Young Miko takes 'GMA' behind the scenes at her XOXO Tour
"At the end of the day, I don't feel like I've changed at all," she said.
Since her first official music release in 2021, Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko has been busy.
She has notched over 20 million monthly listeners on Spotify, garnered over 25 million views for her hit "offline" music video and just wrapped her North American summer tour as she begins preparation for her international tour– but, if you ask the 26-year-old, she's still waiting on her 'I made it' moment.
"I don't think I want to have an 'I made it moment,' cause I don't want to be like 'Wait, where do I go from here?'" said Young Miko, who caught up with "Good Morning America" before her August show in New York City.
"I always want to feel like I'm a student. I don't want to be a know it all," she added. "I want to keep feeling like my ‘I made it moment' is not there yet."
While "making it" may be a subjective marker, the power of her identity is clear. As an openly gay artist, Young Miko has shined a bright light on a demographic that lacks representation in the urban latin music space.
"I never really had the gay icon that I would look up to, or at least I didn't know a lot of gay people around me," she said. "I never really had that support when I was little, or at least I didn't really feel that to know up close and personal somebody from the queer community that could just make me feel like I was normal."
As she grew older, she realized she hadn't found these artists she admired because they failed to garner mainstream attention in her world. Eventually, she said she received "love and care" from afar from these queer artists she looked up to.
"Being able to move forward with that love and care for other people that may need it, I think it is my biggest achievement ever."
The rising superstar, who released her debut album, "Att" in April, also described the feeling of empowering female fans at her shows, calling it "the most fulfilling thing."
"You can just tell by the way a fan is singing if it's hitting home or not, and I can't help but just stand in front of that person and look at them and just be like ‘I see you, you're feeling that at the bottom of your heart,'" said the singer.
"Being able to make anybody feel empowered. Period… You got it , you didn't need to hear my song, it was in you the whole time," she continued.
Looking at a photo of herself as a child, Young Miko noted, despite her newfound success, she did not have a grand life lesson for her younger self. "I'd tell baby Miko that she's doing just fine," she said, looking at a photo of herself as a child.
"At the end of the day, I don't feel like I've changed at all," she said. "I feel like more than anything I'd just like to hug her."