Cinnamon Babe’s Stormi Maya: “Metal Purists Are Just Afraid of Bimbo Hot Chicks and Young Kids Taking Over”
From the moment we premiered their debut track “Pure O,” Cinnamon Babe became a target for a certain type of metal fan. Songwriter and vocalist Stormi Maya immediately had everything from her personnel choices to her personal instagram questioned into perpetuity. Those who actually listened to the music were either ultra-supportive or gave a decisive, Meh, but for the majority of our readers and commenters, that wasn’t the issue. Stormi was an attractive Black woman using nu-metal as a form of expression — surely she had to be an industry plant, or was just here chasing clout.
“I mean, who the fuck makes metal to clout-chase?” laughs Maya over Zoom. “I already have clout. I have 750,000 followers, off of just existing as an attractive woman. I’ve been in movies and TV shows. I’m in Atlanta until mid-April filming a TV show as the lead. I’m on the cover of Penthouse this month. I do not need to make metal to get clout.”
For Stormi, Cinnamon Babe is a labor of love, an expression of anguish and strength born out of a difficult upbringing and a devotion to alternative music. The band’s music is pure nu-metal, a tribute to the agro bands she grew up enjoying. For Maya, Cinnamon Babe is the stepping stone she wished she had as a kid, allowing casual fans an entrance point through which to get into metal. That said, putting herself out there with the project has earned her nonstop bullshit — from all sides of the culture war.
“I have a lot of listeners and fans who’re people of color, and when they hear I make metal and rock music, they’re taken aback,” she says. “They have these images of what metal and rock music is, and it’s all these scary images of upside-down crosses. I think whats cool about nu-metal is that the style is very hip-hop-ish…But then I also get metalheads being like, Ew, you came here and chose NU-METAL? What the fuck! Why don’t you do some Arch Enemy shit? I’m like, I dunno, man! I do what I do!”
What was your musical upbringing like? What artists got you into metal and hard rock?
I basically got into all realms of alternative music when I was in middle school. I was a My Chemical Romance/Paramore kid. It was different, at the time. I grew up in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and it really wasn’t something that was popular in my community. Everyone else I was going to school with was listening to Lil Wayne and Nikki Minaj, stuff like that, which is cool. I was also listening to a lot of older music, like Van Halen and Aerosmith, and I was also into old Motown – in general, I had a different palette of music. Something that was cool about my mom was that her style of music was also that as well. As a kid, I heard her play the Cranberries and Linkin Park, but she’d also play Jill Scott and Lauryn Hill. But my community was not into it. It was something I kept to myself. When I first got into metal, I gravitated to Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Linkin Park, because it had a lot of elements of of hip hop, and it was a bit more hip and mainstream. It was easier to access, and it’s what leaned me into heavier metal as well.
Is it cool watching that genre come back, as it has in recent years?
It’s weird, because there are a lot of gatekeepers or whatever you want to call them, who are just afraid of the future, of what metal might look like. They probably have nostalgia for what they grew up with. They’ve seen it with hip hop. Because if you think about old-school hip hop, and you think about the days of Mobb Deep and Big L and Big Pun, hip hop was at one point very sculpted to the culture, and had messages in it that were for the culture, and it represented something — and then the mainstream turned rap music into pop. The image of it completely changed, from the stripper-ish image of women to gangster young kids running around, doing trap shit. I think that a lot of metal purists are afraid of that same transition happening. They’re afraid of a lot of bimbo hot chicks and young kids taking over. But what’s funny about metal and alternative music is, like, I was always under the impression that it was for people who never felt like they fit in. I always felt like kind of a weirdo, an introverted person who no one understood. That’s why I was attracted to this genre in the first place. And then I tried to get into it, and I couldn’t get in! Now I’m an outsider in something that was supposed to be for outsiders.
Why do you think you’ve been barred from the Outsider’s Club?
I mean, I know what I look like. We live in a society that sees you as your physical image and nothing else. So they see me, and they’re like, Aw, she shows her tits, she must have daddy issues, bimbo dumb bitch, can’t know anything or do anything else. And then, being a Black woman, Black people don’t stereotypically listen to metal, so I hear that I’m making white music.
