A Product of Your Imagination — Miranda Del Sol
The Miami-raised, New York City-based Latina bedroom pop princessa, Miranda del Sol, is fresh and proving to be a force to be reckoned with. I had the pleasure of chatting with her about her music, TikTok marketing strategy, hopes and dreams, and the mark she wants to leave on the industry. Check out our conversation below!
Denise: How did you know music was something you wanted to pursue?
Miranda: My dad is a songwriter and producer in Latin music, so growing up I just thought that’s what people did for a living. My playroom was in his little home studio and he would play rhyming games with me instead of reading me bedtime stories, so I was always coming up with melody ideas. When I was like six or seven, he gave me one of those analog voice memo recorders. At the time, I was really into Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, all the Disney queens, and I really thought I was a little rockstar. Then in fourth or fifth grade was when it really got serious, and I started writing songs in a diary.
Denise: You recently came out with your single ‘Supply & Demand.’ that exudes confidence and female empowerment. Would you say your songwriting is very personal?
Miranda: All of my songs are very personal and diaristic. There is definitely a part of myself that genuinely thinks I am ‘a product of your imagination’ but it comes out in little slices. So I have a song like ‘Care About Me’ where I’m so sad and insecure, like ‘oh, hold me’ and then you have ‘Supply & Demand’ where it’s like ‘actually, I don’t need that’ and it sounds like they contradict each other, but they all coexist within me. When I say ‘I can drop you like a hat,’ I wasn’t really talking about myself, it was more like, if I were my friend, I would be saying that to whatever guy was treating them badly. But through writing it, I was thinking ‘well, what would it look like if I was actually that confident?’
Check out ‘Supply & Demand’ here:
Denise: How did you come up with the “Latina bedroom pop princess” concept?
Miranda: I think I’m moving away from that label a little bit more, just because I think people have a very certain image in their mind when they think of a ‘pop princess.’ They see the ‘pop princess’ as someone that is sort of being controlled by the label, and they’re just like a pretty face, aren’t really in control of their lives. Right now, I think that it’s useful and fun to have the princess thing, because it’s a spin on it — I am very in control of my career. I want to redefine the way that we look at ‘princesses’ and women. But I do want freedom later in my career to distance myself from princess aesthetics. I also just don’t want to put myself in a box.
Denise: How do the different facets of your identity translate into your music and what you hope to achieve in this industry?
Miranda: I grew up in Miami, and I’m Argentinian and Cuban and my mom’s parents are Spanish, so I have a lot of cultural influences that were surrounding me as I was growing up. I think for a long time, especially while I was in Miami, you couldn’t really hear it in my music, in the way that people expect to hear ‘Latin influence’. For example, I haven’t had a reggaeton song. I wasn’t even singing in Spanish when I was in Miami, funnily enough. But I think since moving to New York, I just had a bit of culture shock and I was like ‘oh my god.’ People look at me and they don’t really know what they’re getting sometimes. Sometimes they do, and they have very specific expectations of what Latinidad looks and sounds like. I also was just missing my culture.
Denise: How do you define success for yourself?
Miranda: I think at the end of the day, all the streams in the world, all of the external validation in the world, all the fans in the world, none of that is going to mean anything if you fundamentally don’t believe that you deserve any of it, and you fundamentally don’t let yourself accept all of it. I’ll feel like I’ve made it when I let myself be proud of myself and let myself accept the love that I’m giving out. I just want to make sure I’m freeing myself up as much as possible and I’ll feel like I’ve made it if on an everyday basis, I feel not happy, but free.