Mila Bea Could Very Well Be Our Next‑Gen Indie Rock Goddess
With her soulful sound and brutally honest lyrics, 16-year-old Singapore singer-songwriter is every Gen Z's best friend. We shine a spotlight on her craft.
Mila Bea Comaroff is an old soul. This might not always be seen as a compliment, but one gets the sense that this 16-year-old Singaporean musician, who performs under the moniker Mila Bea, is completely at home with this. Despite her age, she exudes a worldliness that’s immediately apparent in her controlled, silky vocals and ’90s-inflected indie folk sound. In person, she’s just as self-possessed, earnestly sharing her thoughts on everything from her favourite books (as of press time, she was reading The Picture of Dorian Gray) to the nature of the music industry today.
With her well-received debut album Part of Me – the polished blend indie folk-meets-sad girl bedroom pop – and a charisma that's well beyond her years, the 16‑year‑old Singapore singer‑songwriter known as Mila Bea is due to take her place under the spotlight.
Part of this might have to do with how Comaroff has spent most of her life surrounded by art. Her parents – her mum’s Chinese and her dad’s American – are architects who exposed her to a wide assortment of musicians from an early age: from ’70s folk legend Joni Mitchell to 2000s indie rock icon Father John Misty. This upbringing has led to a passion for musical theatre (fun fact: she took drama lessons at Wild Rice) as well as all manner of arts and crafts (another fun fact: she DIY-ed most of the props and animations featured in the videos for her genre-spanning debut album Part of Me, which was released at the end of August last year).
A peek into Mila Bea’s world: Most of the animations, illustrations, and props used to promote her debut album were DIY‑ed. “I grew up keeping myself busy with DIY projects as well as arts and crafts, and I still do. I think that being well rounded is something I really strive for,” she explains.
So how does all this suggest that she’s got the makings of Singapore’s next big musical artist? Well, for one, she’s got the fans. Despite not being signed to a label and releasing everything (one album and three singles, including the romantic Christmas number When It Snowed) on her own, she’s garnered over 100K streams on Spotify and staged four sold-out solo gigs. Those in her ardent fanbase refer to themselves endearingly as the Bumblebeas and at her most recent gig at Lion Studios – reportedly Singapore’s oldest recording studio – in early December 2024, they turned up as early as five hours ahead of showtime (we were there then shooting her for this story – her first interview in a print magazine).
And she’s certainly also got the savvy. In a time when reaching an audience means having to do more than just perform music, she’s taken cues from Gen Z jazz crooner Laufey – one of her idols – and channelled her love for reading into a writing club in Discord in which members meet weekly and share what they’ve penned. If anything, her flair for coming up with brutally honest, achy-achy, confessional-style lyrics is what has allowed her to seamlessly connect with those who have discovered her.
“I want to be known not just as a singer, but also an artist – this is my identity. I also think it’s really insightful for listeners to be able to visualise what artistes have in their minds.”
Take the title track of her debut album Part of Me, on which she sings “Part of me still feels like a mess / Part of me still feels like the odd one out / Part of me still thinks that / All of me is hard to love”. Most of her songs, she says, deal with her own inner demons.
“I'm basically making music to show people that we are all in this together and that we’re never alone no matter what… That's primarily what I write about in my songs: the mental struggles that many of us face… For example, Metamorphosis – one of the most personal songs on my album – is a summary of the problems that I went through in my early teens. People often blame the kind of sadness I experienced on the process of growing up, but I’ve never thought that was the case. I think society in general tends to undermine teenagers’ emotions a lot.”
Her young age is in fact what she hopes can set her apart. “I think my age can undermine my credibility a bit. People tend to think, ‘Oh, this girl wrote this song when she was 12 – surely, it can’t be good’,” she explains with the composure of someone who’s been in the business for a far longer time. “The thing is there are a lot of amazing adult musicians who are writing about issues that happened to them when they were younger… This is why it’s so important for younger people to have musicians their age and whom they can relate to: It’s extra comforting to know that we are going through the same things at the same time.”
Mila Bea warms up for her fourth solo (and sold‑out) gig at the legendary Lion Studios – reportedly Singapore’s oldest recording studio – in early December last year. Exposed to a wide range of music from a young age, she counts Laufey, Phoebe Bridgers and Joni Mitchell among her idols.
The last six months have been a whirlwind for Comaroff and the next big thing she’s working on is completing her International General Certificate of Secondary Education, or IGCSE, in the first half of 2025. When asked whose career she hopes to emulate when she gets back to music-making after and she rattles off the likes of Adrianne Lenker and Phoebe Bridgers – all independent female artistes known for their soulful, deeply personal lyricism.
Says Comaroff: “One thing that I was nervous about before the launch of my album Part Of Me was whether people would understand what I’m saying because my songs can get very wordy. People also tend to prioritise creating catchy hooks in order to go viral on social media these days. I thus find it really inspiring how musicians like them have committed to their complex brand of songwriting and through that, found an audience that really appreciates and respects that. That’s something I hope to achieve when I'm older.”
If you ask us, she’s already well on the way to doing so.
PHOTOGRAPHY LAWRENCE TEO ART DIRECTION JONATHAN CHIA HAIR AUNG APICHAI/ARTISTRY STUDIOS, USING KEVIN MURPHY MAKEUP SARAH TAN
This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 Art Edition of FEMALE