Friday, April 26, 2024

The official video for "Little Black Boat" is out now!

It is so crazy that this song was recorded in 2014 and originally released in 2015 but then we decided to add it to a bigger project called "Cats from Venus"...a collaboration between myself and Amra Island.

This video was created in December 2021 and shot in Chicago but the album didn't actually drop until 8/26/2022.....

I flew all the way to chicago to collab for the third time with Dr Claire Fleming aka just as Fleming.

Claire and I have been friends and collaborators on many amazing things and thanks to Claire I learned some basic carpentry skills when building the Magic Shop install inside of Slurp Art Gallery what seems like many moons ago...

Claire also shot the videos "Eyes That Roar" and "Merry Me'. Claire is also in amazing Noise Electronic band called 404 Not Found.



Excited to share this Visual for "Lil Black Boat"....

Also enjoy some photos from my stay in Chicago....



This was my second time in Chicago and it was so amazing. What I love about Chicago is the 24 hr resturants and 24 hr Korean Spas. And of course Claire, Lacey, and PJ!

I made so many new incredible friends and enjoyed playing at No Nation Lab....

I also Recorded and shot the video for "Everyday" At Claires house.

And for the grand finale of it all....I caught COVID in Chicago.

So glad to finally share this new visual. I hope you enjoy.

Also the song is about how I feel being black on this planet. It a red sea. Am I drinking enough water. How am I streaming. How am I living?????? I'm Suffering from intense anxiety and the remedy is Blah Blah...

Thanks to Cast and Crew....


Thank you for watching!

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Still believing in magic. 2024 style.

Hey its been a minute but I am glad to be back.

I got a new environment that I have been adjusting to that I love so much and has helped me with healing and prioritizing myself for once in my life. Its been a struggle to do just that as I have 100% been there for everyone and not there for myself like that and I have been in isolation figuring it out and so far so good. I am thankful to in this short life hold space for myself and seeing the positive results that stem from that you know.

We are in crazy times and I personally took a lil break from social media. Usually I am the first to say happy new year but this year wasn't such a happy new year on the strength that everyone is trying to ignore the state of our world with the massive genocide happening in Palestine. I asked google why does genocide happen and the response was "Genocide happens because of choices people make. Within a society , hatred makes some people decide to murder people whom they see as different. Other people decide to sit by and allow it to happen, without acting to defend those being attacked" now let that sit with you. Think about that...are you a person who sits back and allows it to happen or are you a person who stands up and fights for the rights of humanity. I was so shocked and speechless to see how many folks ignored and let Israel get away with murdering innocent palestinian civillions. Palestine belongs to Palestinians not israel and for the american governmen to be involved in this has just left me speechless yall. I know our government is one that throws the first stone in a lot of world events. To see our government play the oppressor and the savior in the same sentence is mind blowing. This is our world yall and it feels like we are 2 far gone!!! What honestly will save our world? This feels beyond repair. I will say though that now more than ever Community is needed and is so important! I am thankful for my community of loved ones who support me guide me and genuinely love me and reciprocate my love. Trust me I have been through it all and to still be open and vulnerable at my grown age is a blessing. So I will tell you lets not give up on our world. "A new world is possible" and I believe in magic.

I want to invite you to some positive spaces where I will be at this month and I hope you can make it out to celebrate joy and good vibes. I am glad to still use this platform as a beacon of information and thank you for letting me express myself always.

On March 7th I will be vending Maya's Magic Shop goods at the legendary Continental club in Oakland for The Hood Witch's new book release Blood Sex magic!



See you there!!!

On March 9th daytime I will be celebrating my good friend Maria new event space called Grand Opening Arts. The event will be from 1-7 Pm and I will be Vending Magic Shop Goodies so see you there and here is the flier...



Later that evening I will be at Popperz SF at El Rio in SF! I am so thankful for my Popperz Community! They are holding a fundraiser event for me and the magic shop. You might not know but our new location is in Chico and I am thankful for my community to look out for me like they do and I will be performing a 30 minute set so be there!





