MLMA
cover story in her. magazine volume 10
Photography _ Kenneth Cappello
Design _ Yukio Sugaya
@melovemealot @mlma_art @melovemealotmakeup
MLMA Interview
Writer _ A-Men
(A-Men and M in an old abandoned TV show studio continued their interview.)
---- So, M aka MLMA, melovemealot, who are you?
I’m an anonymous creature living in a beautiful Asian human body, but I really don’t know who I am.
---- Okay, then tell us about the first memory that you remember.
It was a white room and I was a baby filling in an old colouring book with my baby hands. I made a big mess cuz I didn’t know how to control my baby arms yet.
---- (laughs) Interesting. Did you have a family or friends?
I had a mother and a father and they were very happy for a while; they were very poor, but very happy. Baby M couldn’t make any true friends so she just ended up being alone.
---- You said this Asian human’s family was happy for a while; what happened?
MLMA: In my memory, something happened between her mom and dad. They fought a lot about who was gonna take care of baby M. I had to choose for her cuz she was so stupid and had no idea. I wanted to live with the father. He was very poor and sick but I felt like he really loved baby M and the mother had a rich boyfriend who abused baby M. Every time when he came home drunk, he’d punish baby M with a pool cue. Once, this Asian yellow ass was purple. (laughs)
---- (laughs) You’re so funny. So, did baby M end up living with her father?
No. The lives of humans are not that easy. He died from his sickness when she was 13 so she had to live with a purple ass for a while. (laughs)
---- A purple ass, for real? (laughs) I can’t imagine you having a purple ass. Anyway, to anyone who still doesn’t know who you are, can you tell us more about yourself?
I am an artist so I do whatever I want. Currently, I’m a musician and I used to design fashion, paint, and do makeup.
---- Yeah? Let’s talk about music. What kind of music do you play or sing?
Honestly, I don’t know how to describe my music. It sounds really good to my ear so maybe I would call it “eargazm”. I’ve made many songs in my secret mountain house with @kaikainoise. He was previously Dua Lipa’s producer so that means he knows what he is doing. We’ve been making songs together for a year through e-mail, just for fun.
---- How did that start?
Kai DM’d me through Instagram and asked me to feature on another artist’s tracks. At that moment, I didn’t have that much music experience so I was surprised and really thankful. I was happy that someone believed in me... and I’m still doing it.
---- So, I guess music is a new challenge to you, but even before music, you had so many followers on Instagram; why was this?
Well, I started to post my art on my page. My early art was just oil paint on canvas and no one gave a shit about my boring stuff. (laughs) When you make amazing art and no one is looking at it, what is the point? So, I started to do art on my face with makeup because people like selfies. One day I made a wavy eyebrow selfie and the next day it was a viral trend. Since then, I’ve kept posting my new designs, cool looks, funny edits, and now I’ve got 1.2M followers.
---- You make it sound so easy but I’m sure you worked hard. You were born in Seoul, South Korea, right? How did you learn to speak English?
Like I said, baby M didn’t have any friends to hang out with so she hung out with the internet and watched a lot of American movies. One day, she forgot to put the Korean subtitles on and didn’t even realise it. She watched half a movie without subtitles. Then she started to dream in English, it was weird. Sometimes people speak English so quickly and I feel bad asking them to repeat themselves. I never wanted to be that annoying Asian person so I practice my pronunciation... I want it to sound sexy.
---- What was your favourite American movie?
MLMA: My favourite movie was Fight Club but I recently changed to Ray. Kai showed it to me at the music house and I learned so much about life through that movie. I felt like I was Ray.
---- I will check out that movie later. You keep describing yourself in the third person; can you explain more about the you inside of the beautiful Asian body?
Ok, I don’t think I’m male or female. I was just born with a female body so I’m kinda living like a female. Sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t even know who this (pointing at herself) is. I can feel so detached from society but I’m just trying to maintain my life and have fun because I figure that’s all I can do during my time on this earth.
---- So, do you even know how you ended up here?
I chose to be here. I just wanted to have another life... a fun life, not a poor life. Think about it, I was born in South Korea in the mud. I had no connection to you or music or art, but I couldn’t imagine any other life now. When I say it, I do it, and good things happen to me. That’s why I’m here with you.
(A-men came back from work and sat down on his favourite blue chair with his favourite ice cold Ta-ta tea and thought about what M had said at the end. He closed his eyes and really thought about it. He thought about his existence and he couldn’t remember where he had come from and where he had started. He could only think about what he wants and where he wanted to be. He knew what to do. He packed his surgical kit to go find himself.)
* this interview made by MLMA and it is half-fictional-half-true so believe whatever you want to believe. What is the truth anyway...?