Miist (Year unknown)
Out of all the musicians I’ve interviewed, Miist has the most unique story. When she was in her early 20s, she was diagnosed with a 15 centimeter liver tumor and was given several months to live. A highly skilled Canadian surgeon performed a 60 percent liver resection along with her gall bladder. But that was not the only beginning of Miist’s new chance at life. When she was in her thirties, her friend said that Miist had singing and songwriting ability. She doubted him for six months until she finally decided to take a plunge. She discovered that she had incredible musical skills in her songs “She” and “Give Her My Love.”
Her songs would soon gain the attention of Grammy-winning producer Narada Michael Walden (Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston). They began a fruitful music collaboration. It led to an EP, The Songs from the Living Room, which will be released in August 2024. Some singles, such as “Move Your Body Slowly,” debuted at #26 on the Billboard AC Airplay chart. This single made Miist the first native Chinese artist to ever chart on the US Billboard. Miist can sing songs in Chinese, English, and Spanish. There are Chinese versions of “She” and “Give Her My Love.” Her upcoming single, “Let the Music Feel You,” is sung in English and Spanish. The Spanish version of this single is produced by Narada and Latin Grammy winner, Tony Succar.
This is a very unique story to tell, and we cover it all in this candid conversation. I want to thank Nichole Peters-Good from Jensen Communications and GetGoodPR for setting up this interview. I want to thank Miist for allowing me to tell her unique and moving story.
Jeff Cramer: It sounds like your musical journey really began after your recovery from the liver tumor.
Miist: The recovery from life in general ’cause it put a big stop on everything. I couldn’t work anymore, and I couldn’t live on my own without help. It’s a long recovery physically too. So it put a big stop on everything. At the beginning, it was for at least six months. Then, when I started working again, I still had to deal with a lot of the issues from the surgery for a long time. So that’s why I say everything restarted from that point.
JC: When I interview musicians, they all said they knew it in their teens and early twenties that they had it. Your started at a much later age, and initially you didn’t even think you had any musical ability. Can you talk about when someone challenged you to write music?
M: Yeah. I love to sing a little bit at home just for fun. And a friend saw how I was singing other people’s songs, and he just saw my ability of songwriting and playing music by ear. I think to anybody it would be hard to believe. I’ve been living with this body for over thirty years. I thought I knew what this body can do and cannot do, and writing music was just not one of the things I could do. It took me a long time to believe it.
I actually fought the idea for six months, but he kept on bringing it up. Until one day, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I said, “Enough. I’m gonna sit down at the piano and prove you’re wrong so you don’t bring this up again to me ever.” But I wrote three songs that day and totally proved myself wrong, and it completely opened up this new thing to my life, which I enjoy very much now.
JC: The first songs, “She” and “Give Her My Love,” were played primarily on the piano.
M: Very true. I always thought I couldn’t play piano. I did take a few piano lessons when I was very little when I was about four or five years old. I gave it up so quickly because I hated it so much. So I already convinced myself that it was something I couldn’t do. So, every time I wrote a new song, I tried to find somebody to do the piano arrangement for me. But my husband kept on encouraging me. He said, “You can do this. If you just believe you can do it, you actually can do your own piano arrangement.”
Then I tried what he said I could do. And, actually, I was able to write the piano arrangement for both of those songs and some other songs I wrote later. I don’t do it for every song because some songs I hear a better, more complicated arrangement. But for these two songs, I think the focus was on the voice and on the story. So I’m very happy that I did the piano arrangement on those two songs.
JC: How did the name Miist evolve?
M: When I first started writing songs—even before I produced any songs—I was on a road trip to somewhere, and I was just listening to Adele or somebody else, and I saw their one-word name and said, “I want a one-word name just in case I become a singer one day.” Then we started joking about it and brainstormed about it. My family asked me, “What kind of word do you want?” I said, “I want a word that means something that’s refreshing, but it’s not always in your face.” Then we thought about the name Fog. Eventually, the word “mist” came to mind, and I was like, “That’s perfect. That’s exactly what I was describing.”
JC: There’s two I’s in your name. How did you come up with that spelling for it?
M: I just wanted to be a little different from just the word “mist.” To be a little different, I wanted two I’s in it.
JC: Okay. I know “She” is about your mom and how she supported you through the ordeal you experienced with cancer.
M: Definitely.
JC: Can you elaborate a little more about how the song formed and how you used that theme?
M: Yes. Well, to tell the story correctly, I need to give you a little more background on my relationship with my mom. My mom and dad sent me to a boarding school when I was about five. For many years, they pretty much left me there. I rarely even saw them on weekends. So for me, I felt I was abandoned. My dad eventually didn’t come back, but my mom came back to me years after and tried to repair our relationship, and we got much closer.
Then later I went to Canada for school. We were separated again until I was diagnosed with cancer in Canada. Then my mom really came to support me. At that time, she was the only one from the family who came to support me financially, and she just took care of me in everything when I really couldn’t do anything. So now we are very close because of what she was willing to do for me. I have a lot of gratitude for her. Whatever happened in my early childhood is not an issue between us.
