the beat

MITSKI: TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES. MINAJ: LEON BENNETT/GETTY

IMAGES. 6IX9INE: GONZALES PHOTO/ALAMY LIVE NEWS.

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YOU MIGHT CALL MITSKI A DRIFTER. BORN IN

Japan, the singer-songwriter lived in 13 diferent

countries growing up. Today, she has embraced a

sort of permanent displacement, inhabiting various

sublets and Airbnbs along the East Coast when she’s

not on tour, as she was earlier in 2018, opening for

Lorde alongside rap duo Run the Jewels.

“In order to ind a place and move into a place,

you need time to do that, and I just don’t have time,”

says the 27-year-old born Mitski Miyawaki. At the

moment, she has found a couple of hours of respite

at a Szechuan restaurant in Brooklyn’s Bushwick

neighborhood, where she’s staying as she does press

and rehearses for a headlining international fall

tour. She pauses. “I think I will next year.”

It’s unlikely that the current generation’s answer

to candid, guitar-strumming songwriters like

Liz Phair will ind domestic bliss anytime soon.

Despite being discouraged early on by a piano

teacher who told her that her hands were too

small for the instrument, Mitski majored in music

composition at Purchase College in upstate New

York and has since put out ive albums. The irst

two were more classical-inluenced, but it was with

her third, Bury Me at Makeout Creek in 2014, that

Mitski began to win critical acclaim. By her next

release, 2016 ’s Puberty 2 — an album of relatably

angsty guitar ballads — everything had changed.

Of her 51.3 million on-demand streams,

according to Nielsen Music, Puberty 2

has generated nearly half. She’s gotten

high praise from Iggy Pop, and last year,

Lorde sent her a Twitter DM, inviting her

to open on her arena tour.

“Sometimes I felt like I was blowing

people’s minds,” she recalls of Lorde’s

spring trek, where she played to young

pop fans so early in the evening that the

house lights were often still on. “It was

like I was inventing punk music in front

of them.”

Her ifth album, Be the Cowboy, out

Aug. 17, favors synths over guitar. It’s an

intentional pivot for Mitski, who, now

that she commands a larger reach, is wary

of being pigeonholed. “I had come to be identiied

by distorted guitar, and I wanted to make sure I

didn’t repeat myself,” she says. And, she jokes, “I

want to get my nails done. I’m passing the bass on to

a bassist, so my ingers are free.”

Be the Cowboy isn’t a total departure from

Puberty 2 — there are plenty of the lonely-heart

anthems that irst drew fans. Its irst single,

“Nobody,” where Mitski bemoans, “I know

no one will save me,” has garnered 1.3 million

on-demand U.S. streams since its release in late

June. But as open as she may be with her emo-

tions, Mitski is guarded about her personal life. “I

accept all the consequences of what I do because

I want to make music,” she says. “If I have less

privacy, then ine. But the people that come into

my life or that I love, they didn’t make that choice

or choose this life. I don’t want my relationship

with them to jeopardize their privacy.”

“Me and My Husband” seems to invite

speculation about her love life, though Mitski

says it’s ictional and that she only “wanted

to use that idea of a stereotypical housewife.”

Where Puberty 2 centered on a teen heroine, Be

the Cowboy takes a more grown-up, boundary-

pushing perspective. On “Lonesome Love,”

Mitski whispers, almost unemotionally, “Nobody

fucks me like me.” This line, she says, is “true.”

Her music and videos play with fantasies of

settling down, and as Mitski gets older, she has

found they increasingly mirror her actual desires.

“I’m thinking about [marriage] now, and it’s crazy,”

she says. “I never thought I’d be this cliche, but I’m

really like, ‘Wait, do I want children?’ ” She’s now

big on investing money and recommends a SEP IRA

for the self-employed. (“You get a discount on taxes

because you give the government money that you’ll

get back later,” she explains.) She has also started

writing songs for others, including Canadian pop

singer Allie X. “The hope is that 15 years from now,

when I’m too tired to tour, I will already have that

other musical job set up,” she says.

With her Asian heritage, Mitski is aware she’s an

outlier even in the current indie-rock scene, which is

now less talked about as a boys club thanks to rising

acts like Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy. She

has repeated in many interviews that she doesn’t

want to just talk about being Japanese

— something that would reinforce the

idea that she’s an indie-rock token. Yet

she can’t help but be proud about the

growing presence of Asians in popular

culture: She’s quick to note the big-

budget, Asian-led ilm Crazy Rich Asians

opens in August, as does the Asian

coming-of-age lick To All the Boys I’ve

Loved Before, which hits Netlix the same

day Be the Cowboy arrives. “I’m going

to keep being a musician for as long as

people let me, so by the time I put out

seven or eight albums, maybe people will

realize I’m not putting out music because

I’m Asian.” She’s doing it, she adds,

because “I can’t do anything else.”

Mitski onstage

in May in

Arcosanti, Ariz.

“ It was like I was

inventing punk music in

front of [Lorde’s fans].”

—Mitski

It was no surprise that after Nicki Minaj tapped rapper 6ix9ine to open her fall NickiHndrxx Tour with Future, a backlash ensued. After all, 6ix9ine

has become one of hip-hop’s most controversial figures after pleading guilty to three counts of sexual misconduct with a child. The pair’s new track,

“Fefe,” which bows at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, stoked the flames further, garnering hot and cold takes from Minaj’s fans.

Minaj

TAKING THE SOCIAL TEMPERATURE OF ‘FEFE’

6ix9ine

KHLOE KARDASHIAN

SHOUTED OUT IN “FEFE”

“I hearrrddddf!!!!

How cool is

that?!?!”

MALIIBU MIITCH

RAPPER, CO-SIGNED BY

MINAJ

“Fefe

my new

mood”

NICK NIEVES

FAN, BEAUTY BLOGGER

“Absolutely

the fuck

not.”

SAFAREE

EX-BOYFRIEND, SONGWRITER

“Ayo I ain’t no hater

so I gotta say

that line ‘Ac just

stop working so

they hit me told me

bring my wrist back’

is soooo hard. I love

Icy talk”