Rap Radar: Kehlani (Live)

Podcast Interval presents, always supporting. It's gonna be an amazing night. But you know, first and foremost, though, I want to make sure you know it's heavy in our hearts, the passing of Umaf. I'm not really a big moment of silence person, but I think it's very fitting this case. You know, I definitely had the chance to document them a lot, and you know, actually qua on take off for the first episode we did of this new run of the rapperaate Or Podcast. Let's give a quick moment

of silence for takeoff. Thank you, thank you? Yeah. Yeah, let's so now. At times, Man, yeah, I say something, but beat out this pandemic. Everything's been tough but you know what, I've listened to a lot since things got craziness world? What's that? It was? It was good until it wasn't. Wasn't. But I'm on that blue water though,

man too. I'm feeling that. Man, that's my joint. But when me and Beat out trying to figure out to he who they have on the show for the special event, you know this, this creative is out here really making noise. Um and I'm honored that she's agreed to talk to us and have this mement with her true fans out there. We got some truth, They got some real cold of hands for real fans. Yeah. No industry stuff, man, no industry stuff, right, be no industry you know she ain't

no industry neither. She hasn't. She doesn't really do interviews, you know what I'm saying. It's even like anyview people. Man. So I'm scared, but I'm gonna be nice. I'm gonna smile, but try to ask intelligent questions. And I love the music. Don't get funked up, Elliott. And now I want I promise you so, yeah, you make some noise noise? Yes, hello, he make it so comfortable. How are you feeling client. I'm good, I'm nervous, nervous talk to people in a

long dame. It's all good, though, But it seems like you really relaxed. I saw you in Hawaii for the last week or so. Yeah, I had a show. I finished my North American tour there, so it was nice. Yes, So here's what I'm hearing about the North American tour, that it's phenomenal. And yeah, I just think that like this, I mean like it's like I was saying earlier, like you've created kind of this great art during this tough

time for everybody. It must feel very exciting to now be able to go outside and share this experience with your fans. Yeah, it was interesting to put on an album and like the thick of the pandemic and not be able to tour it, and then drop another album and have to figure out how to navigate, you know, creating a tour out of two unplayed albums, and then

having a mixtape before that that was also unplayed. So now I'm like tour ring trying to figure out how to play all this music I've never gotten to play before. But overall, it's been like a super top tier, incredible experience my favorite tour probably ever so far. So so, how do you approach how do you approach a lot tour like this battles over the set list, like talking about that process of like how you hone in on what a Killani show is going to look like? Right now?

It was It's okay, my own grandfather calls me Kilani. At this point, we're just rocking. Um it was. It was different. The tour show was a lot different than what we performed originally. Um, what we were rehearsing was longer. There was costume changes, there was set pieces, There was all these things that once we played Like everybody kind of knows that tours that kind of like the first week of a tour feels like the trial run. Um, So, like the first week is like what did we did

we do this wrong? Is this too long? Do I have energy here? Where does the crowd loose energy? What do I fix? So a lot ended up changing, you know, throughout the tour, and I feel like we got a real understanding and like grip on what the show actually was by like halfway through. Um, But at first there

was like I just had too much music. I was like, what do I play do I play you guys favor like you have to consider like the fan favorites, but also like that might also be all slow songs, you know, Like then the show has to have energy, and then I dance, and then there's things that like certain cities have their favorites and this song went up here. There's just like a lot of factors that you have to consider.

But um, overall, we narrowed it down to like really solid show that kept energy throughout the entire time, and like, didn't you know beat my ass? There there's a lot of high energy, which is fun. And it's the first time you had a creative team, right because you said in the previous inime, you just focused on singing your ass for the shows. But this was like as long as I sound good, I don't give a fun you know. Um, but this is the first time that I wanted to

make sure that I created a world for people to enter. Um, the visuals, the costuming, the the choice of dancers, the set list, the entire visuals have like a story that it walks through based on the song choices as well as like the big like kabuki curtain thing that we have going on with the Shadows and the orchestra, like it's all based on Disney's Fantasia, which is one of my favorite movies ever. Um so it's kind of like this trippy aspect. But I realized very quickly in the

first week of shows. I was like, really, what my fans like for me is that it just feels like a big, gass connection that we're having. So I kind of shied at away from being like overly theatrical, and I was like, let me just go out there and actually funk with him, because that's what they funked with about me. So that just became that very quickly. What city surprised you the most? Like, well, it's lives, see what y'all didn't surprise me? Though san Diego didn't surprise

