Miss Grit
By Jen Ho, Contributor
Photo provided by. Miss Grit
Meet Miss Grit
Through her latest EP release “Imposter”, Miss Grit, aka Margaret Sohn, creates a dynamic, yet intimate exploration into the self. Confronted with loud disordered emotions and thoughts, she chooses to nurture them, finding the resolute, all-encompassing theme that allows her to find enough solace to move forward. One can’t help but let out a sigh after listening to her EP, akin to a rejuvenating cool-down from a much-needed early morning run.
Following our published review of her EP “Imposter”, we had the pleasure of following up with Margaret for a conversation, during which we talked about killing plants during quarantine, her experience as an API woman from Michigan, and navigating creativity and emotions when writing and performing music.
Well first of all, how have you been doing with this COVID nonsense?
Oh man, quarantine has definitely been weird. Experiencing all these different things thrown at us, trying to digest everything, and figuring out my feelings about everything has been strange. Yeah, it's okay.
Has there been a light through it? Any derpy hobbies/activities along the way that might be keeping you sane?
Actually I've been learning Korean which has been fun! My dad moved here when he was really young and lost the language along the way, so he never really spoke it with us. I started learning at the beginning of pandemic, so it's been great. Other than that, cooking as well. It's definitely the small things that keep me sane.
Amazing! I’m the opposite. My parents are first generation, so I spoke Chinese at home, and was taken to Sunday Chinese school when I was a kid. When you're younger, you learn faster, and things stick more, but it’s definitely harder to appreciate. Now I’m stuck with this casual broken fluent fucked up kind of kindergarten-level Mandarin. Anyway, I think it's way better that you're learning now in your adulthood.
That's really interesting! I mean, honestly I think that would have been me growing up too. I only found a new respect for my culture after a whole 20 years. Up until maybe middle school, I was the only Asian person in my classes. By high school, there were a couple more Asian students, like there were only maybe two other Korean people in my school, and they're mixed race as well.
My dad grew up in Michigan and his family was basically the only non-white family in the community. I grew up in Grosse Pointe, which is like a suburb right outside Detroit.
Have you gone back to Michigan at all during the pandemic?
Yeah! Actually I live with my sister in New York. She went to University of Michigan to study psychology, and wanted to do some social work in the city, so that's kind of just what drew her to New York. So we kind of ended up in NYC at the same time and decided to room together.
It’s been nice having my sister as a roommate during the pandemic. We've driven back home to Michigan together a couple times to see my parents, who still live in the same house that we grew up in. So it's definitely been nice to get out of the city.
You guys must be so close. I cannot imagine living with my brothers, I would actually die. Has it been okay for you, living in New York during the pandemic?
Yeah, it's had its positives and negatives for sure. I think we are definitely all forced to adapt early on in the pandemic. But it's good. I can't complain. I don't know about you, but I found the beginning to be scary just because there's so many unknowns. But overtime, it's become nice, especially with outdoor dining and having the parks nearby.
And creating a nice environment in my room helped a lot. I’ve done a lot of redecorating. Calling up friends too. We've also been trying to hang out in a small group so it's the same friends, same people that we see. But, yeah, the little things have been life-saving.
I totally relate, I went apeshit decorating my bedroom. I keep killing plants too.
Me too! Oh yeah, all the plant stores near me have been getting really good business.
What is typically the first set of priorities you must get out of the way during your early songwriting process to move forward? Are you someone who has to get the melody pushed out, a sonic texture fleshed out, or a solid rhythm conceptualized? Do you tend to write music from lyrics, or lyrics from the music?
I think it's a different approach each time I start writing any song. It usually has to do with the instrumental. Then I search for some tone or texture that I'm gravitating towards. So it's a combination of songwriting and producing at the same time. I'm just trying to place the song into an environment first that helps me inform the context and push me to what I write next going forward.
I usually write the lyrics last because it’s the scariest part for me, I tend to procrastinate. Whenever I write the melody, I usually subconsciously sing the melody that I want while singing a lot of gibberish and fleshing out the right syllables that I want. Then I'll sing random words. Usually some words stick, and lyrics start forming around those words. So it's sort of a nice stream of consciousness process, and the hope is to keep that process present in a song, while also being mindful of words that contextually and emotionally fit right
For Imposter, did you have a particular audience in mind?
