#335 - Kiana Ledé

What's up.

I'm Keiana the Day. My album Grudges is coming out on June sixteenth, and I'm here at the bluelet keV Podcast.

Boulet keV Show. Special guests in here from Phoenix, Arizona. Keana the Day. Okay, hey, well, first of all, it's nice to finally like get up with you. I've been talking to Davey. I'm like, bro, you guys got this girl. She's from my hometown. She's like the only person popping. We got a talk.

I'm really excited to be here.

So what part of Phoenix are you from?

Seventh and Baseline?

Seventh, Oh, you're from the south side. I like, my best friend lived on twenty fourth Street in Baseline when I was a kid, So I spent my whole childhood hanging out in the coult de Sac on the south side.

What a great place.

And then I think like, yeah, because like South Mountain Community College is right there h seventh in Baseline. It's changed right.

Oh my god, there's like a target.

And all kinds of shit over there.

There is a white man living in the house I grew up in. I was so confused for.

People who don't know the South Side of Phoenix was kind of like the African American American side of town. Yes, right, yes, yes, it's like a very you know.

Different, there's a different there. There was a Target, which was like okay, cool with that, right, awesome, and then now there was like a whole foods and shit. When I went back, I was so confused.

And then everybody moved to Levine. They bought houses in Levine. Yeah, although we could get a house for one hundred and ten thousand dollars in this suburb on the south side.

Yeah, so crazy, but.

Still I love it. Yeah. So when did you make the move to Los Angeles to pursue your hopes and dreams.

I was young. I was sixteen. I moved on my own with my eighteen year old best friend.

Wow. So did you finish school?

No, I technically did so. Technically I had a GED okay, and I graduated.

Do you have a GD and a diploma? Yes and special.

I was on the field for the and I was on the field with my with the classmates from the high school that I went to before I dropped out when I was going to online school.

I've never met anybody with both. Yeah, it's pretty uh, that's that's that's extra. Like I got the gend and I got the diploma, because why not get both? The way, what school did you go to? Were you like that you walked out on the field on not the online school because.

So I went to school in Albatuki two years all?

Why two kids? Mountain Point?

Yeah?

Where'd you go? Mountain Point? Yeah? Yeah, he's a data girl who went to Mountain Point. I'm sorry she went to it. Did you know anybody who went to eve IT at the time you heard it? Eve It though? East Valley Institute of Technology like kids, kids would go there like for their electives. No, that's where I went to school for radio broadcasting. It's in Mesa. It's on Maine and uh home school, okay, Mesa?

So East Valley Children's Theater that I don't know what that is.

That sounds amazing. Yeah, So what's it like being like, you know, listen, there's some great talent in Arizona. I don't want to shit on Arizona, but you're kind of like the only like super fucking lid person from Phoenix right now?

Thank you. It's so crazy, Like I feel, first of all, I feel kind of like isolated and like almost like I have to prove myself because people don't know nothing about Phoenix, right, and they don't know anything about Arizona. So everyone just assumes like everybody's white, everybody's Trump supporters, which there is a lot of that. There is a lot of that.

Also, Arizona went Biden last selection somehow.

Yeah, but you know there's also a lot of us.

So, yeah, it's a very like wild place because like it is where everyone goes to retire. There is a lot of old white folks. But it's also like where it goes down. Everyone's strapped, the fucking cartels running shit. It's a crazy place. Yeah, there's gangs, there's it's a fucking Arizona's a wild place, for sure. It's just it's kind of like Florida, Like Florida's a fucked up place, but it's also a place rich people go to die.

No, it's literally the desert version of Florida.

It is the desert version of Florida. Yeah, for sure. Do you feel like Mexico La is lacking a Philiberto's style option of food? That's a twenty four hours a day.

That is so funny you said that because that was like when I went to Arizona, that was like one of the first places I wanted to go.

I just feel like, how are we in LA and I can't get a burrito at any time of the night. I mean, like, if you're in Arizona, you can go to Phillies at six thirty in the morning, you can go at three am, you can go out here? Does taco trucks close it too? Like, I don't know where else you're supposed to go to get food except McDonald's, and we're in LA. The city is not supposed to sleep.

