On this episode of Mind Massage, Maiya The Don takes us on a sound journey using some of her favorite items such as a wig, sunflower seeds, Dr. Pepper and more!
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MusicTranscript
00:00Oh, that's so nice.
00:04Hello, my name is Maya the Don,
00:07and welcome to my mind massage.
00:10Ooh.
00:17I'm gonna take you through a sound journey
00:20using some of my favorite things.
00:23Let's do this.
00:46So here we have a wig.
00:49This is not the kind of wig that I wear,
00:52but it's symbolic of the whole idea of why I picked it today.
00:56I love wearing wigs, and I love changing my hair,
01:00so it's very nice for me to do hair.
01:04A lot of people may not know that I'm a cosmetologist.
01:08Before a rapper...
01:13And so before I was your favorite rapper,
01:17I was a hairdresser and makeup artist.
01:20So we're just gonna brush this wig.
01:22We're gonna take this hair net off.
01:25And while I love to get my hair done,
01:28I do not like doing other people's hair,
01:30which is why I'm no longer a cosmetologist.
01:34Ooh.
01:36Look at that.
01:41That, like, scratches your brain right there.
01:44It's like, ugh.
01:47It's like...
01:51That's nice.
01:52I'm gonna get this hairspray.
01:58That is so nice.
02:04That's great.
02:05I might...
02:08get the flyaways.
02:11I've known that I wanted to make music my entire life.
02:15I used to write songs when I was young,
02:18and I would write a lot of poetry,
02:20and I thought I was gonna be the next Hannah Montana.
02:23But unfortunately, I cannot sing like Hannah Montana.
02:27It was my dream, though.
02:29So I started to be a rapper because I couldn't sing,
02:33and I still like to make music.
02:36But it wasn't until I got older
02:39that I realized that I could really, really, really, really do it
02:44because I was really good at it.
02:49Oh.
02:50I think being from New York is my entire identity sometimes.
02:56Oh, that's so nice.
03:01Being from New York shapes who I am as an individual.
03:05So I think it's really inspired my music
03:08because I just feel so creative when I'm home
03:13and when I listen to people from the same place that I'm from.
03:19This is nice.
03:22I started to take rap really seriously around 2022,
03:27like early 2022,
03:29where I was in the studio all the time,
03:32and I was always writing music.
03:35And I was like, listen, if I wanna be a rapper,
03:38I gotta really lock in, you know?
03:41So that's when I started to take it seriously,
03:44and then I made my song, Delphi,
03:46after a couple months of consistent writing
03:50and being in the studio.
03:52And then I released the snippet,
03:55and now I'm here as a rapper a year and a half later.
04:01OMG, so Delphi, it was crazy.
04:04It blew up overnight.
04:06I literally went to bed after I posted the snippet
04:09and woke up, and it had a million views
04:12across all three platforms.
04:14And I was like, oh, snap.
04:16And then that same week,
04:18I was getting emails from A&Rs
04:21and different rappers and stuff were DMing me,
04:25and they were like, yeah, I wanna sign you.
04:29And I was like, oh, snap.
04:31So then I hit up my friend who owned the studio,
04:34and I was like, yo, is this real?
04:37And he was like, yo, this is real.
04:39And he was like, okay, I'ma help you.
04:42And I was like, please help me,
04:43because I don't know what I'm doing.
04:45And then he became my manager
04:47because he just was helping me throughout the whole process.
04:50And he's sitting right over there.
04:53That's my guy.
04:54But yeah, Delphi blew up overnight,
04:57and it changed my life truly.
04:59Literally before the song came out,
05:01I was taking label meetings
05:03and had a huge battle.
05:07They were battling it out.
05:09It was like a bidding war over my identity.
05:11And I was like, yeah, yeah.
05:16I would love to collaborate with Beyonce.
05:19She's my favorite person in the entire world.
05:22I have a tattoo on the back of my neck dedicated to her.
