Unapologetic and focused are two words that describe singer and songwriter Miya Guggs.
The qualities that allowed her to be an elite athlete on the basketball court now help the independent artist launch her music career. A woman of many gifts, Miya’s talents on the hardwood allowed her to earn a scholarship to her hometown college basketball team, Kansas City (Kansas) Community College. Nobody would have blamed Miya if she had pursued her hoop dreams to their logical conclusion – a college education, maybe attracting the attention of a Division One school and becoming a Lady Jayhawk and achieving the ultimate dream of being drafted into the WNBA.
“Situationships,” Miya’s latest single, provides insight into her songwriting process. The song tells the story of a person trying to manage emotions and expectations in a relationship. “I was on Twitter one day and one of the topics that was really trending was situationships, and I was like I can talk about that because I’ve experienced that,” she recalled. “So I kind of put my little take on it – my little two cents and it became something really cool. It was how I was feeling in that moment and it came out really great.”
Miya takes her next step in her career when her EP, “Patterns”, drops later this year. “I’m excited for that and I am putting the finishing touches on it.” The EP will be a mix of new tracks and tunes from her existing catalog. She said that the album’s title tells a story. “It actually refers to the patterns in relationships that I’ve seen that are just negative and I am kind of making people aware of that.”
That mindset of using music to seek truth, shows that Miya is following a path laid down by singers like Amy Winehouse, SZA and Jazmine Sullivan. “All of those women are unapologetically themselves and that is what draws me toward them, and that is what inspires me to be unapologetically myself,” she said. “That is what it’s all about. Following your own dreams and being an inspiration to others to achieve their dreams. The same thing that those artists do for me, I want to do for others_.”
Check out Miya Guggs new single “SITUATIONSHIPS” below.
The Culture Commentator 