Yeah, I'm not trying to get McDonald's either.

Terrible twenty four hour of food options in Los Angeles. Go to Christine's mom's house, Christine's mom's house in the valley in the eight one A. Yeah, I'm like, you know, Phillies is not the greatest Mexican food, but it's there. It's there, It's it's dependable. You know, you can go get a California Breed or anytime, but then after the club you might be shit faced. Go to Phillies or Roberto's or Romero's or Julio Berto's or any type of

So it started off with my mom putting me in. Uh. I mean, first of all, I was saying, dancing, acting my whole life, just like East Vallee Children's theater and like Value theater and doing musical theater, doing pageants all the shit.

Okay.

My mom really sacrificed a lot for me and my stepdad was a lot for me to do that. So really grateful for that. So I started with that since I was like three years old, okay, and then was put in by my mom a competition, a singing competition online.

Okay through Kids Bop. Oh, they were.

Doing like a separate thing called kid Star USA.

Okay, shout out to the kids Bop albums.

Kids, So they were doing that. I ended up winning the competition. My mom didn't tell me until I was in like top five that I was even in the.

Competitions, right, So I submitted you you had no idea exactly by the way your top five, you might your life might.

Change, you might exactly.

Yeah.

And the prize was to win a record deal, okay, And so I was I think I was a Yeah, I was a freshman by the time I had won, and they came to my school and did this whole like assembly thing.

Wow.

It was like really extra as fuck, but it was so cool. So that then I went to New York and signed with my first record deal. And then that's when I started kind of going back and forth between Phoenix and La a lot. And then there was times where I was like living in La pretty much for like a month, and then I would go back home and just like come on my own, right. And then I was officially here when I was sixteen, and then I got dropped when I was seventeen.

From the Kids Bop la first label.

Well, I was touring with Kids Bop for a little bit.

Okay, okay, what's that? Wait? Wait, wait, what's the tour with kids Bob? Who's Who's it goes off?

It's crazy?

Is it just a bunch of people's like a bunch of children on stage, singing like in the club.

Yeah, like five kids just like go showing h's your birthday? Yeah, We're gonna party like it's your birth.

And you're on stage doing all the renditions, dancing. What's the most ridiculous show? What's what was the most inappropriate kids Bop? So because some of the songs, you're like, how did they How did that make it to a kids Bop compilation?

I think one of the ones that we perform, well, okay, we performed what's that Maclamore song? Were you talking about being in the.

Same oh, thrift shop?

That was called thrift shop. I'm like, you're talking about being shop thrift shop. We did that one and it's like, you know, there's a lot of like rapping in it, so we had to change a lot of words. They were not appropriate for kids, So that was interesting. The things that we changed it to were really funny. And then Locked out of Heaven that was also really.

Bruno Mars, Yeah, yeah, Bruno Mars. If you listen to his lyrics sometimes you're like, oh, yeah, it's almost like when you listen to the Weekend shit, Like you really listen and you're like, oh, the Weekend might have a drug problem.

I love that though.

The Weekend's my favorite, probably my favorite, Like I mean, I just love I don't know if I listened to anyone more than the Weekend. I love the Weekend. He's amazing. Did you see him at a so far?

No? But she did?

It was fucking fire.

Really.

I went the night before he didn't perform because he you know, he came out on stage and like apologized to everybody because his voice wasn't you know, oh no, which I actually liked because most people would have just pushed through. But he was like, nah, I gotta do this the right way. We're in LA. But he's amazing.

Dam did he come and like he spends it?

Yeah, he redid it a few I say. I think it's like a month and a half or two later and then it's on HBO. Now I just watched it. Tripping on shrooms?

Oh good for you? Should I do that?

You want to eat rooms right now? M mmm?

I mean Christine would have advice against.

Okay, I just gotta ask because we do have them. We have the raw, we have the gummies. You just let me know. Me and Ray Shimmer were Truman hard during our interview. Really yes, like things are getting real realistic. Yes, you enjoy psilocybin.

