The future of pop might just be painted pink.
Angelyse Mariah, a 22-year-old singer-songwriter, is doing more than making music – she’s shaping a universe where passion intertwines with resilience, support and unwavering self-belief. Raised in New Jersey and now living in Los Angeles, Angelyse is a pop artist with a vision. Her songs, choreography and captivating visuals work to, as she explains, paint the world pink.
Angelyse has always been a performer. At the age of three, she began dancing, and her time on stage only flourished from there. The summers sang with musicals and acting started at just ten years old, so it’s no surprise that by high school her goals were set on stardom.
Writing her songs didn’t come until later, though. Not until she was admitted into an NYU program for high school students. Before that, Angelyse shared that she “would only ever sing other people’s songs, but never knew what it meant to be in the music business.”
In the middle of the program, COVID hit, and time in the studio came to a sudden standstill. The passion, however, was not stripped away; it was simply transformed into a time of improvisation.
“I was just bored in my room at seventeen…writing to any beats they gave to me. It’s how I really got introduced to creating my own music.”
The process of writing is what makes Angelyse’s sound so special. For her, songs begin with a rhythm; only after that do the lyrics begin to flow.
“I need to be able to hear the dance steps, hear the production in a way where I can perform it,” she explains.
Her process is partly planned, partly improvised. Her phone, she tells me, works as a makeshift diary – a place to write down potential lyrics or themes to be utilized later. Other times, the songs take shape spontaneously, in what she calls “yap sessions” with collaborators.
“We will sit there before recording, just talking about whatever the hell is going on in everyone’s lives. Sometimes, we find the topic right there.”
Despite the obvious success of millions of Spotify streams and hundreds of thousands of music video views, Angelyse still struggles to relish in her achievements. I asked her when she felt the most accomplished so far, and she offered an answer that surprised me.
“It wasn’t until a few weeks ago, when I reached 10,000 followers on Instagram, that I felt proud of myself for the first time. It sounds stupid because it’s something trivial, but I finally felt proud for the first time in years.”
Angelyse has opened for Frankie Negron, a salsa artist, for a crowd of 15,000 people. She has performed at SXSW and music festivals across New Jersey. She went on a “mini-tour” last summer, performing at locations across the East Coast. Yet, her proudest moment exists on Instagram.
It may sound trivial, as she admits, but it reflects something greater. Perhaps she may not fully understand why that accomplishment stands out to her, but that’s exactly why her humility shines through her success. Those followers show that people care. That people are watching. That the music she brings to life has a lasting impact on listeners.
Last year, Angelyse decided to move to Los Angeles after being accepted into the Los Angeles Academy of Artists and Music Production, or LAAMP. This put her across the country from her family and friends to a city she hadn’t even visited prior.
“It was a really large leap of faith. I had never seen my apartment. I had never even been there. But I told myself that once I go, I’m staying, and I’m not coming back.”
At LAAMP, she spent all day in the studio, presenting songs each week for critique. It was there that she built a support system through her peers and mentors, like Chris Anokute. She felt, for the first time, in tune with the direction of her life.
“For the three years prior [before LAAMP], I felt like I was shooting in the dark. I had no idea what I was doing. Going to this program finally gave me the validation and knowing that I was on the right track.”
Angelyse’s time at the program recently came to a close, and she is now entering an era where she has found her sound. Her next chapter blends spirituality with pop spectacle, yet is grounded in the very elements that define Angelyse.
“Because of my name, my mom always had angel figurines around during my childhood,” she recalled fondly, “I always thought it would be cool to include that element in my music.”
Angelyse then showed me her hand, where angel wings are tattooed onto her fingers. A simple reminder that although she is chasing her destined success, everything is rooted in the faith of the people back home.
That imagery runs through her upcoming project, including the song “Agua Santa,” translating to “Holy Water.” Her visuals don’t end there, though, as she chose pink to be the defining color of her career.
She explained that she has always been drawn to the shade because of its vibrancy and energy that can’t be ignored. It fully became a color synonymous with Angelyse’s brand when she and a friend were brainstorming concepts for a music video. The friend had the idea to portray Angelyse as the only pink visual in a dull, diluted atmosphere. As her career progresses, she hopes that pink will only grow.
“Once I start releasing more and I garner more of a fanbase that pink can start expanding. If I become a global popstar, now the world can be pink. I painted the world pink with my music and who I am as a person.”
The goal for Angelyse is to bring back world-building in the music atmosphere. She told me that with her next project she wants “people to feel like they are entering into a universe.” A universe with pink as the centerpiece, contrasting with the diluted background as symbolism for her duality.
“It would be cool to have that pink contrast because I portray very dominant and very confident in myself, but I do have that soft side. I present very femininely sometimes, but I can also present very masculine. I’m English, I’m Spanish.”
“There are these dichotomies that play in so many other aspects of who I am, so let’s include that in the cinematography.”
The duality of Angelyse is evident once speaking to her. She presents online and through her music as a curated and aesthetic persona, but her road to success has not been as simple as it may appear. Before moving to Los Angeles, she was unsure how to fund her dream. She admits even now that without the unwavering support of her family, none of it would have been possible.
“The only way I would have been able to go to my program at LAAMP was because of my mom. She got a 9-5 to pay for my rent here.” And at her going-away party, she said, “I had aunts and uncles and grandparents chipping in money so that I could move.”
Survival in Los Angeles hasn’t been glamorous either. “I survived with $150 in my bank account for the past year. And I don’t think anybody would have known that. Nobody would have known that until I said it right now.”
Receiving opportunities in the music industry is difficult as well, but Angelyse continues to have faith in her vision. She shared with me an analogy that she learned from an acting coach – one that drives her ambition in times of doubt. The coach equated casting to choosing what flavor of ice cream you want that day. Just because you’re in the mood for one flavor doesn’t mean that you don’t also enjoy the rest. Preference doesn’t equate to inadequacy.
“You could be just as good, but the director might want salted caramel instead of vanilla. That’s just the way that it works.”
That confidence has been a defining trait throughout her life, but hasn’t always been celebrated as loudly as it is today. Growing up in a small town, people often mistook her boldness for conceit.
“Just because I’m confident in who I am does not correlate with whether I think I’m better than anybody else or not. I just like doing these things. They make me happy. But that doesn’t make me better than anyone.”
“I’m just confident, and I want my music to embolden others to feel the same way.”
For Angelyse, success isn’t in the numbers – it’s the performance. “Once I get to a point where I have a front-to-back set with dancers, a storyline and theatrics, that, for me, is when I would know that I have made it.”
That dream fully encompasses who Angelyse is: the performance, the pink, the angel wings. Each new release is a building block in the world she is creating. A world where listeners are invited to step inside, lose themselves, and maybe, like her, chase their dreams in full confidence.
“I’m delusional. I have no sense of what’s realistic in my head of what I can and cannot do – and I want people to feel that too.”
