In the spring of 2018, Mackenzie Nicole unveiled her debut album The Edge. Its songs tallied over one million Spotify streams and her videos totaled eight million plus views as she played to sold-out crowds. Sounds like she was living the dream, right? Well, things aren’t always as they seem. After nearly a decade of diligently working on her art, the year marked a major achievement for the then 18 year old. Everything did appear to be great on the surface, but Mackenzie candidly admits, “That was the worst six months of my life.”
That brings us to 2020 and the release of her new concept, yet somewhat partial auto-biographical album Mystic. Mackenzie suffered a mental breakdown in 2018 and this album is a bi-product of that life changing event. She decided to sit down and write a concept album about the stages of mental health. We had a chance to sit down with her to discuss the process of putting this album together as well as her personal journey.
Johnny Price/I’m Music Magazine: This is probably one of the most impactful albums I have heard in a while. It’s very raw, very real and vulnerable. I haven’t walked in your shoes, but I’m just wondering at what point did you start writing this album? Was it after your breakdown, or were you already putting ideas together for stuff together?
Mackenzie Nicole: A few things before I get to that question. First of all, I want to say thank you to your reaction about my album. That hits me like you just kicked me in the chest. I mean, the fact that this means anything to anyone besides me blows my mind every day. So thank you so much for that.
Now, back to the question itself. You know, Mystic was so strange and the way I always put it and I’ve said this a thousand times. People are going to be so sick of me saying it, but it’s the only way I have to express it. I didn’t create this album; this album was out in the universe and waiting. I just happened to be the person that discovered it and brought it into the light for people. What I mean by that is this; it came to me in pieces, over the course of like two to three years. So, I didn’t start writing it until the fall of 2018 and that was after my mental breakdown. My mental breakdown was the first six months of 2018; at least that was the worst of it. The full breakdown really started getting bad in 2017, but it just really hit in 2018. I have a lot of memory loss when it comes to the mental breakdown and that period, so I don’t remember most of 2018. So that means I don’t remember most of the time leading up to the creation of this album, except for the feelings.
So I keep discovering pieces as they come through my life. For example, on January 19, 2018 (I have that written down) in a meeting, I drew an album cover with a mystic on it, with a psychic on it with a crystal ball, the snake in the jar, the items you see on this album cover. I have a note in my phone from February 16th just saying “I found the mystic.” I don’t remember them or where they came from, but they’re obviously there. I have them saved with the date on it.
Fast forward, we start writing the album in the fall of 2018. It was an amazing experience doing the album because it was just myself and my producer, Seven (the in-house producer of Strange Music) creating art. We didn’t have to do like we did on the last album where I had to adhere to a genre, or I had to try to be something, or I had to follow a formula. We just got to do this and no one else was involved. So in that, it was really just between me, myself and I when it came to the writing on what came out. As I was writing, I was realizing there was so much more than my story.
I started feeling this second narrative that was there. I started exploring that alley and feeling ‘oh my god, there’s someone else in these words.’ So that’s how the visuals started to come about was the girl, who I discovered when I was writing this album. I had my story, but the other story I had to put together was hers. And it started to make her being there and her existing started to make everything else make sense. Suddenly the album cover made sense; she was the missing puzzle piece that made everything else make sense.
So it’s a very long, long answer to a short question (laughing). I started to write the album after the mental breakdown, but there were pieces and parts that were from during that period that were part of the album as well.
Once the words started coming out, what was that like? We’ve got 12 songs here, with different subject matter, and themes. Was it easy or difficult for these words to come out?
It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done, cause all I had to do was tell the truth. And it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, cause all I had to do was tell the truth. You know. I always say that the songwriting process is excruciating and no one ever wants to talk about that. When you make something, it hurts when you’re doing it. For me at least, because the first step is going to be acknowledging your emotions. If you suppress them, like I do, then that’s a move in itself (laughs). The second step is you have to write them down. You have to make them real, and tangible, and on paper. Then the third step is you have to say them out loud. That intensifies the tangibility of them. Then, you have to listen to your own voice say truths about yourself. To you. That was the most surprisingly painful thing I’ve ever done in music.
This was the first time I was working on a record and I listened to the playback after we were done. I was listening to myself talk about things that I hadn’t even wanted to think about at one point. Then you have to play that for other people. So you have to rip your heart out and then put it on a silver platter for people. And lastly you have monetized it and capitalize on it and try to sell it to people. So the songwriting process that’s what makes it hard, but what made it easy for me with this album is because A) It was the first time I had ever gotten full creative control. That was a really crazy amazing opportunity to finally have.
You mentioned writing in your car. Why do you write in your car? What is it about your car that makes it your place to write?
I love this question! I’ve been songwriting forever, because I’ve always been a music person and I’m a writer first. I tried to do that thing when I was younger, where you like light a candle and sit by a piano (laughing) you know what I mean? All of that and then for a while, I would just have my studio engineer Ben, who is a God! He’s amazing. He’d play the beat over and over and again and just write while I was literally in the studio. And that didn’t really do it for me either because I just felt like I was under an amount of pressure that I had to get it done right now and I’m wasting everybody’s time.
