MAKING HER STORY

Young M.A dishes on new music, philanthropy and her acting career

- Devon Preston

Many of us spend our entire lives searching for our passion. That thing that makes us jump out of bed in the morning and makes our hearts dance when we talk about it. That thing we’ll make major sacrifices for, whether or not they’ll actually come to fruition. For Katorah Marrero, better known as Young M.A, her passion has always been music and at the age of 9, she converted a closet into a private studio and used a karaoke machine to record her own raps. “I used to be in class writing raps, acting like I was studying. I tried to do well in school, but I had so much passion that it became a priority,” M.A says. “I chose music first before any other career because I knew for sure that it was something I was going to do. I never had second thoughts about it.”

Like many artists who came up in the 2010s, M.A turned to social media to get the word out about her music. “I was doing a lot of freestyles,” M.A says. “Any song that was hot at the time, I would get the instrumental for it and rap over it, better than that artist.” Her raw and unapologetic sound began to resonate with online audiences, who gravitated to her familiar New York attitude but uniquely M.A rhymes. “I’m one of those people who speak my mind and say how I feel. At the time, I was one of those kids who wanted to be heard and was hungry,” M.A explains. “Living in Brooklyn, you’ve gotta be tough. That’s what I expressed in my music, so people knew who I am and where I come from.”