“She” video (2024). There is also a Chinese version of this song.
JC: Is “Give Her My Love” also about your mom?
M: No. That one is about letting go of toxic relationships, but not in a way that I feel hate for this person or anything. I still believe this person I loved is a good person. We are just not a good fit. So I was saying “give her my love.” It means, “Please give the love that belongs to me to her now and make her happy. Don’t do the same thing to her that you did to me.”
“Give Her My Love” video (2024)
JC: Your music got the attention of a big name in the industry: Narada Micheal Walden.
M: I didn’t realize how difficult it is to get into the music industry. After a while, eventually someone who knows another person who works for Narada finally heard my music. So he forwarded it to his friend who works for Narada. The person who works for Narada also liked my music, so he forwarded it to Narada.
Right away, Narada wanted to set up a meeting with me after hearing some of my early music, like the two songs you just mentioned, “She,” “Give Her My Love,” and a few other ones. And we met. The first meeting was supposed to be a short, just to get to know each other, but it turned out that we started writing songs. He was making arrangements of my songs, and he said, “I want to produce an album for you.” And everything started from there. That’s how my career really started.
JC: The first two songs you collaborated on with Narada were “Remember Me Again” and “I’m Not Afraid to Dream Again.”
M: Yeah. The first one I would say is “I’m Not Afraid to Dream Again.” At the first meeting with Narada, I told him, “I really couldn’t believe I met you and you like my songs, and you want to produce my album.” So I told him, “Now I’m not afraid to dream again.” Right away he told me, “You should write about it. It’s a good hook for a song.”
So I did work on it, but as I was writing, the motion took me somewhere else, and I actually wrote a song called “It’s Not My Dream.” I showed it to him, and he liked it, but he said, “I want the exact words: ‘I’m not afraid to dream again.'” So I went back and wrote another song. Now this time it’s “I’m Not Afraid to Dream Again.”
JC: What’s interesting is that it seems to be the bridge between your later stuff and the early stuff with “She” and “Give Her My Love” because it has a little of the piano bit as well, but it’s a beginning sign to the pop that you’re gonna eventually start doing. I see a bridge.
M: Definitely. That’s what Narada did to my music. Narada is a world-famous drummer, so he brings in his beats to my songs. Actually, he’s the one playing the piano on the song too. I love watching how he plays piano. He just turned the piano into a piano-and-drum combination instrument. When he plays piano, the drum is already built into his melody. It is just very cool.
JC: In the song “I Am Not Afraid to Dream Again,” there’s a very bluesy guitar at the end. How did that come about? Was that Narada’s idea?
M: Yeah. There is a guitarist who works with Narada. Narada would send these ideas to him and ask him to add some guitar on it. Then we found out he played some guitar solo in it, and we absolutely love it. I love those moments when other musicians who work with us are also touched by the song, and they just create another piece of music and add it to the original. It’s teamwork.
“I’m Not Afraid to Dream Again” video (2024)
JC: Now we’re going to talk about “Remember Me Again.” This is the first song where it doesn’t feel like the piano is the dominant instrument here. Also what’s interesting is that most of the song is the chorus line, “Remember me again.” It’s what’s constantly driving it. It said a lot, but it never feels repetitive to the listener.
M: I would say you’re very good with music ’cause you noticed the change in there. This is the first song when I wrote a beat that Narada sent me. That’s 90 percent of how we write songs together. He will create a beat and send it to me and see what I hear from it. In general, I usually write a song from scratch. I see a story that I want to write. Then I pretend I’m one of the characters in there and really feel what the character would feel in this situation and let that motion guide me to write a song.
But when Narada sends me a beat, I feel the beat, and with every emotion I feel from that beat, I let that emotion guide me to write the song. This song has the feel that it’s not from this country. Then I just hear it as an exotic song. I feel as if I’m walking on the desert in a very flowy dress, and the wind just takes the dress to flow. I’m walking down to somebody and whispering these words into his ears.
“Remember Me Again” video (2024)
JC: Now we’re gonna get to your single that I understand has hit the charts: “Move Your Body Slowly.”
M: Yeah. That’s another song written on Narada’s beat. When I listen to the beat, I feel like I’m in a club. Everybody stands there like crazy, but then this one person walks into the room. I’m not sure if you have ever felt that way. You feel everything around you is slowing down, and all you can see is that person walking toward you. He’s the only moving object, the only one you can see and feel. All I want to do is just slow dance with him.
JC: “Move Your Body Slowly” reminded me of not just the modern dance club music, but I even feel a little disco in it.
M: Absolutely. I love disco. I love the songs from that time, all of them. So I’m very happy that I have a song. Actually, somebody commented on Instagram under a post with this song in there and said, “Oh, I thought this was a song from the ’80s. So I looked it up. And I’m so surprised this is a current song. I’m so happy that I found it.” I love it.
“Move Your Body Slowly” (2024)
JC: Yeah. Talk about your most recent single, “One More Time.”