I want to talk about the new location for the magic shop, Mayas Magic Shop started out as an underground Brick n Mortar in Oakland in 2018. The magic shop then joined Slurp Art Gallery for a pop up install from 2020-2022 and in 2022 we also moved into Sour Cherry Comics in SF as a store within a store install kinda like what Claires is to Walmart just to help you better understand our setup. My oakland location closed in 2022 and since I moved near Chico I took a leap of faith and launched a Chico Magic Shop and so far so good but I still need a lot of support. So I will be starting a Patreon soon and will be back with more info on how you can support that.


Right now we are open Thursday/Friday 1-5pm Saturday 1-4pm! Stay Tuned

3/13 and 3/27 I will be playing a live set online for URSA Live which you can tune into from their website at www.ursalive.com and find my name MAYA SONGBIRD!

I am excited to announce my collaboration with the Omni Commons for two tarot workshops happening 3/21 and 3/31! Thank you Silver for this oppurtunity. If you are interested in attending please sign up here.



Later that evening I will be at Thee Stork Club opening up for TELE HEALTH so stay tuned for that flier because I don't have it yet but coming soon!

Lastly on 3/29 I will performing at Boomerang Lounge in Mill Valley for the Undercover lovergirl tour feauturing Taylar Elizza Beth and WD4D! Check it out...



I just want to say thank you for supporting me for 15 yrs as an underground independent queer black indigenous artist! I want to always remain for the people. I am always People over profit. Free Palestine,Sudan, Congo, Haiti, Yemen, Puerto Rico, Tigray, Hawaii, Ethiopia, Somalia and you! Peace, Freedom and love is all that matters. You are in control of your life and have the power to make positive change. GOD is real and the only GOD. Celebrities are not GOD do not worship celebrities. Worship GOD!

Be good to yourself and hope to dance with you soon! Keep Dreaming and Nurturing the GOD within!

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

The official Visual for "Seduction on the Low" out now!

Pretty excited to be dropping the official Visual for "Seduction on the Low"

Directed by the great SANTIAGO for SANTY's Gallery. We have collaborated on so many projects released and unreleased and we work well together. This particualar day we shot this video and I am all naked in the forest and some bike riding crew randomly rides through. lol I had to play it off it was AWKward lol. We ended up at this particular forest a few times in the span of two days because we got to smoked out on 4/20 last year when we shot this and thought we left the bluetooth speaker and had to come back in the storm and it was night time and spooky and we were both stoned and scared. It was like a scary movie cuz it was pouring down hard and dark and we were searching for the bluetooth in a forest.
This is the Speaker.



WE can laugh at this now but trust we were both freaking out lol and it turns out the bluetooth speaker was at the house under the couch the whole time. Anyway this was fun to shoot and glad to give this song a video.Thank you SAntiago for always working so very hard, for being an outstanding creative and having a magical brain to make outlandish visions come alive. A pure genious and original in a world today. Check out his portfolio here and book him for all things creative. He really is the best.







This song was a freestyle and is on the Cats From Venus Album. It was written in 2015 even though CAts From Venus did not fly until 2022. Got to trust the process and perservere. Just really out here expressing fat girl desire and reminding you Fat bodies are attractive. Its not fair to only admire one body type. Many Body types exist and should be applauded and celebrated for getting a body. You know how hard it is to make it to earth and here yall go choosing to be close minded and making all these rules on how to exist. Miss me with it cuz I am having a good time in my body as a big magical being. Although these days I am 40 pounds lighter but we will get into that in another post. But today and right now we will celebrate my body in this video and my sexual desire. Normalize pleasure and worship not fetish for all bodies.

Here goes "Seduction on the low". Worship me.

Friday, April 28, 2023

Castro Kid Album.....Finally a dream Fullfilled.

