Arizona Pop-Star Mandy Slate Turns Imagination into Reality with Science Fiction
By Marquez Rodriguez
Some artists spend years searching for their brand. Others might even spend years building that brand into an entire world. For Mandy Slate, Science Fiction (released July 24, 2026) represents far more than an album, but it is a culmination of an idea she has been nurturing since the earliest days of her creative journey.
BTS Photo of Mandy Slate by KBR | Contagion Media
Long before this album even existed or was a thought, Mandy envisioned creating a project so inspired by sci-fi, fantasy, and the limitless possibilities of her own imagination. After years of songwriting, refining her artistry and patiently waiting for the right moment, that vision comes to life with her release of Science Fiction.
“It’s been a long time in the making,” Mandy says. “The first song I wrote for it was in 2023, but the concept has been around since 2021.”
Looking back, Mandy remembers that her very first unreleased EP carried an almost similar theme. While she eventually shelved that project, that idea obviously never left. It continued its evolution alongside her growth as a songwriter until she felt she could finally do it justice. Now, with Science Fiction, Mandy feels she is delivering a project that she had always imagined creating.
BTS Photo by KBR | Contagion Media
Mandy's path into music wasn’t built around a single defining moment. In Arizona, she was growing up simply involving creativity into her life. Mandy loved to read, write, and sing from an early age. She would often make up little jingles with her parents when she was really young that she didn’t believe would ever go anywhere. Music was not something that was consciously chosen, it was something that she actually just never quit practicing. She was always encouraged to be realistic about her future, so at the same time she never never believed that music would become a career option. Even so, her desire was there to constantly create art, constantly writing music and singing.
Of course, that creative part reignited something in Mandy during college. While living in her dorms at UCLA, she avoided singing because it would disturb the peace around her, but she yearned for an outlet. She would even leave her room to go sing in her car. She returned to writing and eventually rediscovering songwriting through poetry. A chance phone call from a fellow artist asking if she considered herself a songwriter became a turning point for Mandy. Although she wasn’t fully confident in claiming that title, she agreed to collaborate. That experience inspired her to commit to writing every single day over the course of a summer. By the end of that challenge, she had written songs that would eventually lead to her first song release, “Love Blind.”
Her dedication to writing remains at the heart of the artistry. She does describe herself first and foremost as a songwriter, who is constantly collecting ideas throughout the day before turning them into music. Whether she is working, studying, or even stepping out of the shower to quickly type a thought into her phone’s Notes app, inspiration is always within reach.
Photo by KBR | Contagion Media
Science Fiction is deeply rooted in Mandy’s lifelong love of Pop Music. Artists such as Ariana Grande, Lana Del Rey, and Rihanna not only inspired Mandy through their music but also through the immersive worlds that those artists create through their own artistry.
“I just love the larger than life element of it. I was a really shy kid. And I just loved this idea of escaping into all the different fantasy elements of pop music. And as an adult, I'm so glad that I have that outlet, because it keeps me lighthearted. And it keeps me imaginative,” says Mandy.
That world-building sense also extends well beyond the songs themselves. True fans have become so familiar with Mandy’s signature silver wig, but the origin has a little to do with the fashion trends. It can be traced to her countless hours spent playing avatar-based video games. Every version of Mandy in those digital worlds shared one defining feature: silver hair. The visual storytelling really reaches another level in Mandy’s newest music video for “Simple.”
Photo by KBR | Contagion Media
Produced in collaboration with Contagion Media and Co-Director Ali Paige, the project had become on another level for Mandy. Contagion Media came in with their team to help with filming, producing and visuals with the help of KBR (Co-Director) , Leslie Knox (Assistant Stylist/Assistant Cinematographer), & Jessi Silva (Production Assistant) who really helped bring this music video to life.
“We had been wanting to make a music video for a long time, and this is just the one where it worked out, and I put up an Instagram story that I was looking to expand the team, and KBR from Contagion Media reached out to me, and she is so amazing. She's just so quick with the ideas and she knows about two million people. She's so on top of things on set. So, she made a great member of our team, because Ali and I can both kind of, like, go with the flow, like, we want to hang out. So, KBR kept us in it. I felt like we had a perfect mix of personalities and skills between the three of us,” says Mandy.
During this production, she taught herself elements of set design while continuing to develop her dancing, another creative outlast she has embraced in recent years. “I love pushing myself to learn new skills,: she says. "I love seeing the ideas come to life physically.” That mindset perfectly reflects the spirit behind Science Fiction itself.
In addition to writing, recording, performing, and promoting her music, she is in school serving as the head of marketing at a theater. How does she do all this you might ask? “I just burn myself out, crash, repeat,” she jokes. Behind this lighthearted comment is a deep commitment to ensuring that music never becomes the thing she sacrifices, even when life grows busy.
Photo by KBR | Contagion Media
In Mandy's early years of her career, she learned success does not always come in the form of following every industry trend. She had felt pressure before to constantly be releasing music encouraged by other artists to stay visible at all times. Looking back she admits that it is not sustainable to grow her career authentically. Songs that she had released, have now been taken down due to the fact that they no longer reflected who Mandy wanted to become as an artist. Instead of following the trends, Mandy learned to just trust her creative process, and to naturally develop her career rather than forcing the world to be ready. She gives advice to fans that rather than waiting to feel completely confident, take small, manageable steps outside of their own comfort zone. “The more you do those types of things,” she says, “the more resilience you build with being seen.”
Photo by KBR | Contagion Media
As Science Fiction makes its ways to everyone, Mandy is already thinking beyond the album. After a long time of preparing for its release, filming visuals, and planning performances, she is looking forward to doing what she loves the most: songwriting.
“I kind of just wanna, like, fall off for a second, get ugly, and get back to songwriting. With all these, like, big projects, I kind of... had to put songwriting, for the sake of it, on the background. which is my favorite thing to do. Like, it's such an important outlet for me. So, I'm excited to do all these shows and promo, and then just, like, stop and get back to creating and see what's next.”
You can stream Mandy Slate’s newest album Science Fiction on all major platforms.
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Published by KBR on July 27, 2026
