Upstairs Neighbors Interview

The ladies of Upstairs Neighbors have moved well beyond just yapping. What they’re really doing is building a universe—one where being chronically online, unfiltered, and a little bit feral reads less like a flaw and more like a framework. Maya Umemoto and Dominique “Dom” Roberts – the self-proclaimed yap queens and best friends behind the show – talk the way your group chat feels at 2AM: overlapping, over-caffeinated, chaotic in the best way. And yet, somehow, they turn everything – from pop culture to friendship – into a shared language.

They’ve become, as Dom jokes, the kind of podcast that makes strangers wonder “what the fuck they’re even saying”—and still, a cult-like following tunes in week after week, pushing them into the six-figure range. “I feel like our podcast is not that echo chamber thing,” she says. “Yes, there are things where, like, bitch, there ain’t no swaying from that.” But even when conversations veer into the unserious or the emotionally charged, there’s a trust embedded in their community—one that lets them say what they mean without bracing for impact.

We speak over video call – Los Angeles morning on their end, London slipping into dusk on mine – and they appear exactly as the internet knows them: bright-faced, coffee-fuelled, ready to carpe diem. The setting is not quite the blush-pink couch, Yoshitomo Nara print, oversized-palm-tree aesthetic I’m used to, but within minutes we’re skipping across tangents—from Age of Attraction to the Oscars—and I feel right at home.

If their chemistry feels hyper-curated, it isn’t. Their meeting was entirely serendipitous—kismet, even. Born from a chance encounter outside an LA club (in what Dom calls the height of her “young ho era”), their connection clicked almost instantly, rooted in a shared Asian–African-American identity and an unspoken familiarity. Weeks later, they reconnect on a photoshoot Maya was lensing. The session ran long, Brockhampton blared, the vibes locked—and the rest is history, or “herstory,” as Dom puts it. “It’s crazy to think how many things had to be in place for us to connect like that,” Maya says.

That moment becomes the turning point: the start of a friendship where full days together still end in “we go again” texts the next morning. An LA diner turns into an unofficial office, conversations stretch into hours, and eventually, almost inevitably, those conversations become a podcast. “What else can you do but…start a podcast?” Maya shrugs.

For now, they’re exactly where they’re meant to be: in that upstairs apartment of the internet: no script, no safety net, just two friends who met outside a club and never stopped kiki-ing. 

ASWAN MAGUMBE: To start with something light: what’s currently living rent-free in your heads?

MAYA UMEMOTO: Age of Attraction. I’m so sorry. I can’t help it. It’s honestly a curse.

DOM ROBERTS: Shared Space, Age of Attraction, and unfortunately – but fortunately – The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. We’re big TV divas. Mine is more YouTube, but we just be consuming as fuck.

ASWAN: What’s something you’ve romanticised recently?

MAYA: That’s a good question…

DOM: Honestly, I will say not travelling. There is genuinely nothing more romantic and gorgeous to me than a) lying in my own bed, and b) getting to do what I want to do in the city I pay rent in. Romance is alive when you don’t have to go anywhere.

MAYA: That’s so real. Mine stems from that too, because we’ve been travelling so much. I’ve been romanticising coming back to myself. I want to be in LA, see my friends, hang out, do the pod—and that’s it right now. We’ve been travelling so much that I haven’t just lived in LA for the past three months. I’m waking up every day like, “Wait, yay, I love LA.”

ASWAN: And what’s been your favourite place you’ve travelled to so far?

DOM: I’m trying to think where… Maya’s been to way more exciting places than I have.

MAYA: My favourite place has been Japan—but that’s personal. It’s not a “new” place to travel to, so I don’t know how exciting that is, but it means a lot to me. But favourite place that’s new…I feel like we’re so in and out of cities. What can we even say?

DOM: Honestly, for tour, we went to Philly. I don’t know why.

MAYA: That was so tea.

DOM: It was so tea. 

ASWAN: Okay this is interesting because I feel like when Zara Larsson is on my FYP, which is basically every day, her buzziest shows were in Philly and Portland. 

DOM: And I like, need to say that we can definitely relate to the sense that a) the people we met in Philly were actually awesome as fuck. The place in and of itself, the culture of Philly was really cool, and same with Portland—those are the only liberals. The baristas are the front lines, and we already know that to be true. 

MAYA: Yeah, agreed.

ASWAN: I know the Oscars were a minute ago, but I have to ask: what were your thoughts—the winners, the losers, red carpet fits, anything?

DOM: We’re still there.

MAYA: We’re still there.

DOM: There were some people who were getting paid, as Maya would say, in dust.

MAYA: Some of the girls were paid dust. They were. And that’s on Lushious Massacr—I gotta credit my queen.

DOM: We were all together when we found out that Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor, and I was like, “Thank you, Jesus Christ.” Don’t even play. You have to put so much respect on his name, and that felt for the culture. Let’s go ahead and wake that up.

