Mimi Zima "End It"

SELF-RELEASED | 2025

by Steven Logan

Before pressing play, you could be forgiven for thinking that the latest song from Mimi Zima is another example of her “ironic” humor - after all, this is the woman who brought us the “I don’t know things” meme, various absurdist drag performances, and of course her back-catalog of hilarious lyrics (“I am not like other girls/I have a dick” from “Back of the Truck” is a lyrical punchline for the ages.)

But “End It” is different. “End It” feels dead-serious.

To drive home her point, Mimi repeats the lyrics “I think about killing myself all the fucking time/End it end it, I wanna fucking end it” for the first half of the song’s nearly five minute runtime, over a synth line that feels like a guttural whine. There are no jokes, no winks from the artist to let us off the hook. It’s an unsettling listen - and that’s the point.

She finally explains herself on the bridge, pointing to both the wave of violent, anti-trans legislation sweeping the nation and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic that seemingly everyone except Mimi herself has forgotten is happening. Even our enjoyment as listeners of an objectively catchy dance track is implicated with the lyric “People only like me when I entertain them” - what does it mean to bop to Mimi’s music but ignore her point-of-view elsewhere?

“End It” is the first release from Mimi Zima since her Back of the Truck: Remixed album last year. It’s an exciting and complicated piece of art - and a welcome crash landing to Earth after the increasingly hollow “queer empowerment anthem” era of pop music.