I was like, I know this. She's gonna be turned. I know that, So that didn't surprise me. Hawaii was very quiet. It was also like it's Hawaii, like we're all chilling. They just feel like everybody was chanting. Body was like I'm having a good time. I was like, yeah, I need to. He was relaxed. It was the end of it, like I took a couple of shots, you know what, I'm saying, um surprised me randomly, like Connecticut

and Indianapolis. It was loud as hell. I was like, all right, y'all, I didn't know this what I was working with it, but I like it here. But it had to be meaningful to perform at the Oracle Arena your hometown. I mean, it was insane. It was absolutely insane. I yeah, yeah, it's very because I thought I was gonna make it a long time without crying, but I bawled hysterically within the first time I had to open

my mouth to talk. Um. Not that I hate saying, like I never thought I would play that place, because that thought wasn't even my mind. It's just that it didn't even register to me that I could that that would ever be an option. Like I never had huge expectations for my career, and not in a self doubting kind of way, but just like I was like, this is gonna do what it does, and I'm happy to be here, and whatever happens, I'm stoked about, you know

what I mean. And so every big thing that happens is like such a surprise to me because I didn't set out this like list of like I have to do this for my career to be worth it. And so now that all these really cool things are happening, I'm just like, oh, this is crazy, Like I have no idea what's going on in here. But God bless you brought your dough on the road too. I did that was crazy. Family room. How's the accommodations for her? Oh, it's just she's chill. She's just she's so chill. She

has with everyone. She's so social, like she loves all my friends. She has a million aunties and uncles, like everyone on the tour is like she walks into the room and she's like, all right, bye, mom, I'm going to play with so and so. And I'm like, I don't know where she is. And someone's like, oh, she's over there with Emily's over there with so and so. I'm like, okay, I understood. Like everybody's such a tight knit family that like, she's just she's just around who

she considers family all day. So it's like not any really different than being home. But you put it to work too, because she made the album. She's my creative director. But you were saying how you have amazing conversations with her, like she'll ask you like a deep in suspective questions, like she says. She asked me if I'm happy when I sing. She asked me if I could tell her

about the universe. I have like a voice memo where she's like, I want to talk about the universe, and I'm like, girl, what Literally We're in Hawaii the other day and she goes, Mommy, the sun has so many secrets. I was like, all right, but say it again about to use that. I'm like, I'm about to give you writing credits. Also, so that you you said you took up surfing and got really into it, and then you said before you want to you said I might start

putting surfboards on top of the tour bus. They were they were in my tour bus. Like imagine, I'm sleeping on the bed on my tour bus just praying my surfboard doesn't come like decapitate me because it's like wedged in between my bed and the door to like the

room on my bus. But yeah, surfing changed my life. Um, I think having something that's completely unlike anything that you do, because I know a lot of us artists have side hobbies that are still some form of art, and I think having something that I do that is not art related that I can get good at without it having to be competitive. I'm never going to become a competitive surfer. I'm going to try to go pro like I don't

have to worry about anything like that. I have something to like get good at just for my own enjoyment. And like nobody in the water gives a fun I am or what I do. You're just like can you catch away or get the funk out away? You know? So, Um, it's nice to have that little world where like it just doesn't matter, like this world doesn't matter at all. Does photography give you that kind of outlet as well? Photography even has that strange like competitive like you're artists,

who are you behind the camera type of thing? And I experienced that in directing at times. I experienced that in photography. Um, I do that for my own enjoyment. But this is just like I can't compare even surfing to anything in like the art space, because it's like a sport. And even then it's not like a sport that any of the competitors, like you go to a like a surfing competition, everybody's good vibes, you know what I mean, they're just like, honestly, we're just all stoked

to be in the water anyway, So it's nice. That's awesome. Also is nicest album man, Blue Water Road, no doubt you know, um I read you know for your previous album, you were hanging out a lot with the designer Kirby from P M. Moss. Right, you said you would run songs by him, right, So for Blue Boater row, was anyone that you checked in with two you know, make sure the songs are on point. Man. We made the album in like like three weeks, three weeks or four weeks.

