Get To Know: UNA MIA

UNA MIA is someone who seems very settled with herself despite only being in her early twenties but that solidness comes from the consequences of having to make tough decisions and the realisation that if you don’t live for yourself then who do you live for.

At present she, like all of us, is the sum of past decisions and grounded by that has given her the depth and lived experiences to create a debut ep like Airbourne.

Speaking to New Wave Magazine via Zoom, UNA MIA has found some time to speak about her impressions on adulthood, finding freedom within and outside of love and also Airbourne.

“I would say that it offers a good combination of vibes”,The Toronto-born, Belleville-raised artist responds after I mention that the project is perfectly timed for a summer release.

“The track ‘Nothin’ is definitely a summer vibe in my opinion. It’s flirty and a lighter vibe but some of the other songs are more deep and a little bit more stripped to emphasises the depth of the lyrics but I think over the past four years we’ve tried to make the ep as cohesive as possible whilst showing different sides of me.”

Creating the ep itself was a personal journey that didn’t start of easy, “I left school, I had to tell my family that I wanted to do music which might sound like an easy thing to do but it was hard because I feel like me leaving school affected their identity as parents and what they projected for their daughter’s future career.”

It was also a time of self-discovery as she had to "unlearn" who she thought she had to be and re-invent herself "to live my life authentically and  be my own hero, which is what Airbourne represents."

“I really went inward", Una Mia said. It was an effort not to "see myself for what people wanted me to be and remembering who I am. I feel as if I really put myself on the backburner.I didn’t really think that music really mattered in my life as much as I loved it, so I started to put myself more as a priority."

Speaking about the realities of being an independent artist, she says “I feel happy doing something that I love and as an independent artist you have to pick up jobs.

In the past I worked at Starbucks for a long time, to have something that allowed me the flexible to create music, travel for shows and other artist things.

“I feel like when I was working as a barista I loved connecting with people and I would always write my music on a napkin so they can check it out”, she said smiling

"It’s a grind but I love it.”

The decision to dub the project Airbourne was inspired by the idea of Una Mia taking flight in her life. Expanding on the idea, “there are a lot of themes of direction, and also being your on hero. Nobody is going to take you off the ground other than yourself and once you are up you feel the resilience it took to get there."

Speaking further about her desire for authentic connection stems into her music, she says “I feel that this project can connect with a lot of people, especially in their twenties; in real time it reflects me navigating my relationships, my career, feeling like your lost, feeling like you’ve reached something and then you have to pivot and go in another direction.

I feel like none of us have ever had it figured out in our twenties and people like to glamourise that decade but I like to shed some light on that experience for people. I know that everyone has a different experience but I feel like the themes I touch on is definitely relatable to many.”

“Giving myself room for personal freedom is so rewarding”, she adds.

Raised by her mother, a first-generation immigrant from Bosnia she found “Growing up I listened to a lot of Balkan music, which is very folky. It has a lot of cool rhythms, drums and trumpets. Instruments that you don’t typically here in pop music.

They also sing with a lot of passion as well and Serbian is my first language, so I will also feel connected to it no matter what but my mum also played a lot of classic R&B like Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles.”

We sort of just gravitated towards that, and I can always appreciate how a singer can convey emotion in such a unique tasteful way which is what I try and do in my own music."

The twenty four old has an ever-evolving music style that intersects the genres of R&B and Soul throughout in a subtle and light way and she leans into the sound when she navigates a one sided relationship on ‘Move On’.

Speakking about the single she says, “Move On' was about a long-term relationship that I felt obligated to stay in and I ended up sacrificing a lot of my emotional needs to be in that.

They were kind of holding me back, but I never realised until a certain point that it was okay to speak my mind and reflect on both mine and their behaviour in the relationship. It’s about having courage to move on from a crappy relationship.”

However, the vocalist sonically does venture out slightly with ‘Better Care'. "I felt like we needed an R&B banger on there! A lot of them felt older with plucky gituar strings but I really wanted a soulful and classic sounding song.”

“Initially when I was thinking of the song, because it is very sensuous, it sounds like it’s about another person which was the intention in the beginning but I realised that not many songs are about self-love in that type of way. And as a women that’s important to hear and be reassured that it’s okay to please yourself", she said.

Talking us through the three year creative process, before the songs, there was diary entries. “I wanted this introductory project to reflect me on the most authentic level", she says.

"So basically, it’s a stream of consciousness, when I started the creative process I like to freestyle on a beat, whether it is guitar or piano and then go with some melodies, sometimes lyrics do come out. This first project was pretty much a girl coming out of her shell and being extremely vulnerable about me specifically.”

Speaking about her experiences with the platform COLORSxSTUDIOS after performing ‘Lose’ in October 2023.

She says, “I was working with a movement coach called Holiday J in Toronto and he really helped me make that physical expirence come to life but it was pretty bold thing for me to do honestly and I’m really grateful for my team in helping to put that together.

It was really surreal the way they do things and it’s a platform that I have admired since I was a teenager. They made me feel so welcome."

“I’m very excited to grow”, UNA MIA says brightly as we come to the end of our interview. “For the upcoming projects a lot of different sides to me are going to come through as an artist. I’m very mutlti-faceted so I’m really excited about how I get to explore that.”

UNA MIA recently announced her debut, hometown headline show at The Drake Underground in Toronto on October 4th, 2024.

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