So there was never a sweet spot for me until one day. It was time for my studio session, and I got to work a little bit early and I hadn’t quite written everything because I planned on writing in studio like I had been at that point. But I was like ‘you know what I’m here a bit early, let me just play the beat in my car’ so I sat in the parking lot at the studio and just full blast. Played the beat as loud as possible in my car. And it was writing, with the windows down, and the wind blowing through. It just hit me, that was the spot. You know what I mean? I finally found the sweet spot where I felt comfortable. And it’s hard to describe that. So my routine now is, every single time I have to write a song, I show up early to my studio session. I sit in the parking lot. I roll down all the windows. Put on the beat. Blow everyone’s eardrums out with it! (laughing) Right! And that’s how all of “Mystic” was done really. The only song that wasn’t was an emergency song which was done last minute and I’ll explain that.
The local news was coming to cover me and they were going do a video recorded piece about mental health among other things. They said ‘can we get some footage of Mackenzie in the studio?’ Which is much easier said than done. So I contacted our boss and said ‘hey, do I do a new song? Do I fake it to an old song? What do I do?’ He said ‘do whatever you want to do.’ I contacted Seven ‘hey, you wanna make a beat?” He turned over that beat overnight. So the next day while I’m getting hair and makeup done, I was just sitting there with the beat on repeat writing. So I wrote it with my friend Heidi, who does my hair and makeup. Sitting right there listening to me rambling for an hour and a half. Then we went in and recorded it that day. That song ended up being “Stay” on the album. Which was again, the happiest accident on the album probably. Originally the song that was supposed to be in that slot was called “Coming For Blood” and it’s an older song that was about a much different time in my life that kind of related to a mental breakdown. So it was not chronologically a part of it. It just didn’t make sense with the girl’s story. It stuck out like a sore thumb on the album. It really did.
So that’s why I write in my car. Also, my car is kind of my safe space in general.
This new Strange Main? Is this a new branch of the label? You know, this album doesn’t really fit with the label in a way. Does the album surprise some people that may be expecting you to be rapper/hip-hop artist with this album, just based upon them looking at the label
So, Strange Music is a hip-hop and rap label as you said. And it is a beautifully oiled machine. And this isn’t just me speaking from the inside prospective wanting to gas it up. Or from the sentimental perspective of it being my entire life. Just subjectively as a person in business, I admire what my parents and everyone who’s worked at or with Strange has done to create this beautifully vertically integrated all-encompassing business that truly has the most incredible infrastructure that I could imagine for a record label. Or for a business in general, I think we’re pretty much killing it.
And again, wouldn’t it be a shame if all those resources only went to one genre? Wouldn’t it be a shame if this machine, that’s so good at what it does, only one of a numerable amount of genres? That was kind of the thought in mind when Strange Main was conceived that we are the base independent hip-hop label in the world. So we’ve done that. So what can we do for the independent artists who aren’t hip-hop? Who aren’t rappers, who have their own talent and sound to bring to the table that maybe isn’t congruent with what we’ve already been doing? We started Strange Main with hopes of making it Strange Music that’s not hip-hop.
I don’t really know how else to describe it. One genre has a feeling, when you expand past that you have the world’s biggest playground to use to create and foster the creation of as much beautiful music as possible. And that’s where we’re all coming from in the first place. We’re all coming from this love of music. So that’s what it is.
You mentioned that Seven is the in house producer. I know some artists when they get so far into making an album they realize the producer maybe just doesn’t get them and what they’re doing. But it really seems by watching the YouTube videos where you two talk about putting the tracks together; it seems to be something very special there. He really does seem to get you and the album.
He’s brilliant. I do not have enough words of praise in the world to explain how I feel about Seven. He’s my hero, he always has been. He’s my mentor. I would not be here and doing music without him.
Back in high school, I was very much the smart one. That was my thing and I had planned to go to college and get a degree and maybe be a neuropsychiatrist, or an astrophysicist, all this crazy stuff. We were at a Christmas party my senior year of high school and Seven asked what I planned to do after high school. I told him what college and what major, and he said “But you don’t want to do that, do you?” And he said “Why don’t you just do music?” And that was the first time that anyone had made it an option.
He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world too. It was so obvious. If it hadn’t been for him saying that, I would’ve gone to college. I thoroughly believe I would be dead by now. My mom and I talk about how me doing music was on so many levels the right move and such a blessing. Because I definitely would not have gotten the help I needed had I went to college. I would not have been diagnosed, would not have been medicated, or gone to therapy. Yeah, he played his part in making sure that didn’t happen. So to speak. I could talk for ages on him.
I did watch the TED Talks. Is there anything you want to say about that? How that all came together?
Oh my god, I’d love to. Man! I can’t believe I did that! One of my lifelong goals has been to do a TED Talk. I never thought it would happen. Dana said I need to make an audition tape, so I made an audition tape. I thought the worst audition tape possible, there’s no way I’m gonna get to do anything with this. But I got an email they wanted me to do a TED Talk. Then I thought ‘Oh god, now I have to talk about something’ and I knew it would have to be about Mystic and mental health, but what do you even say? Because I’ve said so many things about it. How do I make this matter to people?