Who knew that in 2023 the album "Castro Kid" would be dropping. Well what had seemed like a failed mission resurfaced as a chance to once again share my story of what it was like growing up in such a colorful place. 90's SF was a revolution that I was lucky to be apart of being that I grew up in the historical Castro. I call it growing up on a rainbow because it was literally rainbows everywhere and I remember moving in to our home on 01/01/1989 and my mom had made sure my room was everything Rainbow Brite. As a kid growing up on 15th and Noe it was a mission to find other kids to play with outside. I would literally hang out with the flower guy named GUY if you know you know he is amazing and a huge part of my childhood. He would let me know when a new kid I could hang out with moved into the neighborhood. I was lucky to grow up at 2179 15th st and please dont disturb the people who live there now unless you want to remind them that your fav Maya Songbird grew up there and yall want to see what the inside of the house looked like. Well my room had really weird lime green shaggy grassy carpet but nonetheless the whole place was special and dreamy and I am really lucky to have grown up there. I saw a ghost there a few times. It was my landlords son who had passed away. I saw him maybe three times in my time staying there. I wasn't scared I just knew that he had died and that that was him and I told my mom and she didn't believe me.

My favorite things to do growing up on 15th and Noe was go to the corner and sell whatever I could sell from my house and play my clarinet and sing on the corner. I had a wholesome childhood filled with bike riding in my neighborhood. As I got older I would venture more to the castro by myself and go to the park in the castro and I remember pride when I was a kid was really just Church and the Castro and super non mainstream. It was a lot of marching and a lot of people on my block that my mom wouldn't go to church that day and I would get front row seats to the early days of pride.

Then going to the castro as a teenager was different because we would all link up with other teens who cut school and we didnt have cellphones all like that it was more so link up at Castro Street station and get in to trouble. So much natural fun. I miss just that. I miss not having cell phones and being special enhanced humans that literally intuitively knew where to meet each other. We really have gotten way to far from our lives as just that. I miss the good ole days where we read maps and printed out directions.

So ideally this album was to come out in 2012. Wow we even had a fundraiser and everything to raise funds for it but that project never made it to see the light of day. Why? Well I found out the truth about by former managers agenda and you know we all have the bad guy in our life that sinks our ship because they cant be the captain or should I say I was not about to sign that DEAD end contract she had for me. People can be so selfish and well I chose me! People really think that because I am kind compassionate that I am a fool and well I was adviced not to sign that contract and to never speak to her again and that is what happened. SHAMEFUL! I decided to walk away and take the longest journey which led me here to 2023 with a completed Castro Kid album. Not saying there were no obstacles in this new project as well. In early 2022 Wam (Womens Audio Mission) granted me a chance to record an album in their studios under a grant and I spun the block on this project and it was to be produced by Tomu and Dorsey. Well Dorsey couldn't commit so I gave the full on gig to Tomu to produce and we were scheduled to go record late february early march. I wrote and recorded this whole new project in a weeks time only for Tomu to instead congratulate for acomplishing just that but to pull her beats for saying I was to sexually explicit and kinda taking away my power and before it got real nasty and she was acting as if she was not just a collaborator on my project she kinda backed me into a corner and I didn't like it. None of us did. Yeah people be for on a self sabotaging hype and make sure you aren't a victim in that. What a fool. So insert Nate Manic who literally saved the day and re composed this album and can I say it is literally way better than any of the other castro kid projects.Nate ran circles around Tomu's production So yeah Tomu you tried it with all that weird energy. For reals though used me for my studio time to add BASS to your beats and then pulled this stunt But you did not stop anything so hahahaha. People for real be on some weird energy but ain't nobody got time for that. JUST SHAMEFUL WHAT SHE DID. SHE TRIED IT AND In the end I got a better album that really takes you on a journey through time iconically. Produced by NATE MANIC.



Thank you Nate for Accepting this project while under a tight schedule literally massacreing a song a day. I literally laid in bed distraught about Tomu's actions and just trying to figure it out and you showed up daily with the best energy and re imagined this project the right way.

Got to give recognition also to Danielle who Enginereed and Mixed this project. It was a lot of work but thank you for getting through this with me.

Don't ever stop until you get what you want. I completely own myself and my legacy. Never sign your life away to anyone.

Sincerely the CAStro KID....Black Girl from 15th and Noe.



