McKenzie Ellis (born March 12, 1995), known professionally as Mothica, is an American singer. She grew up in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

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 Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

and

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...

along with numerous collaborations and features with other musicians known by "Nydge," "PUSHER," "Crywolf," and "Icarus Moth." In June 2020, a

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

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

, and experienced depression and

self-harm Self-harm is intentional behavior that is considered harmful to oneself. This is most commonly regarded as direct injury of one's own skin tissues usually without a suicidal intention. Other terms such as cutting, self-injury and self-mutilatio ...

, turning to online communities after finding that expressing her struggles in her hometown was

taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

. On January 29, 2011, Ellis attempted suicide. She has additionally experienced assault and

domestic abuse Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner v ...

. 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. She attended

Harding Fine Arts Academy Harding Fine Arts Academy (HFAA) is a college preparatory high school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is sponsored by the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. HFAA serves students from grade 9 to 12. It is a public, charter high school; th ...

before receiving a scholarship from

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

for visual web programming, leading her to move to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

in 2013. In her first year at Pratt Institute, a classmate introduced her to

and lent her a

MIDI keyboard A MIDI keyboard or controller keyboard is typically a piano-style electronic musical keyboard, often with other buttons, wheels and sliders, used for sending MIDI signals or commands over a USB or MIDI 5-pin cable to other musical devi ...

; the first song she released, titled "Starchild", was played 100,000 times in 24 hours.

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.

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 Ableton AG is a German music software company that produces and distributes the production and performance program Ableton Live and a collection of related instruments and sample libraries, as well as their own hardware controller Ableton Push. ...

, 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. Mothica has no record label,

publicist A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a company, a brand, or public figure – especially a celebrity – or for a work such as a book, film, or album. Publicists are public relations specialists who ...

, or manager, and describes herself as a self-made musician. In 2020, she began promoting her music on

, later attributing the success of her music career to the app. She has more than 500,000 followers on TikTok where she shares openly about her experiences with depression as well as

sobriety Sobriety is the condition of not having any measurable levels or effects from alcohol or drugs. Sobriety is also considered to be the natural state of a human being at birth. A person in a state of sobriety is considered sober. Organizations o ...

and

hair loss Hair loss, also known as alopecia or baldness, refers to a loss of hair from part of the head or body. Typically at least the head is involved. The severity of hair loss can vary from a small area to the entire body. Inflammation or scarri ...

. In June 2020, Mothica released a song titled "VICES" which reached No. 2 on the

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

popular music charts, surpassing "

Watermelon Sugar "Watermelon Sugar" is a song by English singer Harry Styles from his second studio album '' Fine Line'' (2019), included as the album's second track. Styles wrote the song with Mitch Rowland and the song's producers, Tyler Johnson and Kid Ha ...

" by

Harry Styles Harry Edward Styles (born 1 February 1994) is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. His musical career began in 2010 as a solo contestant on the British music competition series ''The X Factor (UK TV series), The X Factor''. Following hi ...

. The song also charted on the

Billboard charts The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in '' Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, p ...

and received more than 5,000,000 views and almost 1,000,000 likes. In August 2020, she released a 12-song album titled "Blue Hour" which autobiographically discussed her progress toward sobriety; the album also charted. She subsequently released an EP titled "Forever Fifteen" in March 2021. In July 2022, she released her second studio album, "Nocturnal". In November 2022, Mothica was featured on

Scene Queen Hannah Rose Collins (born May 6, 1997), professionally known as Scene Queen and formerly RØSÉ, is an American singer and songwriter signed to Hopeless Records. She is known for coining the style "Bimbocore", a subgenre of metalcore with femin ...

's song "The Rapture (But it's Pink)".

Musical style

Mothica's

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describe ...

is influenced by

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

and

emo Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of and hardcore punk from the Washington D.C. hardcore punk scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore and pioneered b ...

. Mothica has technically described her earliest songs such as in the Mythic EP as "bummer pop" and

dream pop Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such as ...

Personal life

Mothica has several

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several Process of tatt ...

s. Her first was a geometric

cube In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross. The cube is the only r ...

tattooed on the back of her neck, motivated at the time by enjoyment of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

and

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

. She has a

sleeve tattoo A sleeve tattoo or tattoo sleeve is a large tattoo or collection of smaller tattoos that covers most or all of a person's arm. There is a difference between an arm covered in tattoos and a sleeve tattoo: a sleeve tattoo has a unified theme, wherea ...

on her right arm that includes a flying

hawk Hawks are bird of prey, birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. They are widely distributed and are found on all continents except Antarctica. * The subfamily Accipitrinae includes goshawks, sparrowhawks, sharp-shinned hawks and others. Th ...

impaled by an

arrow An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers c ...

as well as the skull of a ram and a

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes except t ...

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

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

s around a

lamppost A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution ...

. Mothica moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in 2019 for her career in music, but moved back into her parents' home in Oklahoma City due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Her mother Debbie Ellis, also known as "Momica," has assisted her with the production of

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

Discography

Extended Plays: *''Mythic'' (2015) *''Heavy Heart'' (2017) *''Ashes'' (2018) *''Forever Fifteen'' (2021) Albums: *''Blue Hour'' (2020) *''Nocturnal'' (2022)

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Living people Musicians from Oklahoma City Pop musicians American TikTokers 1995 births