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Mae Muller pulled out a ukulele to show her 72-person Zoom audience what she spent time doing during the pandemic.

“I learned an instrument guys!” she said, gesturing to the ukulele.

Muller spoke to Syracuse University students on Tuesday in an event hosted by The Women’s Empowerment Project for Women’s History Month. SU junior and president of The organization Alex Pepper and sophomore and vice president Jordyn Pegues moderated the conversation.

The London-native is signed to Capitol Records UK and released her EP “no one else, not even you” in November. Her first studio album, “Chapter 1,” was released in 2019. Muller debuted her music video for her song “dependent” and she has over 100 million streams globally.

Throughout her life, Muller has had difficulty speaking about her emotions. Songwriting became an outlet for her to express her feelings, but Muller never intended to become her career. She didn’t take being an artist seriously until she saw her music resonating with other people.

Now, her songs talk about falling in love, heartbreak and being a strong woman, all over fast-tempo pop beats. Muller also wants to remind women that it’s OK to not be a “bad bitch” all of the time.

“Being a strong woman means knowing that it’s OK to not have to be strong all the time,” Muller said. “To do what you want to do, it doesn’t matter what people think, what people say, what their opinions are. Just keep going.”

Her latest EP includes songs spanned the past two to three years and cover many different periods in Muller’s life. One of the songs, “dependent,” is the first love song she’s written. Usually, her songs came from a place of anger, but the track came from having new and confusing feelings about a love interest.

“‘Dependent’ stays in my head forever,” Pepper said.

While Muller’s song “Therapist” has gone viral on TikTok and has over 9 million streams on Spotify, she isn’t too surprised because she’s always hard on herself and her music.

When she talked to SU students about how the song came from the heart and is about how people don’t always have to be fixers in relationships, the chat was filled with comments.

“I missed church this week but that’s ok because Mae’s been preaching for us,” College Marketing Representative for Universal Music Group, Carlos Fernandez wrote.

“literally just stop being someone’s therapist HAHAHA so much better being single,” said Kathy Tra, a senior from The University of Austin at Texas.

The artist opened for Little Mix on their U.K. and Ireland tour in 2019 and has worked with former One Direction member Liam Payne. In the future, she wants to work with Billie Eilish and FINNEAS, whom she has connected with in the past.

Despite Muller having worked with these celebrities, she told the audience that one of her biggest inspirations is her mom.

“I could go on about my mom for ages. She’s a savage, man,” Muller said. “If you’re wondering where I got my savageness from — it’s from her.”

She reminded the audience to never feel like they’re taking up too much space and do the things that make them happy.

It took her two years to fully throw herself into being an artist because of the doubts she had about her worth. Now, she doesn’t know what she would do without her musical career.

“Just do it,” Muller said. “Whatever you’re thinking, all the doubts, no. Just do it. It’s the hardest part.”

Published on March 16, 2021 at 7:34 pm

Contact Sydney: sabergan@syr.edu