About
Also known as: McKenzie Ellis
Oklahoma born and Brooklyn educated, McKenzie Ellis built her entire career under the name Mothica without a record label, manager, or publicist in sight. She picked up the name at age 15, drawn to the image of moths chasing light, and started putting music out publicly at 18 after a classmate at Pratt Institute handed her a MIDI keyboard and pointed her toward SoundCloud. Her debut track 'Starchild' racked up 100,000 plays in its first 24 hours, which is a pretty wild start for someone who never planned on being a musician. Her breakthrough came when 'VICES' went viral on TikTok in 2020, briefly outselling Harry Styles on the iTunes charts and crossing five million views. The album 'Blue Hour' followed shortly after, an autobiographical record about her road to sobriety that also found its way onto the Billboard charts. She has kept that same candid thread running through her TikTok presence, talking openly about depression, hair loss, and sobriety to a following of over half a million. Her sound pulls from pop, rock, and emo, and her third studio album 'Kissing Death' arrived in 2024.
