magic pixie dream girl

With her soulful sound and heartfelt, brutally honest lyrics, the 16-year-old Singapore singer-songwriter known as Mila Bea could very well be our next-gen indie rock goddess and every Gen Zer's best friend. Keng Yang Shuen shines a spotlight on her and her craft.

- Keng Yang Shuen

Mila Bea Comaroff is an old soul. This might not always be seen as a compliment, but one gets the sense that this 16-year-old Singaporean musician, who performs under the moniker Mila Bea, is completely at home with this. Despite her age, she exudes a worldliness that's immediately apparent in her controlled, silky vocals and 1990s-inflected indie folk sound. In person, she's just as self-possessed, earnestly sharing her thoughts on everything from her favourite books (as of press time, she was reading The Picture of Dorian Gray) to the nature of the music industry today.

Part of this might have to do with how Comaroff has spent most of her life surrounded by art. Her parents - her mum's Singaporean Chinese while her dad's born in the UK and grew up in the US - are architects who exposed her to a wide assortment of musicians from an early age: from '70s folk legend Joni Mitchell to 2000s indie rock icon Father John Misty. This upbringing has led to a passion for musical theatre (fun fact: she took drama lessons at Wild Rice) as well as all manner of arts and crafts (another fun fact: she DIY-ed most of the props and animations featured in the videos for her genre-spanning debut album Part of Me, released at the end of last August).