At just 24, the Australian singer-songwriter Maya Cumming known to fans as May-a has already experienced the promise and heartache of Los Angeles as a star-making town. In 2021, she signed with Atlantic Records in the US ahead of her debut EP, Don't Kiss Ur Friends a moment she described at the time as a dream. The following February, she featured on Flume's precision-made festival anthem Say Nothing, which went on to win the 2022 Triple J Hottest 100.
Many of singer D4vd's friends in the Los Angeles music scene had come to believe that Celeste Rivas Hernandez was his 19-year-old girlfriend, long before the 15-year-old's body was found dismembered in the trunk of his Tesla, which had been abandoned in the Hollywood Hills a month earlier. That's according to TMZ, which quoted music insiders who said they partied with 20-year-old D4vd, whose real name was David Anthony Burke.
moves through LA as if she's mastered the art of turning daily life into a slow ritual. Her mornings begin with Lavender Honey Spice at M Street Coffee, afternoons slip between art posts and studio sessions, and nights belong to The LA Flakes, her all-women rock band that plays like they've got something to prove but no one to impress.