Do you receive a lot of harsh criticism from the Black community as well as the metal community ?
When I announced I’d be making metal, the hate was astronomical. From that point on, the Black community that followed me said everything from that I was a bed wench, to I was a sellout, to I wanted to be a white girl for white guys. They accused me of not liking my own race, not liking how I look. It was worse in the beginning. I guess I shocked people. They say I’m a demon worshipper, too – in the Black and Hispanic community, there’s a lot of very religious activity. I grew up Southern Baptist, with a Black Southern Baptist grandmother. Growing up, my older cousin used to be a big fan of HIM, and she had the heartagram on her, and my grandmother would freak out — Don’t keep that demon shit in here! And that’s a lot of the reception I got. I have a large Black fanbase, and I got a lot of shit.
Why do you think so many people, both metal purists and otherwise, are so hung up on your physical appearance?
I just didn’t put a costume on when I got to metal. I think that’s inauthentic. I’m not a fucking poser. I’m not going to suddenly get tatted. I dress kind of punkish in everyday life, but I’m not going to go out and change my entire image. I still wear my cute little bikinis – I’m not going to go dress like Elvira. Not to talk shit, but that’s a lot of the reason why Machine Gun Kelly gets hate. When he was in hip-hop and rap music, he had a costume. He had the baggy jeans, and the baggy shirts and backwards hats. Then he gets into rock, he 360* changes his style. Wearing skinny jeans, nail polish, piercings, shit like that. Me, I didn’t do that. I just look exactly the fucking same.
Has you ever felt pressure to sculpt your public image to be more rock-appealing while rolling out Cinnamon Babe?
I like having this image. I like showing people that you’re not erasing your Blackness by getting into rock music. Jimi Hendrix had a fucking Afro and shit. I look at artists like Lenny Kravitz – they don’t have a look of rock on them. They just be themselves. People get all hung up on how I look, though. Oh, she’s using her body. I always tell them, You know it’s sex, drugs, and rock and roll, right? If I use my fucking body, it’s like those guys in the ‘70s and ‘80s with their pecs out! All the original rock and metal guys had their chests out, working out with crazy arms and shit. These guys were all very sexy! That was the image! Rock has always been that. Look at Prince! Prince had his fucking ass out. Are you gonna say Prince wasn’t rock? Prince was as rock as you can fucking get. Get the fuck out of here. This whole community is acting like a bunch of conservative Karens.
With Cinnamon Babe, how much of the songs come from you, and how much from your band?
Look, there’s Black Sabbath, and then there’s Ozzy. I skip right to Ozzy. I’m not trying to deal with a bunch of motherfuckers. This is not a group effort. I don’t want to hear anybody else’s opinion when it comes to my shit. I’m trying to do my thing, and if you piss me off, you get replaced. So I working with different musicians on every track. I don’t like feeling boxed in — I just do whatever the fuck I wanna do. So most of the musicians I fuck with are overseas. And that’s what I like — I’m not limited to people who are local. Because some of the most badass motherfuckers I find playing metal are from Europe and South America, where the genre is even bigger. In the States, there’s a dwindling number of people who are even passionate about making metal. But then people still get pissed! Oh, her band isn’t Black! Oh, she has two bassists!
Man, people got PISSED about the two bassists in the video!
My team had just overbooked! I only needed one bassist – I also play bass as well – and we had two guys show up that day! And literally, I didn’t want to fire anyone! So sometimes they’d have two people on standby.
It seems like playing metal automatically comes with an overwhelming amount of baggage for you. Is it difficult to handle?
Sorry, I can’t make everyone happy. That’s something people don’t get — when you’re a Black artist who gets into this space, you have this responsibility that others don’t get. Now it’s my responsibility to put on every Black artist. Now it’s my responsibility to only have a Black band, and pave the way for everyone else who looks like me. Now I have this social responsibility. If I just want to say, Fuck this, I just wanna make my music, I’m not allowed to. Now, I have to be a fucking revolutionary. I have to be the Angela Davis of metal.