M: That one was also written on Narada’s beat, but the words are written by my daughter—most of it.
JC: Oh.
M: Yeah. She had a bad day one day, and she likes to write about her feelings in letters and give them to me and my husband. So, my husband received a letter that day with these words in it. At the same time, I was writing a song on Narada’s beat. I came out and showed it to my husband, and he had both of these things in his hand. He’s like, “They go together.” So that’s “One More Time.”
JC: Yeah, but what’s also interesting about “One More Time” is that it has some modern stuff. There’s even a little rap in it. Yet, one of the instruments in the song are congas.
M: The brilliant percussion ideas are all Narada’s. He’s the one who hears all those, and I love what he put in there. I think the rap was, if I’m remembering correctly, Narada’s idea, too, but originally Narada was not gonna do it. You recognize that it is Narada’s voice rapping. Originally, he wanted somebody else to rap it because he’s never done it. He doesn’t see himself as a rapper but as a producer. He always shows you the ideas with his voice.
Even some instruments he would sing it the way that instrument would sound. Same thing happened here. He would demonstrate the rap. Then I heard his voice go so perfectly in this song. So I begged him to do it, and he tried it out, and he liked the sound of it too. So, eventually, he did it for me.
JC: Oh, that’s him rapping? I wouldn’t have guessed that it was him.
M: Right? Yeah. I love it. It’s a sound that would surprise people. That’s from Narada.
“One More Time” video (2024)
JC: Now you have a new album coming out. And it’s gonna be released in August. What are the plans behind the release and any plans of doing any concerts afterward?
M: After “One More Time,” I’m gonna have a surprise release of another song on August 1. It’s called “It’s Too Late to Love You.” It’s a duet sung by me and Narada.
“It’s Too Late to Love You” Video (2024)
That song was written because I was watching a show. In the show, a couple loved each other very much, but they couldn’t stay together because the love hurt so much more than the pain at this point. So they decided to let go. It really touched me. I was very emotionally involved with their story. They’re a real couple. They couldn’t stay together at the end. So I wrote a song about them. When I was writing it, I see it almost like a movie.
They’re waiting at the bus station and getting on two buses that are going to different cities. It’s their last time to meet just to say goodbye. Also, it could have been the last chance for them to stay together, but eventually they decided not to, so they each get on one bus. The man turns to look at the woman, who’s sitting and staring straight ahead as the buses drive off. He can see the tears streaming down her face. She never turns back. It was just too late.
Recently, Narada and I just filmed the music video. Narada and I were the storytellers in the story. The actual story part was acted out by me and an Argentine actor. It was filmed in Argentina. We’re gonna combine the two things and have this music video done that way.
JC: And with the album being released, that’s the next thing after the single. Talk about that.
M: Yes. I have a whole album produced by Narada dropping on August 23. On the same day, we have a feature single that’s dropping called “Let the Music Feel You.” I want to tell you about the feature single that’s gonna be on the album.
It’s a very important song because it is a song that I sing in both English and Spanish for the first time. The Spanish version is actually co-produced by multi-Grammy winning producer, Tony Succar. He’s both a Grammy and Latin Grammy winning producer. He co-produced with Narada on the same song. Narada produced the English version, and together they produced the Spanish version.
I just came back from this trip last week. We mostly went there to film the music video on this song because it’s in Spanish—even the English version is a Latin funk song. So I wanted to have the authentic Latin culture in it. We went to Buenos Aires and filmed in the very famous area, Palermo, on the street, having a crowd of local people and musicians together. It’s a very fun song. Both Tony and Narada did an excellent job on it. I’m really looking forward to that.
As for the album, we’re talking about having two showcases and also a media-meeting party. We’re combining those two things—the showcase and the album-dropping party—all in one in San Francisco and in LA. It’s gonna be the first time that I’ll be performing live.
JC: Oh.
M: Because I’m a stay-at-home wife and a mom, I homeschool my daughter. So I’m not like a lot of other artists—they tour. I mostly stay at home. So these two parties are gonna be the first time I perform live.
JC: And how do you feel about that? It’s a very different step performing live.
M: Definitely. For people who know me, I think they will think I’m a very shy person, just quiet most of the time. But when I filmed the music videos, when the camera is on, I’m a different person. That’s how I feel I would be on the stage too. I can feel I really want to be on the stage and perform in front of people. I’m very excited.
JC: After that, were there any other plans beyond your showcase that’s coming out?
M: I have some invitations to perform live in different places. We’re still talking.
JC: Well, this is a remarkable trip, and it came at a point that doesn’t usually start in your thirties. It’s often much younger than that. How do you feel about this whole thing from the beginning that you survived and now you’re a musician. Explain the whole journey to me.
M: Yeah. I absolutely feel from my previous experience that I was given another chance to live. That’s a very special and precious gift. Also, I feel music is a gift from God. So I got these two wonderful gifts from Him, and they brought me to this moment. I’m very grateful, and I want to use the gift well by sharing hope in my songs to the world, to people who hear them. I want them to also be inspired by my story, to find their dreams.