MAYA: Big congrats to our close personal friend, Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler—although he should’ve also got Best Director, but you know, whatever.

DOM: Because, for me and my house—

MAYA: —For me personally—

DOM: —Even though I did really love One Battle After Another, it's within the context of let us not forget Paul Thomas Anderson is, in fact, a white man and though I think the themes of that movie were like Finding Nemo but woke—

MAYA: —Oh hell no [laughs].

DOM: And, I mean, pretty original movie – I don't know if it's based on fact – but Sinners obviously knocked it out of the park. I did enjoy the humility that Timothée Chalamet had to experience, and I think it's really good for him. It's important to remember your roots, where you came from, and be like this all night [puts finger to lips]. Quiet on set. Grown people are talking, and I enjoyed that. And it's love—there’s big hearts in the chat.

ASWAN: If the Upstairs Neighbors podcast were a city, what would it be? What vibe do you think it gives off?

MAYA: We already know it’s pretty LA.

DOM: It’s LA as hell.

MAYA: I think it’s our experience of LA. I wouldn’t say that it’s indicative of native LA at all, but I do think it is, if nothing else, pretty California. A very specific LA experience—one of thousands.

DOM: And within the pocket of LA we operate in – the outskirts of the creative community – the majority of our friends are either industry-adjacent, or in the industry itself. We’ve seen this industry from so many different angles to see what some people call success, what other people would label as the starving artist. Having that well-rounded experience allows us to be well-rounded with our thoughts and look at all aspects.

MAYA: Yeah totally.

ASWAN: If you had an upstairs neighbour in real life, what must they have to be a good neighbour?

MAYA: I like communication. I think that solves everything, really. If we can kiki, I’m happy.

DOM: I was literally going to say that. Being able to kiki, and if they’re friendly and not mad strict because I’m not mad strict—and I’m an actual upstairs neighbour, so I try to be considerate. All you can be is considerate and kind and I’m like, “Hey, you my neighbour for real.”

ASWAN: Another question: if the podcast had a soundtrack, whether that’s a song or an album, what would it be?

MAYA: I feel like we’re giving some kind of coming-of-age, cute “The Sundays” vibe. Like the sun’s out with the window down.

DOM: Like Reading, Writing and Arithmetic by The Sundays. Literally that album. Go ahead and run that up again.

MAYA: I can get behind that ‘fo sho.

ASWAN: On the pod, you’re both weirdly good at guessing people’s star signs. Now I know we’ve only been speaking for 15 minutes, but…what are you picking up?

DOM: Off rip, and I’m taking a massive swing here, your energy is giving very Virgo tease.

MAYA: Interesting. I was gonna go for Taurus, but yes—I think we’re clocking the same tea.

ASWAN: My best friends are Virgos and Tauruses, so we’re aligned—but I’m actually a Scorpio.

MAYA: Tea and tea!

DOM: I love Scorpios. Talk about romantic: sexy and mysterious. Those are the ones in the chat as fuck, and it’s giving that. The only thing that made me pull Virgo is the fact that you’re very on it; I feel like Virgos have that energy where you feel like you can trust them with your life. Like, in these short 15 minutes, I trust you to hold my wallet.

ASWAN: That’s a massive honour, so thank you. Talk me through your friendship. Where did you first meet, and did it feel like platonic love at first sight?

MAYA: I’ll let you take it away, Dom.

DOM: We met outside the club—it was giving my young ho era bad because I still am practising young ho rituals, but in a different way. Back then, I was doing biblically accurate young ho shit.

MAYA: Oh, really telling.

DOM: Literally. #YoungHo. I was like 24, Maya was about to turn 23. So I was being a young Ho, because I was outside drunk, waiting for my Uber outside of the club, and I saw Maya, and I feel like, when you see someone from Blasia outside, it's just like natural gravitation. I'm half Filipino, and I thought Maya was half Filipino, and I was like, “Oh my gosh. Are you Filipino?” And she was like, “No, I'm half Japanese”. Mind you, while we're having this conversation, a man in the – very small, had rat-like features – was just trying to spit game at Maya and in a drunken state. And I was notorious for this back in the Dizzay in my life's prime—I would get so mad at men when I be drunk. I would literally be like, “Why are you looking at me?”, “Why are you looking at her?”, “Look at you. Now, look at us, and keep walking.” Unless you're serving Michael B Jordan or Jacob Elordi—

MAYA: —You don’t stand a chance, seriously.

DOM: But it was Maya and her roommate, and bestie – our bestie – Caelan, and I was just like, “Wait, loving y'all though.” I got Maya's Instagram, got Caelan's Instagram, and, after that, we did a photo shoot together. And at that photo shoot is when it really woke it [our friendship] the fuck up. But it was the most Kismet shit ever, because my Uber was going to be there in three minutes. This happened so fast. 