So what happened is I got with my acting coach, Chris Gilbert, who helped me prepare for Mystic. He said ‘This is not a speech. This is a conversation.’ So it became this thing where I got to go up there and instead of talking about how mental illness felt like this or this song means this, it became this story about what I actually went through. I told them about the phone call I had with my mom where I told her I was going to kill myself and she told me I didn’t have the option. That was what saved my life.
The most important take away from me was: I got to do two things that was amazing all at once. I got to knock something incredible off of my bucket list, which was to give a TED Talk. I got to cross that off. AND I got the opportunity to connect with people in a way I couldn’t have. Because so many people have since come up to me, people that were there in person to people who have contacted me off of social media, or people who know me but didn’t know about my story in that detail before but have a connection. Simply because I got up there and told people Hey. I was sad too, but now I made it?’ What more could I ask for? So that’s what the TED talk experience was for me. I really am proud of it, and I really loved it.
Awesome! Well you should be proud; don’t sell yourself short. If you impact one person, regardless of where they are in the world, that’s a major accomplishment. It’s awesome you were able to do that.
Thank you!
Now, what’s this about a film that I keep hearing about?
Oooh! I’ll tell ya! As I mentioned earlier, as I was writing Mystic and putting it became about not just me, but about this character I called “the girl” and this alternate narrative. Where she went through exactly what I went through, but in her own unique way. She went through a mental breakdown. But she handled it her way, and I handled it my way. The point is that we all go through that same thing in our own way. But as I was writing this album I was like ‘What do I do with this new found knowledge of this character that’s coming through?’ I can’t just do the album and not talk about her. And I can’t talk about her in the album because I’m too busy telling my story. She needs more than that. What if we use the visuals to tell her story? So instead of making a standard music video, we made a narrative thing.
I bring this up to Travis. I tell him I have this thing I want to do and ask how many visuals I can have. He said ‘Uhhh… Maybe three to five?’ And I thought I can work with that, so I was trying to make it work. But I couldn’t get all the nuance, I couldn’t get every facet of the story told with just 3 to 5 videos. I tried my best, I really tried. The more we talked, the more I explained to him how it was going. He said ‘You know. I wouldn’t be against hypothetically per say doing 12 visuals.’ So I then ran with it. (laughing)
So we were doing these pieces. And we were going to do these 12 music videos, that are not performance based. They’re all narrative, no dialog. And they all come together to make one big film. They all star “the girl” they’re all about her story, not my story. It’s just her.
We started looking for the right directors, the right this, and the right that. And it really all boiled down after all of that searching to just me and the head of our video department, Taylor Lamb. Going in a room and writing down the story and he directed it. It’s just proof, what you know works sometimes. If you do something you love with people you love it will create something you love. That’s kind of what this entire project was.
We went in and filmed these visuals in 10 days. It was the best two weeks of my life. I’ve never been happier in my entire life than I was when we were filming The Mystic. I’m so proud of it! Then we started releasing it on Jan 17th. We released one video every single Friday. We’re going to release the whole thing as one film very soon.
For our last question, I wanted to address the many different stereotypes and misconceptions that people have about mental illness. In music, or the arts in general, we’ve lost a lot from suicide just in the past few years. Chester Bennington from Linkin Park, Robin Williams and Chris Cornell from Soundgarden just to name a few. From the outside looking in it seems like they have it all. They have everything together and have everything going for them, but they’re battling these demons so to speak. What can we do to help that?
You know, what I always say is mental illness does not discriminate. It doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, what race you are, what religion you are. What you do or believe in. It doesn’t. It attacks, and it attacks to kill. That’s what mental illness does. I totally understand what you say that often some people don’t give some people as much credence because of their life circumstances when they say they suffer from mental illness. I understand when people say from all external appearances you got dealt a good hand. When in reality, it wouldn’t matter what I was doing with my life or my financial situation was. My brain is my brain and I’d still be bi-polar. I think if we can get everyone to acknowledge our own mental health that would make it easier to accept that of others. Something I used to have a hard time with, is I used to be super judgmental when I was younger and struggling a lot. I was having such a hard time accepting myself and having a hard time acknowledging that I needed help and that I was struggling. It’s fighting to survive constantly. So whenever anyone else was struggling, I would get pissed. Because I thought ‘if I can do this, you can do that.’ If I just hadn’t been in denial of needing help and had more self-acceptance and validated my own struggle, I could have validated other people and had empathy. And help people, instead of becoming part of the problem. So I think that the more we make it priority to self-check in. Make it okay for people to worry about yourself and understand it’s not a sign of weakness when you’re struggling. Be okay with it and open, and let other people struggle.
Thank you for your time today Mackenzie and thanks for being so brave with this new album. We think it’s a pretty amazing thing that you’ve put together.
Awww, thanks Johnny; that means the world to me!
By I’m Music Magazine Owner/Editor Johnny Price
