By Tanya Gamble

Myla Hooks hails from the East Side of Buffalo, a city that’s a mashup of poverty stricken hoods, a strong radical movement and a fierce loyalty to cultural preservation. 

This is the cocoon from which “Hooks the MC” was born and bred. She grew up on the music of Lauryn Hill, Andre 3000 and Erykah Badu. Her musical soundtrack was a clash of sounds, from R&B to rock to hip hop. This foundation started her on an aural quest for different sounds and concepts in music.

Hooks’ latest single, “East Buffalo,” is about the struggles she’s faced growing up on the East Side.

“East Buffalo is a raw description of what it’s like to live on the East Side of Buffalo,” Hooks said in a recent interview. “A lot of people don’t know what it’s like to live over there and the stuff we go through and the people that we lose. You can literally live a normal life and not bother anybody and still be a product of your environment. Like, it’s crazy. The stuff that you go through at a young age makes you feel like you have PTSD.”

Hooks  confessed that initially she was hesitant to pursue music because of her sexuality.

“I went to Performing Arts High School. I played the guitar, piano and violin for like eight years but didn’t sing because I was shy. People started telling me that I should make songs and I really wasn’t with it because, you know, I’m gay and I’m a masculine gay female and it’s not a lot of people out here singing that look like me. So, I really wasn’t with it, but now I really don’t care.” 

Da Brat, Jessica Betts, Tyra B and Nicole (one half of Latin twin pop duo Nina Sky) are a few lesbian artists from the late ‘90s to the early 2000s who were told to change their image and to keep their sexuality a secret in order to be more marketable to the public. The music industry, especially in the hip hop and R&B genres, has always been very hesitant when promoting a homosexual artist. Management has frequently tried to convince them that they will be more appealing to the public if they change their style of fashion and not discuss their sexual orientations and appear hetrosexual. 

The industry has changed somewhat in recent years. In 2012, Frank Ocean came out and became one of the most successful gay singers in R&B history. His coming out made it easier for later artists such as Lil Nas X, who came out to the world in 2019, making him perhaps the most successful gay male rapper. 

Hooks is a product of a musical family, but her R&B hits are different from, for instance, her grandfather, Ike Smith. He’s the lead singer in Ike Smith & the Boogie Monsters, a rock band that plays songs such as Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” and Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name”. 

“[My grandfather] is in a band called The Boogie Monsters and they’ve been performing in Buffalo for over 30 years now. They have won awards and have sold out shows every week,” Hooks said.

Hooks says her single “Count My Money” was her most fun song to write because it was her first time mixing punk with her signature sound of R&B and hip-hop.

“[‘Count my Money’] originally started out as a R&B song with a Lauryn Hill kind-of flow and I decided to switch it because I didn’t really like the way it sounded,” Hooks said. “I’ve never done a punk/hip-hop type of beat before, I put it over [the punk beat] and it sounded amazing. I listen to a lot of Queen and they were the first band to mix rock ‘n’ roll with opera and I thought that was fire so I kind of got a gist of that and made it into my own thing.”

Hooks says she enjoys all of the different female rappers in mainstream music these days but hates that music has become more social media-focused.

“I feel like our music right now is not real music, it’s reel music. Like [made for] reels on Instagram and TikTok,” Hooks said. “A lot of the music out right now is that, but don’t get me wrong [I think] it’s fire. I just feel like somebody needs to bring back that hard – raw hip-hop like how it was in the ‘90s. But I do like how the rap game is currently taken over by females. The females got it right now.”

You can check out Hooks’ Youtube Channel for more of her music. 

Tanya Gamble is an arts writer from Cheektowaga. She received her journalism degree from Buffalo State University in 2023.