So stay tuned! The album drops this year but you can catch a sneak peak at upcoming shows in MAY! Starting with the Party in the park thrown by wam happening on 5/13! My set is last and I am headlining! I can not wait to slide in the new grooves amongst the older grooves that are so special to me to perform. It is going to be lit. Get your tickets here!

A big thanks to Womens Audio Mission for providing me and many other femmes a Chance to execute an album recorded in a beautiful studio space. For backing this project and making sure It got done even with the unexcpected drama.

Friday, March 31, 2023

"How the Sunshines" Video + Behind the scenes and lyric breakdown

So happy this video is out finally and the goal was to drop it Spring Equinox to celebrate the sunshine after a wild winter.

We shot this video the day we shot three videos and this was the first video of the day.

As the story goes Krista and I drove down to LA early morning non stop from the bay. Pulled up on Santiago like at 8am but he was still sleeping so we took a disco nap in the car until he came out and knocked on our window and we went inside and took a little more napping before waking up around noon to plan three video shoots in one day.

We then spent the day mobbing around LA going everywhere to get everything we needed for the looks and props.



This is me trying on looks for the video BTW. So clutch. I was super excited.

That evening we had an incredible meal cooked by the amazing Santiago.

And I thought I had pictures from that but I can't find them sorry yall. I be trying to document cuz I am high key annoying and I love good times and our little dinner was the fuel we needed to wake up hella early and execute the plan.

So yeah we got up hella early and of course had our Yerba Mate's Cranberry Pomegranate to get us going. Of Course I have a picture of that.



It was super far out from Santi's house and we got stuck in fun LA traffic and had to make a few uturns but when we got there....Eureka! I don't remember the name of the spot yall but just know it was chefs kiss for what we had planned and that was a video shoot.

Krista helped me get ready in to the first look.



Meow a total kittens growl. and then we took some test shoots before I put on my wardrobe.....



So we got me dressed and then the park ranger came and was like ya'll got a permit and I was like oh shit lol I knew this one lady walking by previously was gonna snitch and she did but the ranger was like look you got 50 minutes to shoot and then you have to leave. Thank you Mr Park ranger and to the lady that was hating now what did you gain from doing all of that. lololol

My favorite part honestly is when Santyi baptizes me as a black cat. Not gonna lie yall know the water was cold and I was not trying to get my hair to wet lol.

Our next scene was the convertible scene and it got a little scary but I microdosed and did what had to be done. Krista was driving kinda fast ahem Krista. What was crazy was the police was like out but didnt stop us or say anything to us they ended up going to someone house in the neighborhood and doing a wellness check on them We guess. We were all like well thats weird they didnt care I was like literally hanging out the car lowkey could have died and they were all like this is LA everyone does this hahahaha.



This was my favorite shoot of the day. Cuz after our energy kinda went down and we all had little attitudes and then we wasn't expecting when we shot "People Hold On" for it to be a scary scene. At the end of all of the video shoots Krista and I took a disco nap and then went back to the bay. Thank you Krista for letting me sleep and getting us home safely.

So I am very happy this video is out and I wanted to save it for last for the fact it was such a great day shooting it. This song was produced by Oji and released in 2015. It is never to late to give a song a video and I always perform this song and I know people love it so it was great to give it a video.

What is this song about? Its about Capitalism being such a harsh force in humanity that we can't even enjoy the sunshine. Its really realizing that people care only about money and that is sad. Earth is so beautiful. Look at what money has done to us all. The greed is destroying this planet. Look at the weather. I had starting thinking about life without the sun on earth. About how days become a little darker as violence, ego, hate and disruption is the only way of life. I thought about the dream I had where the days were pitch black and Sharks were everywhere and it was waterworld. I have been having a lot of visions in my sleep about the world under water. We can all be a little more loving genuine and kind. We need each other more than ever. Our future does not look good and money does not equate to freedom. Money will not save or liberate you.

Thanks for watching and sharing. Pay attention to the destruction of our society. Honestly the animals got next and I can't wait to see them evolve in to the main habitants of earth. I dream of a world of Black Cats surely. Also a big thanks to Yurba Buena Gardens Seeds Commision Grant for funding this video and more video projects to come!