I did a little bit of Googling, of course. And every other article starts with either something about finger banging, or blow jobs, or hand jobs. Does that come back to you, from her?
Every once in a while. She’ll say something like, “I read something on the internet!” My mom’s up on that technology, so there’s no hiding it for very long. My parents are really fucking cool. Like very cool people. They’re both artists, so they get it, but don’t really like it. Every once in a while my mom will get on me, and we talk. But I’m like that all the time, the way I talk in front of my friends, I talk that way in front of my mom, too. So I don’t think she’s super shocked that I have this filthy mouth, or a dirtier, more off-color sense of humor. She’s always known it so she’s not too shocked, but my dad teaches college students so he’s like, “Oh, God. I don’t want kids coming up to me talking about you!”
Aside from your parents, is it strange that mostly male writers, just being the nature of this business, end up starting your articles with an anecdote to finger banging or hand jobs or blow jobs? I had to stop myself before writing a question like, “Did John Brown ever come to collect his hand job?” And I was like, “Whoa!” Pause for a minute.
No, he definitely didn’t. And I did not go to collect it either. It’s weird reading things like that. Everything that they write, for the most part, is about my lyrics being sexually explicit, over the top, kinda gross. I don’t know how people take it. I can’t really tell. There’s all this talk about it. I try not to read too much, but what I’ve read, for the most part I’ve been lucky, like when I’ve done interviews and stuff. The people that I’ve talked to, and are actually writing the article, they seem to get it. I don’t know if the public does. I try not to read blogs and shit. Every once in a while I get a little crazy with the Google, but for the most part I don’t really like to look at it. ‘Cause a lot of people don’t get it right, or they don’t really get it and they just want to make it out to be that I’m just this slut rapper. Maybe everybody thinks I’m just a big giant slut. I don’t know what people say about me behind my back. I prefer to keep it that way. I don’t know, what do you think?
Who knows? When Foxy and Lil’ Kim started rapping, there was all this philosophical debate that they’re just doing what the guys are doing, only from a women’s perspective. Does that come into play when you write your raps?
I have no problem keeping my own grip on my sexuality. My mom’s always asking if can I write not so pro-sex but pro-female empowerment. I don’t see it as not being that. We have a different look on it and she’s my mother. I definitely think there’s a huge double standard. I talk about this all the time. It’s so annoying. We’ll go out on tour, and all the boys get all the attention from all the girls. They can get a blow job, a hand job, a fuckin’ rim job whenever they want. But if I ever tried that, it would be over. I always say, the Go-Go’s are my inspiration. Those girls could do whatever the fuck they wanted to do. They’d fuck a groupie, and then would throw his clothes out the window. I thought that was so funny. It really is. A lot of people say, “She only raps about sex because that’s all she can rap about.” But, I’m rapping about things I see and think are funny. I don’t know. What I would be able to relate to, a lot of the music that I listen to, I like to relate to as a girl, is more explicit shit. Maybe I’m just dirty.
I’ve interviewed everybody from Lil Wayne to Slug, and both of those guys certainly do speak about their sexual activity quite frequently, but I’ve never had this conversation with somebody.
Of course they’re fucking groupies! What’s it like to get a couple blow jobs in a night? I don’t know, but I think about it all the time. All. The. Time. Jay-Z is a great rapper who could probably rap about anything in the world. I mean, he talks about it all the time. Lots of dudes do. I think it’s hard because there are some girls out there who have made it their career to be sex rappers or whatever. You get looked at if you are a girl and you rap about stuff like that, that’s like all you can do, or all you think about, or all you can rap about. And while it may be true that a lot of the music people have heard from me has been more of that, yeah it’s true, from what they know, but it’s interesting that they want to turn me in to just this big slut. It’s kind of funny. No one ever called Naeem a slut or a whore rapper. But with me they might say stuff like that.
Are you opening up, is it a conscious effort to open up the discussion of your lyrics, beyond the few things people know you for?
This record is not super personal. I think if people really pay attention to the lyrics, they might catch it, the things that I say. The things that I say that are really personal only if people know me at all…they might know what I’m talking about. But a lot of shit I just make up. A lot of shit is all, like fantasy shit. It’s completely fabricated in my own head. I have the most uncontrollable imagination at times. I can’t stop myself. Lyrically, I think if I ever opened up to the real deal, and got all introspective, that might not be for a little while. This is more for a dance record. I really just want to make a record that girls like me would want to listen to. People that really like dance music and rap music and electronic music and house music and freestyle music and all the kind of shit that I grew up listening to. Definitely more that. Like, if I ever get like Cat Power, that’s not going to happen.
You have plans for that eventually, right? Or at least an inkling to want to try that or do that?
I do write those songs for sure. Would I ever put them on the record any time soon? I don’t know. I think that record is going to be years in the making. I definitely would like to get it out. Would I ever want to put that out for the public? That side of me is definitely there. I grew up playing instruments. My father’s a musician. All my dad’s family are all musicians. I definitely grew up with that being pushed. There’s a part of me that wants to make more conscious songs and more introspective music, but I’m not ready for people to get in my head, it’s more just for me at this point. One day it’s all really good, and it’s all there, it would make one really cool, really good album. But not yet. This album is just fun. It’s been so much fun to make so far. Everybody I’m working with is just so fucking dope, and so cool and so fun to make music with. That’s going to be more for the album than the other stuff.
Do you have a title yet?
Oh, God no. I think about that a lot, too. I think I’m not going to be able to decide until it’s all said and done. It’s funny because you can be thinking about it all the time, like, “What the fuck am I going to call this thing?” It’s like being a kid, it’ll be this way forever.
What are some rejected titles so far?
I actually have not even thought of anything that could come close to being rejected because it’s just thoughts in my head. I haven’t thought of anything that I’ve even mulled over for more than five minutes. I couldn’t even give a good example because it’s all in and out of my head so quickly, nothing has even popped into my head as even an option. I have so much trouble naming my songs. I always have my troubles with that, too.
I think that you have to kind of hem and haw over stuff, unless you’re Jay-Z and can mumble for 20 minutes and come up with a masterpiece.
I am not that dude! Some stuff takes me, like, no time at all. Like, that song that came out with me and Naeem, I wrote that thing in like 10 minutes. So fast. It wasn’t a full song, it was a verse about picking my nose, and that was fun. I was like, alright, I can do this and it’s funny. Other songs, months almost. Why isn’t it perfect yet? I’m going to keep going over it until… Or I’ll forget about it and I’ll come back to it. I stress over every little thing, over every little sound. This sounds fresh, should this noise go. I’m always rewriting my songs.
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