Born and raised in South Florida, Megan Eileen brings warmth, soul, and raw emotion to every note she sings. Deeply shaped by her Dominican roots, a family full of artists, and years of music, dance, and acting lessons, her voice tells stories that feel personal and universal all at once.

From growing up on 90s grunge and 80s rock with her dad to crafting open-ended, introspective lyrics in college, Megan’s artistry is fearless, full of feeling, and deeply human. After an incredible run on American Idol, Megan’s journey continues with a major win—taking first place at A Nite in the Lab 4.

What place in the world feels most like home to you, and how has it shaped your music?
M: South Florida will always feel most like home to me. I was born in South Florida. I grew up in South Florida and then I moved away, and I found myself back in South Florida during college. Now I’m here in Atlanta and I love it, but the culture, the environment, the people, the beaches—like honestly, it makes such a difference. Every time I get a chance to go back home, I just feel like I can breathe. I know that a lot of that has to do with my family and how loving and supportive they are, but also South Florida is just the reason why I appreciate and love being Dominican. It’s the reason why I love to try new foods, it’s the reason why I love to be in the sun, it’s the reason why I have such a go-with-the-flow kind of vibe. Florida—well, specifically South Florida—is such a gift, and I’m so happy that I was able to grow up in a space that was so culturally diverse. I really don’t know how anybody else could’ve done it differently.

Can you recall the first moment you realized music may be an important part of your life?
M: This question is so interesting to me because I really don’t remember a certain moment, only because music has always been a part of my life. Growing up, my dad would play his guitar and sing all the time to rehearse for his shows or just because he loved to do it. Then after school, in elementary school, I would go to my mom‘s job and I would take singing lessons, guitar lessons, dance lessons, acting lessons every single day after school till I was in high school. It wasn’t necessarily like, “you have to do this,” but it was just like, “this is just your life,” and I loved my life. I’m so lucky to say that, and I’m so happy that I was so encaptured and surrounded by music with so much support.

I think the moment that I realized music became a little more serious than my everyday life was going into college and trying to figure out what I wanted to study. I knew that music had to be in there, but I know that in this society that we live in, music may not be the most supportive for myself. So I studied commercial music, which was music and entrepreneurship, and I was able to see myself as a business rather than just a person that liked to play music. That moment kind of showed me how much I was really committing to music.

Who in your life has believed in your music the most, and how has their support shaped your path?
M: I’m so grateful to say that I had a huge team behind me growing up and supporting my love and desire for the arts, so my parents definitely believed in my music the most. My parents divorced when I was in fourth grade, and I had the privilege of gaining two beautiful stepmoms that just supported my music from the beginning. No matter what, they came to every recital, they listened to all my songs, they listened to me play guitar till late at night, and they never ever told me to stop or to give up.

My mom and dad were also in the arts—still are. My dad is the lead singer and guitarist for multiple bands growing up and still is today in South Florida, and my mom is an actress and she was an acting teacher. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have been able to get all the dance, music, guitar, singing, and acting lessons that I did growing up from the school that she taught at.

So I have to say, my parents—all four of them—were my biggest supporters and still are today. They show up all the time, no matter what, no questions asked, with so much love and support. I know I’m so lucky. I know a lot of people don’t experience that, especially when pursuing a career in the arts, and I’m so grateful that I’ve always had their support and their love.

What was teenage Megan like? Tell us something crazy.
M: Teenage Megan was very studio-set, I’d say. College was never necessarily forced on me and my sister, but it was never really a question—we were always gonna go to college. But my mom always said, “You have to do good in school because you’re going to college, but I’m not paying for your college.”

It definitely made school a priority because of that, but also it made me excited to see all my hard work pay off—and it definitely did. I went to school for free and it was so much fun. I know school isn’t for everybody, but it was the right thing for me.

I think that because I focused on school so much, it paid off. However, I wasn’t studying all the time. I wasn’t doing all of my homework all the time. I definitely did the very bare minimum to do the most that I could, if that makes sense. So I was always hanging out with my friends and playing music and going to the beach a lot.

But then COVID hit and I had no prom, no graduation. It was such a sad time. So it was really interesting to see how hard I worked—and it technically paid off—but like in a way that I didn’t love. So it was interesting learning how to cope with having no control over our situation as an 18-year-old, but it prepared me for many other things to come in my life.

You’ve made it onto American Idol — now hit us with something no one would ever expect.
M: American Idol was such an amazing experience. I didn’t really believe that I was there the entire time, so I feel like I could’ve taken it a little more seriously, just because I had such bad imposter syndrome—especially this season.

Not taking away anything from myself, but like, there were a lot of people that have already had such big accomplishments. I was like, “Oh… what am I doing here?” But I went to learn so much. I learned how to be on my game all the time. No matter what time it was, I had to be ready to give 100%.

Something funny or small I didn’t really realize about American Idol was that you are rooming with your competition. So you’re becoming friends with this person, and then the next day you’re competing with them for a spot—for top 60, top 50, top 24.

It’s an interesting dynamic, but I really loved how everyone handled it. Because at the end of the day, we were all just our own cheerleaders for each other—supporting each other and helping each other, no matter if it meant losing a spot. Because at the end of the day, it was a TV show. So you could have an amazing voice, but you gotta be entertaining enough for millions of people to watch you on national television.

Is there a piece of your music—or even a single lyric—that feels like it captures your essence? What is it, and why?
M: I went through a time in college where I started writing a lot of songs that had no choruses, and I didn’t really share them with a lot of people because they didn’t have a lot of choruses in them and I felt like it wasn’t appeasing to the public.

I started sharing them a little bit more, and now thinking about it, maybe I should refocus on them—only because I loved writing them. The process was so natural because it was just like a constant thought stream. Whatever words came out, I wrote down, and I surprised myself with what I was saying, what I was writing down, because I wasn’t controlling the rhyme scheme or the song structure or the syllables in the phrase, which are all very important.

But at this point in my life, I was really just focusing on how I was feeling and what I could do in order to create a space for myself that could help me understand what was going on in my brain. I learned a lot about myself in these songs. A lot of them, I’ve noticed, have a lot of questions in them and they’re very open-ended.

I think a lot of times I just go into these loops of thinking about certain things that I don’t necessarily have a lot of control over. I think it helped me realize that sometimes questions are questions with no answers—and that’s OK. It may suck at the time. You want the answers, you think that the answers will make your life easier, but sometimes pondering on a question can help you ask another question and maybe get an answer for that one.

It just made me realize that especially in this industry, you don’t have a lot of answers, but you have a lot of opportunities and a lot of experiences that—if you just say yes to—you never know what can come out of it. I think that really encompasses who I am as a person. Like, you just never know what could happen. It could end really badly, but it could also end really well, and you would never know if you didn’t take the chance to just take it.

If you could sit down with your younger self, before they ever picked up an instrument or sang a note, what would you tell them?
M: I would tell myself to trust that instinct in your body—whether it is to pick up an instrument or to sing a song or to get up on stage and perform a song that is your favorite thing to sing. I would just tell myself to go for it and to do it.

Even if you’re scared, do it scared. It’s just so fun. The energy that you feel on stage—performing, writing, recording, singing—is so worth it. I’m so happy that music was always around me. Whether I was home with my parents or back in Dominican Republic with my family, music was always a part of the conversation, no matter what.

What’s a surprising influence or genre that has shaped your sound—something fans might not expect?
M: While growing up, my dad was always in bands. He was the lead singer for multiple rock and alternative bands. So I was eight years old, singing Journey and Pearl Jam and 4 Non Blondes. I feel like that music has definitely influenced me as a singer, as a performer, as a musician.

I think a lot of people don’t know that about me because I wasn’t able to share that as a child before. But I love 80s rock. I love how sad 90s grunge was. And I love how existential everything was at that time. I think that definitely influenced my writing style.

I feel like a lot of times I write about sad situations that I’ve gone through just because it helps me as a person cope with what’s going on. But I definitely think that that screaming, big band, yearning and yelping kind of vibe that I feel rock has always had has helped me today. So thanks, Dad.