Maluca
Don't mess with this New York City spitfire.
By Rebecca Haithcoat
Photographed by Eric White
In the video for "El Tigeraso," Maluca Mala stands in the center of a circle of men licking their lips like she's prey. The camera pans back and forth from their hungry faces to her pout, plump and painted the color of a cherry Slurpee. She rolls her eyes and snarls at each before shaking her head and trilling, "Oh, no no no no no no nope!"
The 30-year-old Dominican singer, model-thin with the face of a teenager, only looks like an easy target. She was born in the Bronx, grew up with a father who worked in music marketing, and shipped herself to military school when she was 16 because "you get to play with guns." In other words, don't test her.
"My father broke artists like Tone Loc and the Jungle Brothers, so I was always around the industry... You meet a lot of cocky dudes," Mala says over the phone from the Rockaways ("Hamptons for the hipsters"), where she's spending Memorial Day. So she's surrounded herself with a team who trusts her admittedly crazy artistic vision for her addictive musical blend of Latin dance-on-speed, underground rave and slick Bronx rap. "If I tell them, 'OK, I need five black pigs for this video,' they're like, 'That's amazing. We'll get in touch with all the farms down the East Coast,'" she says.
Though she'd been dancing and taught herself to play the piano when she was 13, Mala went to SUNY Purchase to study art therapy. That didn't really work out -- she skipped classes to smoke weed and make beats, and got expelled -- and so she spent her early 20s dabbling in the fashion industry, playing in a rock band and working in restaurants. A chance karaoke encounter with ubiquitous producer Diplo resulted in his producing 2009's "El Tigeraso." That in turn led to touring as a backup singer/dancer for rapper Amanda Blank and opening for Robyn.
Mala's soon-to-be-released EP is titled Massive Pow Pow, colloquial Spanish for "spanking." In an industry that prefers its women to shut up, look sexy and sing sweetly, has her outspokenness ever hindered her career? "You know what? I'm not 18, I'm not some kid they found on Myspace, I know what I want and I'm very vocal about it." And that is? "I just wanna put a couple people out of business."
Maluca wears a shirt and pants by Joann Berman.
The 30-year-old Dominican singer, model-thin with the face of a teenager, only looks like an easy target. She was born in the Bronx, grew up with a father who worked in music marketing, and shipped herself to military school when she was 16 because "you get to play with guns." In other words, don't test her.
"My father broke artists like Tone Loc and the Jungle Brothers, so I was always around the industry... You meet a lot of cocky dudes," Mala says over the phone from the Rockaways ("Hamptons for the hipsters"), where she's spending Memorial Day. So she's surrounded herself with a team who trusts her admittedly crazy artistic vision for her addictive musical blend of Latin dance-on-speed, underground rave and slick Bronx rap. "If I tell them, 'OK, I need five black pigs for this video,' they're like, 'That's amazing. We'll get in touch with all the farms down the East Coast,'" she says.
Though she'd been dancing and taught herself to play the piano when she was 13, Mala went to SUNY Purchase to study art therapy. That didn't really work out -- she skipped classes to smoke weed and make beats, and got expelled -- and so she spent her early 20s dabbling in the fashion industry, playing in a rock band and working in restaurants. A chance karaoke encounter with ubiquitous producer Diplo resulted in his producing 2009's "El Tigeraso." That in turn led to touring as a backup singer/dancer for rapper Amanda Blank and opening for Robyn.
Mala's soon-to-be-released EP is titled Massive Pow Pow, colloquial Spanish for "spanking." In an industry that prefers its women to shut up, look sexy and sing sweetly, has her outspokenness ever hindered her career? "You know what? I'm not 18, I'm not some kid they found on Myspace, I know what I want and I'm very vocal about it." And that is? "I just wanna put a couple people out of business."
Maluca wears a shirt and pants by Joann Berman.
Your Comment