We had the songs in three weeks for sure, and then we were like finalizing them and doing new versions and like rerecording over the span of like maybe three or four months after that. Um. But it was I was locked in with one person and a couple of my friends who right, And people would come in and out to like add their things, but like we were just kind of completely in our own world in a little studio in Malibu, just like not thinking of anything else.

I was there every single day from the beginning of the day until nighttime, just like locked in having fun, being honest talking to my friends. UM, so we were just running it by each other. We create a little universe that allowed us to create an album that felt like it's own little universe as well. So that was nice. What is that symbolism about the water to represent to you? Right, because like you're from the bay really, which is more like and blue water? And does that source of inspiration

for you? Yeah? It was funny. So I originally started the album and it was really like a writing camp for what was supposed to be the deluxe of It was good until it wasn't, And I made all this music and then I went through a really large ceremony process in my spiritual practice, and I came back and I just didn't relate to any of the just any of the emotion of the last album, Like it was good until it wasn't. Was very publicly in a chaotic time of my life. Um, obviously the album is telling

all the stories and things like that, let's do it. Um. So when I came back from you know, going through a really hard cleansing and a reset, I was like, I don't know who that is anymore. I'm going to put that away and whatever I need to make next needs to honor you know, this new space and I'm in and I was very inspired, and so we kept like one or two songs from that writing camp that still felt like I could you know, they made sense to me because ultimately my music feels like for me,

it's like a journal. Um. You can literally go through every single one of my albums and like know exactly where I was at, who I was talking about, who I was singing to, what was going on there. Name might be in there, like it's for me. I'm glad you guys enjoy, but it's for me. UM. So I just really wanted to make sure that I captured exactly where I was at with it. And so yeah, the symbolism of the water is just important to me in

my religious space, UM. But also I think it's a very relatable cleansing energy for pretty much everyone and every religion and spiritual practice everywhere that one of the biggest you know, tools and components is water. One of the biggest deities represented across the board is in water, whether it's a river, whether it's an ocean, just a body

of water in general. Um. And just that's where I was at with it, and I wanted to kind of like embody or like capture this place in my mind that I was, and I made it, so I wanted to give it a location. And it also happened to be the name of the street where we started the album. Um. We had got this house. We put a bunch of producers in it, in all these different rooms, and I would just float around and just like make a song

and make a song. Um. And then the studio we ended up renting to finish the album was down the street from blue Water Road, and I made a joke one day like this just sounds like blue Water Road, and they were like, keep it, keep it, and then like we couldn't. We didn't call anything else ever. It just stuck after that, so I like when things happen organically. Absolutely, like the previous project, it was good until it wasn't released during COVID. Do you feel like that got the

proper attention that it deserved. It's crazy because that was like my biggest album ever. Yeah, I think, Am I lying? Am I wrong? Am I right? Yeah? Okay, like somebody in here knows the stats, I don't say. Um, it was my most successful album and it was during the Thick of the pandemic Um. But that was also an album where I feel like I learned just major independence in my creative space. We finished the album, we couldn't put it out at the time because you know, the

label wanted to support me. And I was like, man, I'm just gonna take some matters into my own hands, I think, and I'm gonna make my own music videos. And I got drunk one night and made a video in my bedroom and they started going up and everybody was like, you could just do that again if you want, And I was like, we'll get me some equipment and we could talk about it and you on YouTube and

learn how to work the programs. And so I did, and we made all these projects and it did the best that they've done, and it just it was a huge lesson for me. And just like you can't wait on anything. You see two pressure go button, you know, So I just locked in with all the people around me and pressed to go button. That's also because it did so I didn't feel like I had so much pressure with the next one because it came so fast.

This was, in my opinion, this was a super quick back to back album type of SA and so I just was like, whatever I make next, like I can just have fun and do what I want to do. But sometimes people challenge that. They're like to make like a happier record of being a better space. Like you know, there was always the A lot of people hated it.

