Maeta May Be “Lost In Love,” But She’s Finding Herself With Her New EP
When Erykah Badu gifted the culture with the term “a recovering undercover over-lover” on 2010’s “Out My Mind, Just In Time?,” hopeless romantics everywhere felt validated. Maeta was one of them.
The 23-year-old may not be lowkey about her habitual desire to love and be loved, but she’s learning balance and not to aimlessly neglect herself for someone else. Her new EP, When I Hear Your Name, is the next chapter in a four-year romantic saga that loosely began with 2019’s Do Not Disturb.
Maeta and her beau met in the process of her moving to Los Angeles from Indianapolis; she had just signed to Roc Nation. By the time she released her major label debut Habits in 2021, Maeta confessed to being “deep” in the situationship. “This was a bad habit, going back to this person, and it was kind of fun, exciting, toxic as hell,” she explained. “But I would say now, it’s just gotten a lot deeper. This is love. I don’t think Habits had a lot of love in it, but [now] I just feel it 10 times harder.”
As a Pisces sun, Maeta innately romanticizes almost everything and gets lost in a sea of her own daydreaming. With age, she hopes to get more “logical and realistic,” but where’s the fun in that? We caught up with the songbird during a lunch break as she opened up about her muse, what she defines as “disgusting love,” and making her own sound.
VIBE: Going back to the moment when you were praying for the album to come out, what was going through your head as you’re preparing?
Maeta: I feel like with projects, my life is whatever I’m working on, and I think that I’m just ready to move on and just reach a new level or a different place in my life. The project not being out was pulling me back from that. I think once it’s out, it’s going to feel like a weight lifted off my shoulders. These songs [were] the soundtrack of my life for the past two years, I’m just ready to let them go.
When I Hear Your Name sounds very personal. There’s a story behind that.
The project’s about this relationship that I’m in. He’s not my boyfriend, but there’s this person that I just keep going back to. I’ve been going back to them for years, and honestly every project has been about them, but this one just goes more into depth about that relationship and being young and in love and not knowing what you’re doing. And I think that we all have one person that we go back to, and it’s just when I hear your name.
Is the theme about the toxic side of the relationship? The fun side or just every single aspect of that relationship?
Everything. It starts off very passionate, sexual, exciting. Then halfway through, we kind of get a little toxic. We break up for six months, and then it ends with “Through The Night,” which is like, let’s just—f**k it, be in love. It just takes you through the ups and downs, and I think that love is not a textbook thing where there’s an answer for everything. Love is such a crazy feeling, and I don’t think that you choose who you love. I think love just comes in like, boom, I’m here. I keep saying I’m young and in love, but maybe I’ll feel like this for the rest of my life, I don’t know. Does anybody ever figure out what love is? I don’t know, so I’m kind of trying to solve that.
Would you say that this signifies a chapter closing in the relationship, or it’s just something that you had to go through to get to the next step of the relationship?
Honestly, maybe this signified closing? I don’t know. I thought when Habits was over that that was me releasing him, and it didn’t happen. I think I’ll say that I’m releasing him with this project, but I’m definitely not.
Still in thick of it?
Still in the journey. I’m dating elsewhere. I’m not with this person, but when I hear their name, it’s just something about them that I can’t let go of. So I’ve been struggling with it for years, but all I can do is sing about it, honestly.
That’s healing in and of itself, honestly.
Yeah, exactly.
How do you stand out in the midst of everyone sounding and looking the same?
Somebody yesterday said I’m bringing back bridges, which is like, okay, I guess there’s no bridges to talk of anymore. I just have an interesting take, and I take a lot of influences from different places. And I’m from Indiana, so I have that influence. I think that all that together just makes me stand out. What I’m proud of with this project is that I’m not trying to sound like anybody else. I’m making my own sound, but I’m proud of it.
You say that you’re a self-proclaimed daydreamer. Where do you go when singing live?
I just daydream all day about love and boys. I’m boy crazy, and I hate saying that, and I haven’t dated a lot of men, but I do love to have a crush on somebody. And I swear I have a crush on somebody, a different person every month. Boys just inspire me. I’m just always thinking about that and my future, where I want to travel to, and my Pinterest boards. I think that I’d like to create a new mood every few months, and I’ll just become that mood. I don’t know, life is just fun when you get to this.
Do you have a favorite track on the EP?
Yeah, it’s called “Sexual Love,” the intro track. It just does something to me. I think that song embodies the love that I have for this person the most because it’s kind of just like, I just keep saying disgusting love. You know when you love somebody, it’s just like, ’Oh, it’s disgusting how much I love you, and this is so f**ked up, but I just love you so much?’ That’s how I feel, and that song embodies that for me. So “Sexual Love” and I also love “ASMR” because it’s just nasty. I don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed about that song, but people don’t really talk like that. It doesn’t feel out of the norm for me personally, but to put that out there in the world, it’s a little scary. So I’m kind of nervous about that one, but whatever.
It’s fun. You’re having fun and that’s it. Lastly, what do you want new or old fans to take away from this project as a whole?
I would say, I think the message that love is complicated. It’s not black and white. I think just follow your heart and just know that, I don’t know, life is complicated, and just own those relationships in your life and own not knowing what you’re doing, and I think just find comforting that nobody really knows what they’re doing. I think that’s what it’s because I’m just lost in love, but I’m owning it, and I just want anybody that’s going through that to feel comforted and feel like they can relate and have a song on this project that comforts them. Being lost in love, that’s my saying.
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