MAYA: It really was. 

DOM: It was so perfect, like drunken girls in the bathroom. From there, it was herstory.

MAYA: Over with. Honestly, it was Kismet because I even think about just the era that even I, personally, was in to let that happen. Nowadays, I mean, love cutting up, love all the things, but it really did take so many aspects of our lives for it to link up. I was so deep in my photography, very much in the era where I was reaching out to people that I thought were so gorge. I was more focused. It's crazy to think about how many things had to be in place for us to connect, in that way, specifically. Dom knows this about me now, but when I kiki with somebody, I'm like, “Oh, it's up and it's stuck”, but it is rather rare. And I remember leaving the shoot and being like, "Oh, girl, we're already friends, it's over with'. It's that kind of vibe. What else can you do but, I don't know, start a podcast.

DOM: Genuinely. That was just our natural progression as friends because we would have – I'm not kidding – five, six hour [conversations]—

MAYA: —I mean, we had time.

DOM: Deadass. Genuinely those moments are what really cultivated the podcast, because we would just actually talk for seven hours straight, five hours straight, and have conversations that I wish we recorded.

ASWAN: What do you each admire most about the other person?

MAYA: I would say that I admire Dom's loyalty as a friend. Your – for lack of a better word – ferocity as a friend. You're such a stable, consistent friend. It's nice to know that you're always there and you can be brought anything really—oh my God, this is making me tear up. Well, y'all know, I be crying, no shade. That's my Scorpio moon. It's no tea. But also, in a forward facing sense, your drive is really inspiring. Dom, a lot of times, is able to inspire and motivate me and pick up the other end of things that I don't always have the drive to. I think that's obviously why you're such a successful person, and why everything that you do is so successful, because your drive is out of this world. 

DOM: Wow, that had me crying, so that’s awesome. But genuinely, the things that I admire about Maya is that I feel like we do have such a perfect balance in our friendship that's extremely rare. I feel like Maya has taught me radical self acceptance. You really have taught me…[starts to cry].

MAYA: Oh, my God, no. We're not doing this.

DOM: Genuinely, especially now, [in] earlier days, I would come to Maya with heavy shit, shit that you bring to your friends, and you're just like, “This is what I'm experiencing” or “This is what I'm going through” and I would be trying to grind my way out of it, or fucking close my fist and be like, “I'm getting out of this”. And she taught me, like, “Wait, what about kindness to yourself?”, “What about grace to yourself?”, “What about accepting yourself for where you're at right now?” And she does that with all our friends. You can go to her…[starts crying again]—

MAYA: —Oh, I'm sick. I'm actually sick.

DOM: And tell her anything—deadass anything, and she would just literally sit there and never judge you. She would sit there and completely understand why you made that choice. When I had met Maya, I was so hard on myself, and Maya was already evolved in that way, and she helped me evolve to be a more understanding and compassionate person—honestly, bro, your compassion as fuck. And also, yes, you are a freaking grinder. So consistent. The only way we could have done this podcast – and I always tell people, if you ever want to start a podcast, you have to be consistent – was because I knew that having additional accountability of someone who, rain or shine, was also going to want this podcast to go up every week—that was the only reason why I feel like we were able to make things happen. 

MAYA: I got you always, you already know.

DOM: [Points to a tear stain] This tear stain.

MAYA: The tear of friendship.

ASWAN: That vulnerability is such a superpower that you both have, and it definitely comes through on the podcast and beyond. 

MAYA: That was hella, like Ari and Cynthia just now. We're serving holding space. 

ASWAN: So how do those traits materialise with the both of you on the podcast?

DOM: It's so funny, because this is our balance in the friendship. I came to Maya and was like, “Maybe we should have segments because podcasts die so quick—you’ll see a podcast go up and in six months it comes down, or they'll post consistently for three weeks, and someone falls off, and then they'll go month to month. People have commitment issues, people are scared. And with that strategy, I was like, “If our audience knows we have one segment that will always happen in the show, then they'll keep listening.” Our compromise of a segment that we consistently give everyone every week is “Neighbourhood Watch", which is just us sharing the media we listen to. It was the best choice we ever made, because we were genuinely just talking like best friends—there’s no script we're reading. This is a conversation Maya and I would be having with or without the podcast.

MAYA: We honestly show up, and we're literally ready to go. To finish Dom's point, my perspective was that we had this privilege of knowing that we could already talk for three, four hours at a time. Was it funny? Was it not? I don't know, but ultimately, we know we can talk—if it needs to be an hour, we know that we can do an hour. I don't know that everyone can say that. So it was almost like honouring our natural chemistry and our natural conversation—and if it paid off in more ways than we can even comprehend now. How lucky are we to be able to just show up to work and do what we know we already would have done anyway? It's so insane.