A lot of people here, a lot of people were like, man, we love when you're depressed, we love when you get cheated on, well, when you go through drama, because the music is going to be people when I get into a happy relationship. Publicly, my comments be like, not break her heart so she can make some fire ship, so she could drop that ship on SoundCloud. Man, Loki, do

it you're like melt video. Yeah, enjoy it, um, but liked Mary like to marry my life, and do you want to marry my honest, like very honest, true to exactly what they're going through, very publicly open, unafraid of what they're going through stuff. Yeah, we love it, but like also go to therapy and be okay and like call your mom, you know, like be okay before that. But like you know, it's art and that's what it is. Well, you can make a record like my favorite off the

album that's your favorite good taste, Good taste. Though those are some bars in there, those real to your point, she was in those real questions that you confronted with or lude. Absolutely, yeah, I think every single one of those lines has been something I've heard at, something I've been I've been doing this since i was thirteen years old, so I've been hearing things for a long time. Um my first mix safe job when I was nineteen and

twenty seven. You can imagine like the amount of ship that has been said to me, how many Uber should cut me a damn you. My business managers had to sit me down and be like, you can't give your Uber to your family members anymore. We're deleting it off of your phone. I don't have Uber. No, I don't have Postmates, I don't have cash App. Someone else has it for me. And whenever I'd be like, hey, can you send my auntie this because she needs someone else

has to do it because I'm irresponsible. But the other interlude everything in Elude, that's kind of one of my favorites because it sounds like a score from a movie. Did you like attempt to put vocals on it at any point? I didn't. It was actually just the string arrangement from everything, and I think we kind of like got that inspiration from Velvet Rope. I feel like she had taken instrument parts and put them in other places of the album and then continue them in other places.

And I really liked that. Um and my producers also just a genius, and he wanted to showcase parts of hisself also that people didn't know about him, like his really insane score ability and his knowledge of like classical instruments, and his knowledge of like just music that people didn't expect him to make. Because we had done Sweet Sexy Savage and he did a lot of it was good

until it wasn't. And he's done so much like really hardcore big up and then like really like you know, R and B, R and B, so like him getting into this really cool like musical space. It was it was cool to do him. So that was his idea. That's dope. One of my favorite joints is because it feels like there's a lot of hip hop influence to on this project. So like wish I never sample Slick rick Children's story. I've read that Pop presented you the track,

but you didn't like it initially. It wasn't because of the track. It wasn't It wasn't because of the beat. It was because I just I had had this idea of how like pretty the album was going, and he plays me this song and I'm like, this is kind of turned and I just ultimately I didn't know where it fits. But upon and also it was it was challenging for me. I feel like I have a really soft voice. Sometimes it's hard for me to get attitude to come out of it. Like you don't know how

many times I have to get myself to record. I could be in there thinking I'm meaning everything I'm saying and it's still like and I'm like, oh shit. I was in there like cutting somebody out, say I love that. When you get into that back, I need to do a little bit more huh okay already. But it felt organic to It felt like it felt like it was on you in your hip hop bag. Yeah, I mean

it was. It was fun getting to like, you know, make nods two things I've gone through that people know and they could point it out like I've been there, I know what this is about. And also just like have a little fun. I knew I would have fun dancing to it and like regardless of how like in a great peaceful space coming I always have like the slick talk like that only where I'm from Oakland. It was I thought you said ten minutes I like the

Russian US. Yeah, that's a fun one. Absolutely, And even EPM d sample up at night with Justin Bieber samples what you're saying. I love that joint as well. Like what was he in the video he was busy on

a big tour. You are a big tour too, though I've comparing you to just what an honor he's doing, like arena stadium things I did one but thank you, but let's talk about Let's talk about the other amazing collaborations you would sid you and Jesse Ray it's back to back when I don't see can say like they're just my actual friends who I think are amazing. And I'm reaally big on like working with people that I

actually love in real life. And I think that those are two women that I've been so fortunate to like have had opened up to me and like support me. Said I've been a fan of since I was in high school. Like I literally told I had to tell said when I first met her like I stood outside the wharfield in San Francisco when I was in high school and stayed after waited by the odd future tour

bus to me you. And then when she came out, I couldn't even talk because I was just like like, yes, that was a little gay, but now we're friends like that anymore. I'm over it, um And then Jesse is just like the sweetest human being on the planet. Like what you see publicly, it is like exactly what you get, Like she is that sweet, that passionate, that courageous, that joyful,

like she's just a pleasure of a person. And it's super just rare to meet people who haven't been tainted by like all that they've been through in this industry or like all that they've had to fight through, all that they've had to work for. And she's just like still just as stoked to be here as she was in the beginning. And I'm just like, please keep that energy forever, because it's easy to let it go away.

