020, alongside artists including Girl in Red, Beabadoobee and Maisie Peters.

In the March of the following year, she was announced as the singing voice for Alex Chen, the protagonist of the Square Enix game Life Is Strange: True Colors.