Bolstered by her sexed-up turn in “Lady Marmalade,” 22-year-old Mya moves into adulthood with a pair of projects sure to make even the Ladies of the Moulin Rouge blush.
This feature originally appeared in Complex's June/July 2002 issue (a.k.a. issue #2).
When Mya releases her third album, an as-yet-untitled collection of songs that she started recording early last year, the natural inclination will be to portray the 22-year-old singer as a butterfly liberated from her sheltered cocoon. After all, in visual terms, her last fling in public was as a lingerie-dipped harlot in the made-for-MTV, sugar-romp video for “Lady Marmalade,” alongside infamous big-league sexpots Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, and Pink. The song and video marked a maturation, of sorts, for Mya Harrison. Compared with her previous image—a wide-eyed, ghetto-cute but somewhat spindling teen—introduced three years earlier on her self-titled debut album, her appearance in the vaudevillian pop confection from Moulin Rouge wasn’t just suggestive, it was downright salacious.
“But I’ve been wearing those costumes since I was four years old,” Mya says playfully, dismissing any concern with a little laugh that belies her demure speaking voice. “Your dance teachers put you in that kind of attire when you’re younger, because they say it’s Broadway oriented.”
Not like that, they don’t. Mya is sitting in an empty rehearsal studio in midtown Manhattan, and it’s clear that the exposure she received from “Lady Marmalade”—both literally and figuratively—doesn’t faze her. Mya has seen the little-girl-becomes-woman angle played before, specifically when she released her last album, Fear Of Flying (Interscope), in 2000. Wearing skimpy shorts and cooing evocatively in her videos, Mya seemed to be taking charge of her own sexual awakening.
But her emergence post-“Marmalade” is distinct. Today, even hidden underneath her rehearsal sweats, she is all woman: it’s evident in her halcyon glow, her disarmingly infectious smile, and the way her clothes hug her tiny, curvy frame.
“It’s how you carry yourself,” she says in defense of her on-camera wardrobe, but the statement could refer to her professional game plan as well. “You have to know why you’re wearing what you’re wearing, and why you’re doing what you’re doing. Sometimes you have to show you’re human and play the part.”
She's a workaholic. She works her craft to the fullest. She does everything she needs to get herself prepared. Plus, she's a very, very sexy woman. —Rockwilder
Slated for a Christmas Day release, Chicago is sure to receive major buzz from Oscar prognosticators. It’s all the more impressive that Mya didn’t pitch herself for the role, but was solicited to audition by the film’s producers, who clearly saw something in her demeanor that suited Mona’s dangerous sexiness.
“I was a little nervous,” she admits with sarcastic understatement. “I had to learn a piece of choreography, do a monologue off the top of my head, and do something they prepared for the character—all with no script. I also had to sing. And everything was filmed. I didn’t know what to expect.”