So yeah, with that song, it's almost hard to know who's who because it sounds like you guys are blended together or more than you were, like playing with each other that's why there's funny where we were like just cracking jokes off. Oh whoa pause, sister vibes major league that is a straight um, that's thank you. But yeah, just it's like the energy. Yeah, like when the record just sounds like you guys, just what she was singing about.

She was singing about a boy, and I was like, I'm just gonna take some of these and flip the words and I'm just gonna sing about a girl. I'm just gonna go back and forth and I'm just gonna let them be confused bisexual anthem. I guess not me, You'll be safer. And this allowed you to write with writing with perspective of being in love with a woman. That made you able to write deeper songs, deeper love songs. She was falling in love deeper and ship, so the

song started being able to be more real. I was like, oh, this is what this is what I was fake talking about all those years. But it is it difficult to revisit songs that might be inspired by someone like a milt Um No, really, it just takes some time. I mean, I'm a human problem twenty seven, Like I know what I'm already five, I'm gonna be looking back, like remember

when I stopped performing that song. But I think overall, it's like you make the choice as an artist when you decide to be honest um and bear your personal life or singing about your personal life. But as a person that does both, I'm always conscious of just being like, if I decided to open my life up in this way, I can still always protect myself as much as I want to. Just at the same time, I don't really owe anybody, you know. If I if this song hurts

my feelings, I don't want to sing it. I'm not singing it. If this song, if I want to switch the words up to express how I really feel in that moment, I'm gonna switched the words up, you know what I mean. But this I'm just I commit to being myself, um, through and through. So so even with the video, it's like no regret, like you were happy in the moment when you made it. Yeah, And there's

no love lost either. There's no there's no hurt feelings, there's no anger, there's no you know, it's all love. It it's just conflict of interest in scheduling, and it is what it is. I the video. The video was great. I directed it, so I'm proud of it. You know so your videos to Yeah, I edited that ship in my kitchen, like you told me for a loot with anything because it's such a sweet song and hear you out and all black in the hood. Well, I like the I love a juxtaposition, and I also came up

with that as a joke. I was in the studio and I was like, this would be crazy if I shot this ballad video like a gagster rap video. I didn't throw this random thing in each shot where it feels like this doesn't make any sense, like a ballerina at the kickback in the parking lot. We're like, we all looked like we're watching a game, but we're like watching another music video of mine, you know, ship like that, And I just they were like, that actually sounds fired.

How do I support you in doing that? And I got I got with my friends at my friend who's like a more experienced director than me, and like paired up ideas and we shot it together and it was my favorite one off the projects I talk about any giving Sunday. It's like you took a page out of tea page book, Have you ever fallen in love with a stripper? Fallen in love? I think I thought I was in love a lot of times, and I'm learning that I wasn't um falling in love. I definitely dated

a tripper. We all have. Yeah, she was a great time. She was so much funny. But there's so much drama that happens at the strip club that I just like, was not privy to until I dated her, and I was like, oh, you got a lot going on. It's always something like girl this, somebody try to stab me and then this happened, and this happened. I was like, I'm twenty one. I can't come get you right now at three in the morning from this strip club. I don't have a license, Like, I can't support you properly.

So shout out to her. We're friends. She's a good time. What inspired that song? It's it's a fun vibe to it. Though um Fable wrote that song. I added my little twist to it. But shout out of Fable. He's fucking incredible, super amazing artists. He's on tour right now. Maybe he just finished this tour, going another one. If he's finished, yep, thank you, But that's my brother for real. And he played me this song and I was like, how crazy would it be if I, as a woman, had a

strip club anthem? What did you say? You said? Get the line because you were talking that Ship the baddest bits that's in the mirror wants to love somebody's daughter, right, Yeah, Yeah, it's true I do. But I feel like that's the same by hip hop. You have those moments when you do that and like you almost do a bar too. It's time you're gonna do a full out rap, and then you kind of pull back. Yeah. I like playing a little in between. That's why the whole R and

B conversation is so funny. Yeah, like, I just be doing whatever I want. I'm glad you guys put it in a category, but I just do whatever I want. It sounds cool, it sounds a good little story. Did the muse behind a little story here? That song? I sent it to her first. I'm respectful sometimes now if I'm dropping it on SoundCloud and mix on master, you're not hearing Ship. What was the response? Um, she loved it. I mean I was reminiscing. I wasn't like in the

thick of the little story feelings. When I wrote Little Story, I just had had I had passed those feelings, so I sent it like, look, just so you know, like I don't want you to be trying to puzzle pieces together when it comes out. This is about you. I'm not opening a door. I'm simply sending this to you because you have also done the courtiest thing of sending me things before they come out and are about me.