I really enjoy it. And I don't do nothing. I don't drink good I don't smoke weed. I don't do nothing. But you'll you'll partake in I just said nothing, but my rooms.

Shrooms are great.

They're amazing. Yeah, they're literle like medicine.

I have people who, like a couple of my friends, they'll microdose before they work out because it gives them like a little more focused, little more energy.

And like a little lyft.

Yeah I read that. Have you eve Ben a d mt? No, I want to try it. I'm scared.

I don't. I don't think I would do it. Why not because I'm by I pulled her as.

Fuck and might get rid of that.

I'm not well. The mushrooms do that for me. I'm good. I'm good with that. Maybe maybe one day.

Or ayahuasca like Aaron Rodgers, you.

Want to do ayahuasca, though, I actually do.

I heard that change it. That's like thirty years.

Chelsea Handler do it on her show.

How was that?

It was so interesting? Like she was like crying at the end and shit talking.

I have a friend who changed their whole life.

Her sister, and like it just changes everything. I mean, mushrooms did that for me too the first time.

I how much would you eat though? Did you eat a lot? Well?

I we made it in tea.

Oh that's so.

It was good because it was like I could just slowly get into it and take more and more, and I didn't know what to expect.

That's which I love bellies like that. Belly only likes it in tea. He's like big shrowd guy, but he drinks it. I don't know if I could drink it. There's like no escaping if you drink it.

I feel like you actually can well from what I was told. But like if you go to I went to Amsterdam and they like, it's so different there because.

It's like it's like, yeah, it's just how it is.

It's like a dispensary.

But it's like New York City now different. Have you been in New York recently? You just go to the liquor store, Like literally the corner store in New York City they got shrooms right behind the counter. It's fucking in New York City. You could buy a blunt an eighth and some mushrooms all at the Bodaga.

Now, well we'll be there.

Why it's the wild wild water right now, you'll see just anywhere where they got like a smoke shop, just walk in. They right behind the counter, it's on display.

That's good, you got there. Yeah. And Amsterdam, they said that I love it because they like actually educate you and like they'll give you like a slip and like tell you exactly how to do it. But they were saying, if you start to feel too high or you're like not feeling good, just drink juice. As soon as you eat something with like a high amount of sugar in it, it will start bringing down your high.

I'd rather eat too much shrooms than eat too much weed, because eating too much wheat is terrible. It's the worst shit ever you've ever had, like a like a bad edible e space.

It's the worst I've never had that, but I've I've literally I can't even do CBD, that's how bad it is.

Well, I don't think CBD is a thing. I think it's like, you know, one of those things where like mentally you think it's supposed to help you out, but it's like it's a placebo effect. It's like you got a CBD massage. My wife got a CBD massage in Palm Springs this weekend. So what do you think that is? What the fuck are they gonna do? They're gonna rub CBD on you. Here's a blunt smoking.

I mean, yeah, it's not good for me.

So you get paranoid.

No, I had like a full on episode like it was bad.

So you're out on the four twenty on THHC. It's not for you.

No, that's good. None of that. I'll celebrate with mushrooms.

Shrooms are amazing. You have a lot of tattoos, Yeah, I do. Can we explain a few of the more notable ones that you would feel like, you know, because you got you got a lot, and they're very like there's mother father, There looks to be a church. There is that a hookah? Or is that a genie lamp?

No, it's actually an old perfume.

Okay, it's a perfume bottle.

Yeah, but I like that.

People are like a jellyfish.

A jellyfish is my favorite animal. This is there's a type of jellyfish. I think it's called the eternal jellyfish.

Why do you love them so much?

Because it's the only animal. I mean, they're just cool, like they don't have brains and they're living, like they're literally just like floating around, but they're alive and like they're not really conscious, Like it's I just saw crazy thought. But this eternal jellyfish, it can live forever. It's the only animal that lives forever.

Oh shit.

So once it's like it, I think it's something like if if it gets like it feels a threat or something happening, it just starts with the life cycle all the way over and goes back to being a pull.

Up and then we'll start that's wild.

Isn't that crazy?

Have you ever been to Rocky Point?

