Miki Ratsula on Discovering Self-Love, Navigating Queerness and Debut Album “I Owe It To Myself”
Miki Ratsula’s debut album, i owe it to myself, is a chronicle of the artist’s most vulnerable and intimate moments, from their top surgery journey to their parent’s relationship. Ratsula tells a story about being honest with themselves and coming to terms with being out as non-binary.
The acoustic pop dream is guided by Miki’s lush soundscapes and lo-fi-inspired production that captures an intense “emotional seesaw” of their youth and adulthood. Through seamless blends of R&B slow jams, acoustic instrumentals, and dream-pop influences, the artist sings about owing themself self-love and appreciation after overcoming hardships and personal victories.
The Southern California-based singer, songwriter, and producer uses i owe it to myself as means of storytelling for young queer kids who never grew up listening to queer artists. The record serves as validation for queer kids who struggle with navigating queerness and their identities.
Even the title, i owe it to myself, carries vulnerability with what self-love means to Ratsula. Self-love came to fruition for Ratsula while creating this record and being an advocate for vulnerability during the writing and emotional stages. Getting top surgery was one of the biggest forms of self-love Ratsula can give to themselves and they open up about it in their single “second.” “I just want to be the artist I needed growing up,” Ratsula said.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Can you give our readers a general artist's background and how you came into the music industry?
[MIKI]: I have to be one of the artists who are like ‘I've done music my entire life.’ I was raised in a household where I always had to do one sport and play one instrument. Looking back, I'm really appreciative of my parents for doing that. I've been doing music ever since I can remember. Around high school, I was also playing soccer, so I grew up having soccer be a huge passion in my life and I was a big fan of the US women's national soccer team. The first three years of high school, I actually had a YouTube channel where I would write songs about the team. I would take songs on the radio and write the lyrics so it's about the team and I built my little Disney Channel-esque fan base there and I built my own following. I met my current fiancé around the same time as I was realizing that I am growing into myself, I'm realizing I'm queer, I'm removing myself from that younger demographic and I want to just pursue music. I just transitioned into that and just started to write. A lot of it was a lot of music I wrote was about my fiancé and at the time when I identified as a woman, so I was very heavy on the lesbian love songs. I was really proud of that and I think the audience needed to hear. That helped me grow and navigate the music industry and my own identity, up until now where I'm definitely in a different place than I was then. But I think my journey nonetheless, was crucial to everything.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Who would you credit for being the most influential artists on your music, both in your early early years and today?
[MIKI]: Adele, who will always be my number one, forever as long as I live. She is one of my heroes, both musically and personally. I just love who she is. I have such vivid memories of when I was in middle school, I was really scared to say that I did music and I was really embarrassed about it. I didn't tell anybody at school that I like to sing because I thought it was a weird thing to do. The first cover I posted on YouTube was in eighth grade and I sang “Rolling in the Deep,” and I’ll always remember that. I was so inspired by her lyricism and her storytelling and then her voice, which obviously is not at all in the similar style of how I sing, but her lyricism and just her musicality is what has always inspired me. I am just utterly obsessed with her, and I would die if I met her. She has always been in the back of my mind.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How would you describe your music to someone who is a general listener or who's not a fan?
[MIKI]: I've actually struggled with how to describe my music. I think more recently I've kind of figured out that I like to play around with genres and I for a while thought I was only ever going to be an acoustic singer/songwriter. That's all I did, just write songs on guitar and then perform them on guitar. I also had pressure from certain people in my life that told me that I had to be that type of artist and that's all I could ever be, and I was trying to navigate how to expand off of that without losing my roots because that is what made me a good songwriter. Now, after navigating all that and learning how to produce music, I'd say I kiss pop music. It's genuinely pretty pop music, but I'm really inspired by elements of R&B. I do fall in that like indie alt-pop, with hints of R&B and inspirations from jazz. It’s kind of my own little corner of soft pop where I really rely a lot on my lyricism and my storytelling, and just adding acoustic elements here and there while also adding some newer and fresher pop elements as well.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I was reading your personal background and how you’re a nonbinary artist who uses their music for storytelling and to document your life. I've read that you've touched on top surgery and your own personal mental health journey. Do you feel like we need more artists to tell these stories and share this art to inspire other queer people in the same situations?
[MIKI]: I think it's twofold. I think it's funny because I don't think there's a lack of, I think there's just a lack of attention on them. I think there's a ton of nonbinary and queer artists out there that no one really pays attention to because they're not cis or het and they don't fit into what society deems as mainstream. I think having more artists is incredible as well, but I think there are already so many that the industry just isn't paying attention to and so fellow queer artists are trying to push that like ‘hey, we're here and we have fan bases and we deserve to tell our own stories that haven't been told before and that haven't been really paid attention to.’ I think it shows, especially like me who came from having a very young demographic when I first started, the impact that it has on young queer people who didn't have the representation like I for myself never had nonbinary artists to listen to when I was growing up. If I heard a song about top surgery or navigating queerness, I think it would’ve helped a lot of dark moments that I had. We are trying to be the voice that none of us had, and we're trying to be a voice for those who don't have. I think just the overall industry needs to pay a little more attention to us.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your debut album, i owe it to myself, comes out in March. Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind the album?