So you know that's that's just what it was. I saw that you said, Melt feels different than how you made it? Right? Are there any other songs that give that same feeling? M m hmmm. I don't even remember what's on the album you the track? Yeah, I'm like, I don't even remember anything, to be honest, how long ago was that? Uh? Not too long ago. I'm ready to make another one. That's why are you are you

working on? I have not started. I've been on tour, and you just say, like, mentally, you're like two albums from now always I'm always as soon as I drop it, I'm already like, man, the next one is going to be m not three. I'm taking my sweet ass time with the next one. I'll tell you that. Um. But I really I just want to figure out where what I want to do. You know, I think I just

made this one based off a feeling. And now I'm in like such a like dedicated to me and like my solo time and like my focus and my growth and my development and just really being in my own just me and my business, me in my world that I need to take my time and like figure out what I want anything to even sound like, let alone what I want to talk about. You haven't been flirting with the idea off you were Rusk in the studio putting a collapal album out. I love for us. I

think everything he's done is so freakishly amazing. I think that it's like not it's not unheard of, but it's just a stimant to what you can do when you

just go hard for yourself. And he gave me a lot of advice, even though I like came out before him, which I remember was such a cool conversation where he was like I came out this time, he came at this time, and then we kept doing this and now I'm here and you're doing this and it's like we're like twins for real or something like that, and I was like, man, you're doing your way crazier than me.

This is insane. And I almost like didn't really even recognize how crazy what he was doing was until like it was unimaginable. And he's still so humble, Like he has his moments where he's like, I'm gonna tell y'all what the fun is going on? And what I do you sleep? But his willingness to always pick up other artists and like give people vice, and like he just extends himself so much and it's super appreciated album. We're gonna do a bunch of me. We're just never in

the same place at the same time. We got really drunk in Vegas that one time, and that's how that man came about and talking about I was like, Yeah, we're gonna do a cool album next morning. I was like the tequila tequil. But you seem very selective. I'm sure you get hip hop artists reach all the time, probably trying to do something, but you're super selective, Like you know, you said a high standard. You and Cardi B with Rain this classic album Invasion of Privacy, Like

how did that song come together? Um? They just played it for me and they were like, Cardi b want you on this, and I was like, just a stand of Cardi on Instagram. I was like, this bitch is hilarious. I just love funny people who are like super themselves, and it was just refreshing to see this girl that could have been like my cousin just being herself on the internet and like people were like obsessed with her.

And she was like, I don't gonna funk, I'm still me, and I was like, of course, I think she had even like I think maybe Bodak Yellow had just came out by the time I got the song, and I was like, yeah, they should be about to go up, but beyond it going up, Like I just funk with her as a person. So I was super down and then it did what it did and I was honored. So and some of your favorite people aren't not necessarily celebrities, like neighbor dot, Oh my god, Dot Dot, Oh my god,

this hilarious. I can't wait to play her this. I haven't been going lately, so I'm acting a little fake right now because I haven't been home. I've been on tour um. But my neighbor Dot is this older woman I was about to say grown asshole movie. She's she's she's a granny. I love dot yes, and she does Wednesday night dinners at her house from my whole little neighborhood.

And my first day moving there, like my other neighbor walks past me with a castle roll and she's like high new neighbor, and I'm like, what the fund I've only seen this in movies. Dead ass. I was like, y'all gonna kill me for sure, and she's like, I love your house. I wanted to buy that one, but I got this one. I was like, okay, cute. She was like, come to Wednesday night dinner. We do what everyone's I get there, I'm like the only young person

in there. Everybody's mad old and like talking about like how they all were the liberal back in the day, and like they know I'm from the base, so like they want to talk about like politics and being radical and all type of shi And I was like, Wow, I'll be here every Wednesday, so that's not shout out. She's not here tonight, right, No, she's probably really mad at me. I have missed a lot of Wednesdays. Not beef. Oh no, speaking of the speaking of the bay, I

