MYSS KETA - M¥SS KETA - A diva who matters

We catch up exclusively with the new diva of Italian electronic pop, fresh off the release of her debut album and her appearance on Piero Chiambretti's show, where she was strongly requested as a guest. A singular conversation, full of knowing confessions, constant provocations and that direct line connecting her inevitably to the Milano da bere of the unforgettable (and all too missed) Eighties, to Jo Squillo, Amanda Lear and the eroticism of better times.

"Born on the catwalk, but died in a parking lot." Do you hate shopping malls, or is it simply a way of saying "I love strutting my stuff (in the broadest sense), and I hate waiting"?

That I love strutting my stuff shouldn't need saying (ask Miuccia and Donatella!). As for shopping malls, well: I love them, and I love parking lots too. The perfect place to wake up after a show that's gotten a little too fizzy.

"IRREVERSIBILE" is an absolutely irresistible track (forgive the awkward rhyme) with provocative passages laced with sarcasm. You say you're not one to look back at the past, that you'd rather live in the moment, burn out fast. Provocations aside, how much do you miss the Milan of ten or fifteen years ago, the one that still held a few drops of the fine liquor from the Milano da bere of the Eighties? And what do you remember most fondly from your first steps into the music world?

What I miss about 80s Milan isn't just a few drops of fine liquor, but an entire snow-globe world of sequins and corporate parties, a Christmas holiday that lasted all year round. Taking my first musical steps in that world, it was certainly easy to slip up, and believe me, I did! But with style.

Stefano Riva does monstrous work behind the mixing desk, polishing the tracks with real mastery. Compared to the early singles, I hear a more upright low end, meticulous attention to nuance, and even your voice comes across as more physical, tremendously vibrant. How did the collaboration come about with him, and with a heavyweight like Populous, featured in the tribalism of "MONICA"?

They're both incredibly sensitive artists, and for both of us one drink too many at the bar can be fatal, and lead to a hit like "#FIGACOMEILPANICO".

Right in "#FIGACOMEILPANICO" you namecheck a whole series of divas, wannabe divas, escorts and other figures from our TV world. Do you follow television? Would you like to get into the world of TV, or do you want to focus solely on music?

I don't follow TV much, let's say it's TV that follows me. Offers have come in and keep coming in, so stay tuned: you might soon see me in a Neapolitan soap opera or in an infomercial for fluffy mattresses, who knows.

In "BOTOX" you bring back to the surface a theme so dear to Rettore, another avant-garde Goddess of our music. How did this track come about?

Did you know that, before becoming great friends/lovers, Donatella Rettore and I were colleagues at a cosmetic surgery clinic in Milan's posh side of town? That's exactly where the idea for this track was born, back when the big names of afternoon TV would come in to get their faces flipped inside out with a scalpel.

The eroticism of the past — hot and seductive, heavily veiled and full of hidden provocations, dating back some three decades — now feels outdated. The internet has flattened everything, and nudity, sex in general, can be found in every corner of your smartphone and beyond. In some of your work, not just in the lyrics but also visually (I'm thinking of the "XANANAS" video), the Venetian echoes of the best Brass resurface, the Brass of "Così fan tutte", to be clear. So: what is eroticism to you, and how much are you inspired by the purely erotic side of things? Another recurring theme in your songs is your relationship, hidden or not, with drugs, starting right from the fun moniker you've chosen. Why so much space devoted to it?

Eroticism and drugs both belong to that inviting forbidden zone that fascinates us as much as it scares us. Excess is liberating, because it lets us shed every imposition and be ourselves in a fuller way, but it shouldn't be seen as a destination, rather as a starting point.

In "INFERNO" there's a precise thirty-second passage in which a softer M¥SS KETA appears for the first time, far from the vamp who devours flirtatious metaphors, men, parties, substances and whatever else you can think of. What did you want to tell us with this brief interlude?

It's an interlude sung magnificently by the wonderful Birthh, a voice that is one of the angelic shafts of light on the album.

There's a lot of kick drum on your debut album ("LA SCIMMIA È PAZZA"), but distorted guitars pop up too, as in "SPLEEN QUEEN", a track that's quite different from all the others. Is it a little taste of what you'll be offering in the future? Tell us about this particular track, and also about your apparently strong love for Nietzsche, who resurfaces again in your lyrics ("Dio è morto").

Experiment, experiment, experiment. In food (if you knew what I ate yesterday!), in music, in lovers (and here we can bring dear Friedrich back into it too) — that's my motto.

"This record, guys, has to sell well, I want to put my kids to bed with full bellies": "ULTIMA BOTTA A PARIGI" is surprising, not only for lines like this one, but also for its suddenly softer arrangement; just as some lines in the closing "AFTER AMORE" are surprising too. So it's an album with two faces. There is, in fact, a mask covering your face. Does this decision to hide yourself, beyond the media suspense, also conceal an underlying inner duality? What does M¥SS KETA's heart really beat for, beyond the stage?

I find the word "duality" a bit reductive to describe the whole mess going on underneath. For now, M¥SS KETA's heart beats for many loves, many vices and many honors.

Do you like trap music? Do you follow the new "trends"? Who are your favorite musicians from the past? And what usually plays on M¥SS KETA's playlist?

I try to listen to all the new trends and stay up to date. I like to understand the most extreme directions in which sonic possibilities are being pushed. Among M¥SS KETA's biggest influences, I'd say we definitely find Jo Squillo, Ennio Morricone, Carla Bruni, Prince, Raffaella Carrà, Amanda Lear, Renato Zero and La Rana Pazza.

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