Without massive budgets or overzealous gloss, Zolita has built a loyal following largely through the seemingly moribund concept of the narrative music video, crafting mini-movies that wouldn’t seem out of place on MTV in its heyday. And their soundtracks are simply catchy pop songs about love, lust, and heartbreak -- filtered through her own queer identity and experience. Zoë Hoetzel was born in New York and raised in Calabasas, California, the eldest of three children born to a German father and Danish mother. (All three siblings, including a college basketball player and a professional dancer, share the same middle name “Montana,” after their parents made a memorable trip to the state.) Her family encouraged her artistic pursuits: as a child, she played flat-pick guitar and studied film at New York University before embracing her more pop-minded instincts while utilizing her degree as a director, producer, and editor of her own videos. (It was during her time at NYU that she finally felt comfortable opening up about her attraction to women, in the post-"Born This Way" era.) As Zolita, she found an audience with the single and its accompanying video “Explosion” in 2015, a sensuous, harmony-rich track accompanied by a video that featured Sapphic imagery and Christian iconography. The song kicked off her debut EP, Immaculate Conception, which also featured the standout “Holy.” Two years later, in the wake of the election of Donald Trump in the U.S., she issued the protest track “Woman’s World,” later the anchor of her second EP, 2018’s Sappho. Though she was still unsigned, her songs and videos were drawing attention from the music press as well as views and streams in the millions. While her debut album, Evil Angel, was released during the COVID-19 pandemic, it still found a strong foothold; when re-released a year later along with a new single, “Somebody I F*cked Once” -- the first of a trilogy of videos that included non-album tunes “Single in September” and “I F*cking Love You” -- she attracted even more listeners. In 2023, she signed to the indie label AWAL, releasing the EP Falling Out/Falling In (featuring fan favorites “Ruin My Life” and “20 Questions”) and the 2024 full-length Queen of Hearts, which featured the catchy tunes “All Girls Go to Heaven” and “Small Town Scanda.") - Biography by Mike Duquette