married a woman from Oakland. Come on, rue, should from Oakland? You guys. The pride you guys have being from Oakland is another level. We're from Queens' very proud about that. But you guys, but you guys take it to another level. You know, Oakland is you know, the pride level, the creativity, Like what is so special about that place? What is not special about y'all? See the people it breeds? First

of all is in day uh me Larry June. We got rappers out the Ask that if in cultural like huge cultural changes, we have political history out the Ask. We have such a like different environment to where when I started growing up and touring and traveling, like, I didn't even know that everywhere in the world wasn't like Oakland. I don't know everybody wasn't like liberal and queer and looks different and covered in tattoos and covered in everybody's

just that's normal to me. I grew up going to Pride. I grew up with all my aunties and uncles looking like they could be someone else's aunties and uncles and fucking covered into like everybody was just different and having different views and different outlooks on life and being super like accepting and socially aware. It was just normal to me and I didn't I didn't know that that wasn't the case until I, you know, started traveling. Um, but

that's special. We have such a melting pot of culture, whether it's like actual differences in culture itself and also like different class cultures and different musical cultures and different historical cultures, and it's just it's just an hon or, you know what I mean, Because you just don't. I mean, I could say the same for New York. You know what I'm saying. You don't realize that until you grow up and leave and you come back and you're like, oh, shoot,

I'm lucky as hell. I mean, I was exposed to all of it from the jump, and it was completely nothing registered that it was different. And you think that's where your strength and resilience comes from, because, like you said, you've been as since she was a teenager, like you be seen this been as e people up. But you

can tinue to evolve and get stronger. I mean, I think just watching all the women in my family who are also Bay Area born and raised struggle through what they struggled through and make it do what they've made it through and face everything that they faced. I just didn't feel like I had a choice to ever quit like that, you know what I mean. Um, I've had my moments for sure why I felt and I was like I'm done and I quit. But I didn't. I didn't.

I didn't ever settle on that idea, just like you know, it's not going to ever get better, I guess. So, yeah, I don't know it's in me. Definitely sound this right town to town. You also got a lot of other inspirations in you two. I read that you know, vocally always listening to Brandy one and the only Brandy high it. As a writer, you always listening to nd Irre and Drake. So what about those artists that you draw inspiration from? Beyond that, I feel like all my inspirations are even

a lot older. Um, I think I've just had moments in interviews like I was asking, like those specific quotes, Um, as far as Brandy goes, I think to be a singer in two thousand two, I mean, I've been in it for the way longer than that. But to be in my generation of music and not quote Brandy is who you look too, vocally is like come on harmonies runs when it came to that shift that happened of like cool R and B. Like I feel like Brandy was this like not to say slept on, but I

feel like it's not slept on. It feels weird to say that. It's almost niche to reference Brandy as your favorite. What shouldn't be the case, you know what I mean, Like she shouldn't be the niche. She shouldn't be the It's like we're talking about one of the most innovative, like vocalists of all time, like just freaky, mind blowing like any genre she tried she could sing and do

because her voice is like a freaky machine. Like So I said that to say, Brandy Hive, do you feel like there's still enough there's still pressure to have that sex simil growth in your career in R and B pressure. No, I just sometimes feel sexy here and sometimes I don't. So like all of my moments where I've gone sexy wasn't strategic. It was just like I felt sexy right now, and sometimes I feel like a little teenage boy. So

just deal with it. When I come in here with my hoodie pulled up in my pen fifty times too big for me, and I'm sitting like this, That's just where I'm at with it. Um Do I feel like that's the case in general? Sometimes I feel like sometimes there is a pressure for films and music to have

to appeal in that way. And I noticed a lot of shift when I came out, um of just like I knew what was gonna happen, you know what I mean, Like I told everyone around me, I was like, look, now, if I lose the male gaze, I don't give a fuck that's what that's what if that's what you guys are gonna beg me not to do. If you guys don't want me to be myself because I'm gonna lose a part of my audience because they're listening to me singing about dick and things like that. You know, then,

like that's what it is. Um. But I knew that it was going to be a different route, And um, I'm really grateful for those who kept rocking with me when you know, I was singing about being really really sprung and being in love and like not being old sexual and not being singing about men. Um. But across the board, I think that there is you know, a pressure to do so. But that's just the world that we live in. That's movies, that's TVs, it's everything. Every sex is part of all of it. And it's not