[MIKI]: I started the album right when COVID first hit. I was in a pretty dark place right before I came to terms with the fact of me being nonbinary and publicly coming out to everybody and changing my pronouns and deciding to go through top surgery. Right before I was able to find comfort in that, I was just really struggling and I kind of hated myself, and I was just really struggling with who I was, and who Miki was as an artist because I wasn't creating anything and I was just like, ‘what am I doing?’ It took a lot of peace with myself and time for myself to really communicate with my inner child and my inner self and navigate the thoughts that I was having when talking with my partner who was over the moon accepting and supportive of everything I do. Once I kind of found that stability, it set off in this chain reaction of me writing all these songs and putting in a lot of sessions and writing song after song … I went through top surgery and just fully found myself and then fired my ex-manager who originally had a lot of his hands on the album. When I had this turnover and the shift in this new fresh air for myself, I finished the album and I kept a lot of the original songs there and wrote a bunch of new songs. The album went through two different rebirths as I was creating it and it just talks a lot about my vulnerabilities, my relationship with my parents and their divorce, my relationship with my dad and his struggles, then my relationship with myself and my own issues with mental health. But it's a very personal and vulnerable album that I needed to make for myself, hence why the title is called i owe it to myself.
[UNPUBLISHED]: My next question touches on the fact that even in the title, i owe it to myself, carries a lot of vulnerability. What song was the hardest or most intense to write, either lyrically or emotionally for you?
[MIKI]: There are two that come to mind. The most obvious one is “second,” which is me talking about the anxieties that I had before top surgery. It wasn't necessarily the hardest to write, but it was the hardest to sit and view myself as a listener and just listen to what I'm saying. Especially once we filmed the music video and seeing it alongside the visuals, just kind of gutted me in all the best ways, where I was like, ‘wow, look, I can't believe I finally got to this position.’ It's easy to be bummed at yourself that it took you so long to figure yourself out, but that was a very interesting reaction for myself. I have a song on the album that I touch on kind of my relationship with my dad, how my parents divorce affected him, and how that affected his relationship. I've never really publicly talked about that and it's a very vulnerable thing to touch on one of your parents' relationships with you. So that’s definitely the most straightforward and the most difficult for me to write because I felt guilty writing it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What was your favorite song to write off of i owe it to myself?
[MIKI]: I feel like it changes every time but I think my song “reeboks” has a significant feeling to it. It was like 2 am and I just had this feeling of needing to go make something and I just started building out the track and then I started writing and singing along to it … I love this and I'm just really proud of myself. That overwhelming feeling I think is a feeling a lot of songwriters chase that I definitely had with that song. That songwriting process was definitely my favorite because it just felt so special.
[UNPUBLISHED]: My personal experience with hearing some of the singles off i owe to myself and just reading more about you as an artist brought me to an understanding that one of the central themes of this album is like self-love. How would you define self-love for yourself?
[MIKI]: I think self-love for me was about being honest with myself and allowing myself to feel certain feelings and learning that it's okay. I've been a big advocate for vulnerability. I think mine and my fiancé's relationship is very strong because we both are able to be vulnerable with each other. I think for me self-love is a big part of being vulnerable with myself, and when I had panic attacks when I was discovering I'm nonbinary. While those thoughts were scary, I had to sit and just let myself feel that and explore that. Obviously, I'm in a very safe place to do that and I recognize the privilege that I have with that, but even just the thoughts itself, just letting myself feel those feelings and not be so hard on myself and being honest with myself was like the biggest form of self-love for me. I think pursuing top surgery was one of the biggest forms of self-love I could give myself because I had to fight my insurance to get it. It was the most honest thing I did for myself, and it's the best thing I've ever done.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is a message you hope your listeners could take away from this record, especially those who identify as queer?
[MIKI]: First off, you're valid. I think a lot of us question our validity and are forced to question our validity. Queer people are incredibly valid in whatever shape and form we come in. And going off of the whole i owe it to myself theme, I think everyone owes it to themselves to be as authentic as they are, and to live as they are. And to just know that they're valid in whatever way that is, and I love them and I support them.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is your wildest dream as an artist, whether it's a dream collaboration or performing at a venue? What does that look like for you?
[MIKI]: I think I'm a big daydreamer, so I like to envision myself in a lot of different places. I think one of the biggest things was just to go on some sort of world tour, just to to go on a tour and to create spaces across the entire world where for one night, someone is able to live exactly 100% as they want to be, and to just be in that space, with everybody feeling safe and comfortable and living their authentic selves and hearing them sing my songs back and we're just creating such magical energy together. That would be the dream to travel and do that and to create that space for people who are more than deserving of it which I think is like my biggest dream.
[UNPUBLISHED]: And to close off the interview, what can we expect from you for the rest of the year?
[MIKI]: That's another good question. My album is out in March. We haven't finalized any sort of touring plans, obviously with COVID kind of spiking back up again. We're not sure how that looks but ideally, it would look like some sort of tour in whatever form that may be. Definitely some new music as well, this is not just the only music that I'm putting out next year.