05:25It's not a tattoo of her face or anything,
05:28but it's of a song that I really love,
05:31and it just speaks to me.
05:32So it's right here on my neck,
05:34and nobody ever sees it,
05:35because it's just for me.
05:36But I would love to collaborate with her,
05:39and I would love to collaborate with Megan Thee Stallion.
05:43I love Megan and that big ass butt she got.
05:48This is so nice.
05:56Here we have my favorite snack,
05:59salt and vinegar chips, kettle cooked.
06:02Very important that they're kettle cooked.
06:04I'm just gonna open this up.
06:06Oh my God.
06:08Oh my God.
06:09Oh my God.
06:10Oh my God.
06:11Oh my God.
06:12Oh my God.
06:13Oh my God.
06:14Oh my God.
06:15Oh my God.
06:16Open this up.
06:38That's nice.
06:46This is going to be so disgusting.
06:47This is going to be so disgusting.
06:48I hate hearing people eat.
06:49I hate hearing people eat.
06:50I hate hearing people eat.
06:51Delicious.
06:52Delicious.
06:53I hate hearing people eat.
07:03Delicious.
07:14My usual bodega order is a honey turkey and cheese on a roll.
07:21You need salt, pepper, mayo, oil, vinegar, lettuce, maybe a little bit of a banana pepper.
07:27I fuck with a banana pepper every now and then.
07:30Sometimes I do a pickle, but sometimes I like the pickle on the side.
07:34And then you gotta get the nacho cheese, sunflower seeds, right?
07:38And then you gotta get, these are the Calypso, like one of the Calypso lemonades, if you know, you know.
07:45Or you could get like the mango Arizona.
07:48Sometimes, sometimes that be too sweet for me.
07:51And then you gotta get like, you gotta get like some gum.
07:55Cause I like to have gum on me all the time.
07:59And then I think that's it.
08:01Like from the bodega last night, that's all I get.
08:03All you need is like a bag of chips, a yellow sandwich.
08:06And yeah.
08:12I would describe my music as cocky bitch music.
08:17I make music for women that know they pretty and fly and get money.
08:22I make music for the firstborn daughters, like self-made spoiled brats.
08:28Like I work hard for what I got and can't nobody make me feel bad about it.
08:33So if you're that type of girl, if you're like the eldest daughter, God bless you.
08:38But if you're the eldest daughter like me, like you're going to love my mixtape, Our Commodity.
08:43Because it's all about feeling good about yourself and feeling sexy and feeling empowered.
08:48And it's not like, you're not like centered around men.
08:52I feel like a lot of women's like lives be centered around men.
08:55Over here, we get the money, we get the bag, we take care of ourselves.
09:00Period.
09:02So if you're a pretty fly bitch, you're going to love Our Commodity.
09:27It's so good.
09:33Here we have my holy grail, Dr. Pepper.
09:39I love Dr. Pepper.
09:41I would put it in an IV bag and hook it up to my arm if I could.
09:46I love Dr. Pepper.
09:48But the problem is, it's not good for you.
09:52And I get hyper fixated on things, so I'll be obsessed with it.
09:55So my manager and my team does not let me have it.
09:59So my manager and my team does not let me have it very often.
10:04So I'm really excited that I'm going to have this Dr. Pepper because I haven't had one in a couple months.
10:11And he always makes this joke.
10:17He always makes this joke that it's like drugs.
10:20And sometimes I'll get a Dr. Pepper in the airport and he thinks he's so funny, but he's not.
10:30There's some ice here.
10:32I love ice.
10:34I kind of want to like eat it.
11:00Phenomenal.
11:21I kind of want to, you know, like when the six year olds come in from playing outside
11:26and they want some water or some juice and they're like, don't get really crazy.
11:29That's what I'm going to do right now.
11:34Forgive me for the person I'm about to become.
11:43Yeah, man.
11:45If I could only listen to the one album for the rest of my life, it would be the Renaissance album by Beyoncé or my favorite album personally for I love that Beyoncé album.
12:02That's my favorite album.
12:09Okay, you're going to notice a trend here.
12:12My dream festival lineup, three headliners would be Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, and I would say Doja Cat.
12:29She's a phenomenal performer.
12:31I would say Doja Cat.
12:37Yeah, I think those are my three.
12:39Those are my three.
12:40Those are my three.
12:42I would like say, okay, this is going to shock some of you, but bonus honorable mention, Taylor Swift.
12:51Don't fight me.
12:52I just watched her at her store, documentary thing, whatever.
12:56I think I became a Swifty.
12:59I was like 13 minutes in and I was like, she's taking it.
13:02I don't know.
13:03Like mother, mother, mother.
13:08So I would say maybe Taylor Swift too because I fuck with her.
13:19Here we have sunflower seeds.
13:38I love sunflower seeds.
13:52My team makes fun of me and they call me a bird, like a literal actual bird because I will eat them and just, you know, I'll take this whole bag down in like 45 minutes with no breaks.
14:06It's a problem.
14:07It's my obsession.
14:08I love sunflower seeds, but I found out that the sodium is so high in them.
14:15Girl, you're going to give yourself high blood pressure.
14:16You got to stop.
14:18Okay, so I haven't eaten them in a while because it's not good for you.
14:24So I'm really excited.
14:29It might get a little freaky in here.
14:31I'm going to be like spitting and stuff.
14:33It's going to be like, maybe if you're into shit like that, I don't know.
14:48If I could time travel to any era, I would time travel to.
14:52I would time travel to the 90s and give Tupac an iPhone and Twitter and just let him wreak havoc.
15:07I think it would be so funny.
15:08Like the thought of like, like 90s rappers having Twitter back in the day makes me giggle because I could just imagine all the sub tweets that would happen.
15:18And I think I'm a little bit messy in that way and I would really enjoy it.
15:22So I would go back in time to give Tupac an iPhone and a Twitter account.
15:32If I could give one piece of advice to aspiring artists, it would be stay consistent and stop comparing yourselves to other people.
15:44Don't compare your step one to other people's step 12.
15:49Okay.
15:50It's really easy to do when you like social media culture and you see everybody think like looking like they're doing something.
15:58But nowadays with social media culture, it's really important to look like you're doing something instead of actually doing it.
16:04So do something.
16:05Don't look like it.
16:06Okay.
16:07And don't compare yourself to other people and get lost in what others are doing and comparing yourself because you're not.
16:14You'll never grow as an individual.
16:16Everybody has to start from somewhere.
16:19Okay.
16:20So just remember that.
16:22My best self-love advice is probably to give yourself grace.
16:34We are our own biggest and toughest critics.
16:38Give yourself some grace.
16:40Let things just be and be okay with it.
16:43You can't if you can't be upset about something if you're not actively working to change it every day.
16:50So unless you're getting up every day and you're like, oh, I hate my haircut and you're not like going and learning how to cut hair so you can fix it.
17:00Can't complain about it.
17:01You know, that goes for everything, you know, so give yourself some grace and just let things be and you'll be so much happier.
17:10You can't control the weather.
17:13It's like, what is it?
17:17What's the word for it?
17:19Like a metaphor, you know, like, oh, you can't you can't control the weather.
17:24So don't you can't control like things that you can't control.
17:27You know, like, don't be mad that it's raining.
17:29You can't do nothing about that.
17:31Hey, if this is my time.
17:34Thank you for coming to my mind massage.
17:36Make sure you follow me on all socials at my the Don.
17:40It's M-A-I-Y-A the Don.
17:43And be on the lookout for more music, more visuals, more everything.
17:48And you can follow me on YouTube and watch my vlogs.
17:51If you want to hear me talk at a normal sound and not whispering.