a bad thing either. I don't hate it, you know what I mean. I'm a sexual person, I'm a sexual being, and I appreciate all the sexy bitches that makes sexy music, so do you, girl. You know, I just don't like it when the persons applied to someone who that isn't natural for them. And I'm like, I don't feel like you want to do this, so don't do it if you don't. You know, if you don't like, you don't

have to. You could hear the diversity in your music because you have collaborations this year with baby Face and Burner Boy, you know what I mean. It's not just relegated to that particular sound. Yeah, it's been sweet. I was so shocked baby Face wanted to make like a gay song with me. Not shocked at him because I didn't assume he was anti anything, you know what I mean. I was just like, damn, it's like an old school dude who wants to like, let me do my very

new school me on like his ship he wanted. He was like, I like when you get rappy. I was like, oh shop, he was like, yeah, he's he's His studio process is so amazing. Like he stopped the music and he's like, so when you said, he's like when she when you said she was getting too drunk, do you feel like that was embarrassing or was the emotion you were feeling more like? And I was like, yeah, I was really embarrassing. It was like it was like he

was talking me through my songwriting. It was great and love it. You know, before we got out here, I read that you've accomplished a lot, you know, from the tour and everything else you've done in life. Is anything left on the bucket list. There's like unexpected things on the bucket list, like I want to spend a year in another country. I want to learn a language. I want to direct a film. I want to act more. I just did it for the first time and I'm um,

I want to have more kids. I think at this point my bucket list is very uh, life based, because I don't really set expectations in my music. Like I said, that's why everything that happens. I'm so excited about because I genuinely didn't expect it and I don't really know if that's like anti manifesting or like I'm doing a really cool thing and I'm surprising myself, but like, we'll

see how that turns out for me. But yeah, I just I just want to keep being a better version of who I am as a person and let the art kind of follow that and not hyper focus on like art art art art art all the time, because I feel like that can just make you so crazy and all of this ship is a game anyways, and I just work really hard to like stay out of

the matrix. And I hate calling it that because that sounds so hype and head as, but to just stay out of everything that I know isn't real, because they can really. I mean, I have so many people that I know that like our everyday normal conversations have become about just like man, I'm just not number one on the hot blah blah blah, Like they're not fucking with me and they're not understanding that I'm the hottest that and I'm like, bro, who cares, I didn't win a grant?

Who care? What does that even mean? I mean, it's beautiful, and it's I'm not like if I was ever to when that happens. If it happens, you know, great, But to let that be the sole reason why you do what you do when really what matters is that person that walks up to at the grocery store and it's like, yo, you say, my life, that's what matters. So as long as I always have that connection with people and they give me that, and I'm doing what I need to do. So and with the L word, how excited are you

with that? Man, I'm nervous. I got anxiety about that ship. It's um nothing like who I am in real life kind of And it was just for that to be my first role and it had to take me so far to my comfort zone was just it was a cool challenge. It was a fun challenge and everybody on set was so cool and everybody a part of the show was so cool, and I was a huge fan. I don't really get star struck by a lot of musicians,

so I get star struck by actors. And I was like on set and I was like, bitch, that's Tina. I was like, I hate you on the show for real. I don't want you all to be together, but I love you. So I was geeked up and they just let me be geeked up, and like you know, they were like talking to me about spoilers and explaining everything, and I was running through all my millions of theories and what zodiac signs I thought their characters were ship So it was cool. So it's gonna be a reoccurring rule,

or is it. I'm on a few episodes. Yeah, yeah, that's why they put me on the posters and you want to rapp rate Up podcast. I hope you enjoyed this. It's been so fun. Thank you for having me absolutely anytime success. Yeah, Yo, where's Elliott? Oh looks like I'm about myself. Yo's b Dot. Hope you enjoyed listening to the Kaline episode. That was really fun doing it live in front of all of her fans. Hope you got

a good listen out of that. Because we're taking a week off and we'll be back with Berner on the rap right Off podcast. Happy Holidays. Rapp Rators The Interval presents original production from hyper House, produced by Laura Wasser, hosts and producers Elliott Wilson and Brian b Dot. Miller from Interval Presents Executive producers Alan Coy and Jay Kleinberg,

Executive producer Paul Rosenberg. Editing and sound design by Mike Dorsey, Operations lead Sarah You, Business Development Lead Chef e Allen Swagg, and Marketing lead Samara Still. Listen on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts