\u201cI\u2019m trying to figure out where I\u2019m supposed to be, but at the same time enjoying the fact that there\u2019s nowhere I\u2019m supposed to be.\u201d This admission might seem like the beginning of an existential crisis, but it\u2019s a welcome, liminal space for the rising singer and songwriter Momo Boyd. Between her recently released debut EP, a second EP in the works, and two tours, the 27-year-old is being pulled in many directions. But she\u2019s also enjoying the emotionally ambiguous position she\u2019s currently in \u2013 it\u2019s what characterizes much of her work.<\/p>\n
Boyd, who\u2019s a part of Infinity Song, a pop rock sibling quintet that debuted in 2015, confesses that she\u2019s nervous about striking out on her own as a solo artist. The demands are high: Her debut Miss Michigan<\/a> tour just finished its US leg this past August and she will continue on throughout Europe in the fall, with a stop in London in November. She said that in comparison to Infinity Song\u2019s sound, which can be characterized by guitar-driven melodies full of romanticism. \u201cI\u2019m doing my own thing and it\u2019s a bit folksy, emotional and personal.\u201d One might expect that Boyd being both a solo artist and an ensemble group member means that she runs the risk of producing indistinguishable bodies of work. But her moodier sound could not be more different from the family band\u2019s more optimistic tunes. Nevertheless, the young singer is quick to say that the balance between the two lanes has been \u201cpretty easy\u201d.<\/p>\n The challenge so far has been trusting herself to explore different sounds in an industry where Black women\u2019s artistry is often flattened into categories. The alternative and indie rock artist Santigold spoke about the industry\u2019s narrow view of \u201cBlack music\u201d<\/a> during her 2022 Tiny Desk performance, and the Grammy award-winning artist SZA once said <\/a>that her own music was only categorized as R&B because she\u2019s Black. Being Black, female and gifted is often accompanied with being misunderstood\u2013a consequence that Boyd has learned early on in her career.<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m doing my own thing and it\u2019s a bit folksy, emotional and personal.\u2019 Photograph: Jakubaszek\/Redferns<\/p>\n Her musical origins began with her father, John Boyd, who started multiple choirs in Michigan, where the family is from, so that the younger people of their community would have an activity after school. By the time Momo was seven, her family relocated from the midwest to the north-east. While going to school in the Bronx, Boyd recalled, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl said to the singer: \u201cWhere you from? You talk like a white girl.\u201d The comment made Boyd acutely aware of the cultural shift from her slower, midwestern roots to a faster, city life. The suspicion that she was cosplaying whiteness would resurface years later when she released her debut single, American Love Song.<\/p>\n Boyd\u2019s melancholic, haunting voice about an ill-fated romance in American Love Song has made some listeners call her the Black Lana Del Rey<\/a>, which Boyd considers a compliment. \u201cShe\u2019s so emotionally interesting,\u201d Boyd says about Del Rey. \u201cI was drawn to her.\u201d Boyd said that working through her own deep-seated sadness has allowed her to protect her inner child and to present herself to the world with intentionality and sensitivity. As the seventh of nine children who, Boyd said, didn\u2019t get much attention growing up, she spent a lot of her formative years experiencing anxiety and temperamental attitudes. She decided to channel those feelings from childhood into her music.<\/p>\n After high school, Boyd chose not to attend college and remained at home with her parents, where she learned and practiced the guitar and bass for hours daily. She describes the isolation of that period as \u201ctough\u201d but crucial. When Infinity Song\u2019s Hater\u2019s Anthem, a quirky, acoustic number about jealousy and prideful laziness, went viral in 2023, her family knew that their dedication came full circle. \u201cWe always knew something would happen,\u201d Boyd said. \u201cWe were feeling a bit discouraged and very unsure. Around that time we were just coming together to see what could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Momo Boyd of Infinity Song performs during the Boston Calling music festival at Harvard Athletic Complex on 23 May 2025. Photograph: Astrida Valigorsky\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Though Infinity Song has developed a cult following as a group, each member intends to go solo. So when Boyd released Miss Michigan in April, her siblings were in full support of her endeavors. Boyd\u2019s velvety vocals float over the seven tracks as she processes her self-doubt, avoidant tendencies and lovelorn experiences. Fader called her voice \u201cmoisturized\u201d<\/a> and The Source called Miss Michigan \u201creflective and deeply personal\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n This emotional interiority of her music manifests through the visuals for the aforementioned American Love Song, where Boyd sings about the inability to love due to being too \u201cindependent\u201d and \u201cAmerican\u201d for commitment. The music video captures Boyd with a delicate touch that complements her soft vocals. She is introduced wearing two-tone chaps-style denim jeans as she pets a horse and stares off into the distance. The fashion is pure rockabilly and Americana \u2013 her softly coiffed curly hair, the fit-and-flare silhouettes, a vintage style wedding gown, and an American flag sweater.<\/p>\n Boyd alternates between playing the guitar amidst wild grass and brush and running through an open pasture. The ease that Boyd exudes as she frolics through a pastoral landscape might seem incongruent to how such settings, which recall plantations and fields, would have been the historical sites of violence against Black people. \u201cPeople were assuming that I was catering to a white audience. They were questioning my right to make a song on Americanism because of my race. For it to be twisted as if I\u2019m sinister or an agent of propaganda, when I tell you\u2013\u201d Her voice trails off before continuing. \u201cSometimes I\u2019m like, should I even bring it up?\u201d<\/p>\n The truth, Boyd said, is that American Love Song is not propaganda or even a product of her own imagination. It was her life. Boyd lived with her large family in Shay Lake, a rural oasis for working class and upwardly mobile Black people<\/a> seeking rest away from their homes in Detroit and Flint. Her home was the renovated lobby of an old motel with huge pine trees wrapped around the entrance. She reminisced on her family\u2019s crabapple tree, picnics and bonfires, the small Black church her family frequented, and the countless stars that illuminated the evening skies. \u201cThis is where my home is. Do I not exist? Is this not where my family has put in all these hours of work? It\u2019s just the truth. But the truth was controversial.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018This is where my home is. Do I not exist? Is this not where my family has put in all these hours of work? It\u2019s just the truth. But the truth was controversial.\u2019 Photograph: Jeremychanphotography\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Boyd operates within a tradition of Black female artists who dare to center their experiences as integral to the American landscape as anyone else\u2019s. In 2016,<\/a> Beyonc\u00e9 performed with The Dixie Chicks at the Country Music Awards and online communities argued whether or not she belonged in the genre. Despite her 2024 album Cowboy Carter topping the Billboard charts, she received no CMA nominations.<\/a> In 2020, Mickey Guyton triggered a shockwave throughout the country music scene with Black Like Me,<\/a> a song that addressed systemic racism in the industry. Country music star Tanner Adell spoke about the underrepresentation<\/a> of Black women in her genre and staked her claim as a glamorous Black woman of the south with her song, Buckle Bunny. Adell told Grammy.com:<\/a> \u201cWe, as Black women, have been fighting our whole lives. We\u2019ve been fighting for space. I\u2019m purposely trying to bring softness into the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Boyd emphasizes that she doesn\u2019t want to over-intellectualize her music, her sound and aesthetic choices are inherently political. \u201cI had some not so pretty experiences in high school with colorism\u2013how you\u2019re perceived, how you\u2019re ranked on the scale of desirability, and whether or not you\u2019re seen. It lowkey radicalized me \u2026 My goal is to be a representation for Black women who desire freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n Freedom, to her, is the refusal to allow the fear of failure to eclipse one\u2019s courage and the ability to be one\u2019s self. When Boyd created She\u2019s a Sweetheart, a tongue-in-cheek song about a woman who\u2019s too accessible to others, she said she wanted to create a world where Black women were the moment and nothing else existed besides those who looked like her. Despite once feeling invisible because of the color of her skin, Boyd professes that she\u2019s always been a lover of beauty and feminine archetypes. She\u2019s a devotee of classic rom-coms like Love Jones, Brown Sugar, and Pretty Woman. She loves the effortlessness of women from the 1970s and 1990s. And though her wide-ranging interests may confuse some people, Boyd enjoys the variety. \u201cIt takes a lot of work to have gratitude and peace. I have done a lot of work to protect my heart and who I am at the core and maintain this joy.\u201d<\/p>\n