I think a lot of my lyric writing comes from a more personal self evaluation, so trying to sort out my own identity. But there's always a hope that it's something that other people can relate to, especially since the writing process is a very isolated experience in itself.
“Blonde” especially resonated with me as an Asian woman. I listened to that track thinking about my experience navigating shows/events as the only Asian person there, just feeling the pressure of having to look a certain way, and trying harder just to fit in. Was your identity as an API artist a big part of this EP?
Oh yeah, I was definitely trying to sort feelings and thoughts about myself. I didn't start with the intention of the songs being about imposter syndrome and my identity. But I think through writing the songs I was able to connect all the dots. When that happened, I was able to sort these songs under the imposter syndrome category, and so that became the EP’s story.
It was nice to be able to relate different feelings from different parts of my life back to this common ground. Not all the songs on the record are about my racial identity or race, but they still contain feelings that other people who look like me can relate to. I think that's really important, finding the connection between all these feelings to the context of your life, if that makes sense.
Yeah, totally agree! So have you ever felt out of place living and performing here in NYC?
Yeah, definitely. It's been helpful to see a rise in Asian American artists over the past decade with Mitski, Japanese Breakfast, etc. Those artists have been really helpful in feeling more included in the scene. I think coming to New York from a predominantly white suburban Michigan was a culture shock for me too, especially going to NYU, where I pursued their music tech program. It’s definitely always been a shift for me. It was nice but had its drawbacks.
Yeah, I grew up in New Jersey, literally a neighbor to New York. Even so I was really overwhelmed moving here. Were there any notable culture shocks, or aspects about NYC that you needed time getting used to?
Honestly it was even meeting different people at school who also look like me, while also having completely different backgrounds. When I came to New York, I kind of felt like a white suburban person, very basic. My first roommate at NYU was Korean, and I was really excited to meet her, because I thought she’d be someone with a similar background.
Then we met and though we still bonded a lot, it was clear that we came from totally different places. She’s from Queens and went to high school with a predominantly Korean community. So having that kind of contrast was really eye opening to me, just how very different one’s background is. Even if they're perceived as a certain person or identity, there's so much more context to file through.
Yeah, it's crazy how intricate demographics within AAPI communities are. I went from the east coast to Indiana for school, so the cultural shock for me was the other way around. It felt like an entirely different world.
Yes, definitely.
I did want to circle back to music, and say that your videos for NME and the The New Colossus Festival were so rad! The TV and visual sound waves against a white background made the videos look so professional, cozy, and intimate. How did you do that?
I think at the very beginning of pandemic when virtual shows became a thing, it was honestly the immediate concept that came to mind, just this cool meta-like setup. So I decided to create it on my own.
I have to rearrange my room every time because space is very limited in our apartment, so I have to take off all my wall art, clear the space for like a week, film, and then put it all back together. (laughs) It’s very time consuming, but also really fun and a nice creative project for me to do and put my energy into.
Did your sister help out, or was she just sort of on the side, saying things like “oh don’t do that”?
Actually, with the first kind of prototype I created, she was like “this is kind of weird, like maybe you shouldn’t”, but I was like no, it'll work, trust me. After that, I ended up just only showing her the final thing.
Oh yeah, siblings are definitely the most shameless critics. Do you think you'll keep doing these videos? Or are you really feeling the “I need to fucking get on the stage again”?
Yeah, I have a couple more videos that I'm going to do, and I'm going to have a similar setup to the previous videos. I personally haven’t connected well with performances that have me sitting on my couch. I prefer putting my performance in a different world that’s not related to my apartment or live streaming and all. So I think it’ll be fun to keep all of my videos in the same realm.
I’ve definitely been yearning for live shows to come back. I've been hesitant to start practicing again or even plan what a live show would look like. I don't want to get too excited or put too much effort, since it still seems so early. It's been kind of hard to maintain my expectation for live music in that regard.
It really has been! Cuomo said April, but, I mean, when is it actually going to get back to the level of energy we were at before, right?
It’s just too crazy.
And then the imposter syndrome returns!!
(laughs) Oh yeah, I think quarantine has definitely brought up a SECOND life wave of that, I mean it's just been so weird.
Any final comments, thoughts or feelings?
I'm just excited to move on to the next thing, and have the world move on so we can get past this last year and have something to look forward to! I'm excited for future releases and the form my music will take from it, and everything. So yeah, just can’t wait.