by Katie Li

April 22nd 2025

Perhaps more famous for its eccentric, Frank Sinatra-singing former host, Casa Bella in Manhattan’s Little Italy found itself the venue for the third-ever show and first-ever video interview of a different IYKYK musical prophet: Cece Natalie.

I’ve been listening to her since November of last year and been to every show she’s had so far. I’m not a groupie, I promise. I’m just dramatic and it’s two of two shows. Or three (so, not every), if you count the first show she did in 2023 that she calls part of  “the Cece lost tapes.” Seeing artists live inevitably changes the way you listen to their music, so the ungodly amount of hours I spent listening to Cece’s discography has somehow become even more ridiculous recently. But after interviewing her and speaking to her for a brief maximum of, maybe, 30 minutes, I now have my conspiracy theories and, apparently, a whole thesis on the character that is Cece Natalie. 

Her April 17th performance took place at an after party for a film screening and, while one of six acts, was undoubtedly a crowd favorite. Nobody else could get a bunch of adult men to shake ass to lyrics like “19, horny and I’m broke” (“Tennis Court”) or “I do not listen to this shit, I am too feminine for it”(“Oh Oh”) quite like Cece did. As expected, the event brought in an impossibly well-dressed and objectively hot audience who seem to gravitate towards leather, accessory maximalism, and all black attire (seriously, it needs to be studied). Unexpectedly, however, the show was quite intimate, filling the second floor with somewhere between 40 and 120 people by my lackluster estimation or, is it depth-perception skills. We spoke to her post-performance outside of Casa Bella just past midnight and I am now making it my personal agenda to make everyone I know and don’t know yet Team Cece.

Despite inexplicably developing association to New York City’s most exciting musical scene— best described as a combination of the electroclash, complextro, witchhouse, bloghouse, dance-punk, and hyperpop genres, tinged with a sense of irony lying somewhere between meta- and post-ironic (a genre we’ve dubbed and simplified as “church electronic” ;))— Cece Natalie stands out. A glance at Cece Natalie’s Spotify page recommends Cece’s fans, who she’s affectionately called “her little Bladee maids,” to listen to church electronic’s defining voices: Snow Strippers, Bassvictim, the Truth, MGNA Crrta, damon r. However, aside from the addictive synth melodies and the feelings elicited that I can best describe as euphoric, her music’s connections to the genre feel less obvious. And, notably, devoid of the maximalism, noisiness, and griminess often evoked by artists with similar audiences.

While citing inspiration from artists central to the pandemic’s hyperpop movement like Drain Gang, Cece Natalie’s sound, to me, is more reminiscent of 2000s to early 2010s girlpop. The type that feels like it’s injecting you with free estrogen. With music so refreshingly absent of derivative qualities, I hate to make comparisons; but if I was forced to describe her music, I’d say her music combines:

1. an addictive, alluring voice a la Ayesha Erotica,

2. often humorous, smug, unhinged, deadass lyricism a la Charli XCX, and

3. a comparably minimalistic version of the R&B, hip hop, pop-influenced instrumentals replete with catchy synth hooks (which she, of course, produces herself) a la prime Timbaland or Britney Spears.

In the fashion of true pop stars with true visions, that Cece Natalie persona is undeniably an essential context to understanding her music. While it’s unclear if and where the line between Cece Natalie—stage name— and Mia— real name— blurs (or maybe it’s clearer than I think, as evidenced by “do you love my persona? This is not a performance” in Oh Oh), I can say that the version I met shares the same mindset that Cece’s lyricism suggests. It’s difficult to find a single word describing that essence; in fact, in our interview, she couldn’t explain it either. But the word “real” feels right in capturing that spirit. She doesn’t plan releases of her music, not just with singles but with entire albums. During her performances, she blacks out. She’s explicitly mentioned that she will not sign to a label. She doesn’t stage photoshoots for album covers. She’ll take down popular songs when notifications, perpetuated by bots, get annoying. She tries not to think about her career in the long term.

Cece Natalie is not trying to be an enigma. Rather, she operates under “Cece timing,” which I took to mean in the moment, and whenever and wherever her impulses lead her to. And following this refreshing purity, unlike most church electronic artists— whose digital, internet-inspired music is fittingly matched with hypermodern aesthetics and personal brands that parallel the internet’s newest hyperfixations— Cece Natalie remains untouched by trends. Cece Natalie is never too on the nose; her Instagram feed is rather unassuming, consisting of Photobooth and mirror selfies, offhand and straightforward captions. Her Instagram feed is unassuming—Photobooth snaps, mirror selfies, and captions that are more offhand than curated.”And her performance attire was unpretentious, refusing to align itself with any subcultures in particular.

Though she’s been making music since 15, Cece Natalie’s official discography began two years later in late 2022 with her single “Fashion Baby.” Though her 2024 full-length projects Recycling Bin Collection 2 and Miss Behaves admittedly feel more polished and assured, “Fashion Baby” feels effortlessly within that same universe, establishing the essence of the persona we know and love today. Her words feel like manifestations. To debut with a song whose tagline is “I am a trendsetter,” while simultaneously living in what she describes as a “bumblefuck nowhere town [in Connecticut] ... where everyone else kind of has like a stick up their ass,” takes an unmistaken air of confidence that feels more akin to a prophecy than simple lyricism. Almost like she’s on, at least, her fifth life and knows more than she lets on.