ASWAN: You’re growing quickly and visibly. As far as followers go as of right now, you’ve got 134.2K on Instagram, 96.6K on YouTube, and 190.3K on TikTok—and counting. How do you navigate boundaries between yourselves and your audience?

MAYA: It's funny, because – and Dom can correct me if I'm wrong –  I feel like between us and our team, there's not really boundaries, necessarily. I think that, early on, we set a really specific precedent, which is if either of us don't want to do something, if either of us doesn't feel like it's authentic, we know – and it's more often me than Dom, I'm sorry – we can go from there. I always feel confident, although I'll be a little stubborn sometimes to be able to come to the team and be like, “Hey guys, I'm gonna be real. This doesn't really hit with me,” and we can find compromise, and I think that's something that we set really early on. But I've personally been setting a boundary of like, “This is how much I can show up because if I invest all of this, then I think the flavour of what we do will just change.” It’s about protecting the purity of all we have. I can't do much on social media—I will be deleting Instagram. I love you guys [our audience] so much, but that's the only way that I can show up pure of mind. But I'm sure Dom has a different answer, because my girl has that skin.

DOM: For me, especially moving from lifestyle to graphic design and being more forward-facing, when Reels first rolled out, the visibility was fierce as fuck—they were pushing it to anyone and everyone. In this job, you have to decide very fucking early on who you are. Tatted on your chest like: “This is who I am. This is what I believe.” I recently did a tequila brand deal and they bumped the video so it was going out everywhere, and I have all the words blocked off—you can only say “Hi, good morning princess”, “Hello gorgeous”, and “Yes my perfect Nubian queen.” And so, if you want to insult me, you have to get creative. Like Maya said, from very early on, even on Instagram, if you don't follow us and haven't been following us for a while, you can't comment on our stuff, because I only want to hear feedback and hear from people who are invested in our community. I understand we're not for everyone. Our most received comment, maybe going band for band with “These two girls are so gorgeous and perfect,” is literally: “What the fuck are they saying?” Well, clearly we're not the girls for you, you're not the person for us, and that's okay. I think some people struggle with trying to win everyone over and I've known from a very early age, I'm not for everyone. I'm not everyone's cup of tea. You can call me whatever you fucking want, but I don't know you and you don't know me, so why would I listen to what you have to say?

ASWAN: Now, we exist in a climate, especially with social media, where, if you have a following, you are a public figure—that’s what comes with the job. How do you approach or navigate being a voice, whether or not you want to take that on?

MAYA: Everything really does come from a very true place for us. There are things where we’re just walking and gabbing—I don’t really think about people necessarily listening. I'm not very invested in analytics, because I don't want to feel that pressure. I think it even subconsciously changes what you’re saying if you think that way. It does feel like a privilege that we get to bring people together, especially in a physical sense, it's always really awesome to see. We always make a point to be like, “You guys need to walk out of here with a friend” because ultimately, community is the anecdote and it's so important in a time when everything is so scary and feeling so divisive.

DOM: We’ve always been people where our beliefs, morals and values are very aligned. That's why us leading with authenticity is so important. I do think where we sit as a culture, in the discourse culture, people always have something to say. If anything, this job has given me so much more grace for myself and people, because it is scary sometimes. And I think when it comes to speaking about things and being considered a voice and stuff, if we feel 100% behind it, we will never stray away from talking about something or wanting to bring something to our community's eyes because it does not fall on deaf ears for the people who are watching and listening. I think we have built enough trust and respect within our community to be like, “Hey, y'all might have pitchforks, but this is what I believe.” And that freedom is really special. 

ASWAN: Looking forward, where do you see Upstairs Neighbors going? What do you hope it evolves into?

DOM: This is where the Capricorn and the Gemini go separate ways. For me, consistently building our audience is important. I think it is cool to keep growing, evolving and changing. With the podcast, specifically, when I think of our evolution – or like what it could become – it's not from a monetary standpoint, it's more so if we can grow, then we can do more stuff that feels authentic to us. And if more people get behind us, then maybe that inspires more people who look like us to be able to stand in the same rooms. 

MAYA: I agree with that, 100%. I think the future, to me, is always to keep going where the heart is. And I totally agree with you Dom that a big part of the aspiration of growth in general, does have to do with accessibility to things that can close that gap and continue to let us do more than we think that we can do. It's been so sick for people to see us and put that gumption behind the ideas that we have—we have so many ideas, so it is so nice that growing has helped open the doors to events we want to throw and things we want to do. We would love to just keep making things and keep making art. That would be sick.

ASWAN: And please come to London.

MAYA: That’s like, our dream dude.

ASWAN: Even if it’s just an audience of one.

DOM: Girl, you know we’re gonna come kiki with you. We’re there—for everyone.