No?

I was in Rocky Point last summer and I was surrounded by jellyfish, and I cry like a bitch. Was afraid. I was like, my fucking I'm gonna have to get pissed on. Did you get done? I didn't. I was afraid. I was like someone's trying, like they were everywhere. I just all of a sudden, I looked around and I was like, is that a plastic oh ship, it's a fucking it's like seven jellyfish. I wasn't actually crying, but I really was like I'm done. I started panicking.

I know that feeling though. I was in Australia one time.

I was like, some dude's gonna have to pee on me, Like I don't even know the guy. No, no, no, no, I'm okay. Never shots r Kelly, but I'll passed hard, pass hard past on the stranger pe Okay. So what else do we have here? What is the fruit on your shoulder? Is that a fruit? This thing rare rare? This?

Oh? This is uh?

He has a not a fruit? Oh so he has a He actually has an art museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, where I used to live. Really, the Balley Museum is there?

That's dope?

Yeah?

Yeah, so it's an with a flower coming out of it.

Yeah, you got some vibes? What is well? Who's Nancy?

That's my grandma?

Shout outs to Grandma. Got to pay homage to Grahams. Do you like to play craps? Is that why you have dice? No?

I have dice because I've been rolling the dice since ninety seven. It's a fixed nine.

I like that. Are you were you born in eighty seven? Wow? When were you born eighty seven?

Yeah?

I got a decade. I remember ninety seven? Do you do you really for sure? What's what is like the most vivid memory you have from ninety seven walking around Christown Mall without my parents? Do you have any parents?

What happened?

Because I was a bad kid who would like all my friends are older, so I'd be like ten years old running around on the Red Line in Phoenix, fucking going to Metro Center and the Christown Mall watching my friends steel stuff. Oh my god, yeah, Valley Metro good place. Yeah. Yeah. So for you, it's been a long time since you put out music pre pandemic, even what's been going on, I've just.

Honestly, God, I've been writing whole time. Album is ready to come out now. I think there's just been a lot of obstacles that have come up that I've had to kind of maneuver around to make it to this point. So I'm just I've just been trying to like.

Personal stuff, business stuff, folks, and.

A lot of times they are both. I'm an artist, so like my work is me, so everything I take everything really personally, which is also like kind of bad. I need to work on like separating it a little bit more. But but yeah, everything is like super personal to me. So pretty much everything that has to.

Do with work is like so the album is called Grudges. Correct why Grudges?

I hold a grudge very easily.

It's hard for me to get from the south Side. I get it.

Yeah, it's really it's really hard for me to just be like okay, because also, like loyalty is everything to me. So like if I'm and I really try to be like the best friend that I can to people, I'm just like a good person. So if I'm being what I think is an amazing front to you and you think I'm be an amazing front to you, and you're like just fucking living in it, and then you do something to fuck me over, it just shows me what kind of person you are, because I don't I don't

Have you Praakeed dealt with a lot of that being in LA because the music industry is full of the weirdest, which is.

So shitty to say, because I feel like a lot of times it's like I wanted to say, like, oh, it just gets a bad rap or like, no, it's just not really like that.

It's probably truth.

It is the truth.

Most people who are like your associates or friends here are only that as long as they see the benefit coming down the pipeline. Or it's like trust me, I know. Yeah, it's crazy.

Everybody's kind of off for themselves. But I have met a few few real ones, but a few ruins for sure, that's for sure, a few grounded people.

Is your eighteen year old best friend from Phoenix who you moved out here with still around.

She's not here, but she's going to move back.

Oh what she doing?

She actually moved to South Mountain too, which she didn't live there. She moved to South Phoenix voluntarily. Yeah. Yeah, well her mom.

Lives there, so she like went, oh, she's coming back.

But she likes it because, like she hikes every day and you know, it's a friend over there.

She's hot. It's really hot. Yeah remember that heat wave. Bruh, it felt like Phoenix for like two months.

People don't understand the heat of Phoenix.

Yeah, you'll get in the car and get a third degree burning from your fucking.

Seatnel literally literally, it's so crazy, Like when I I can't when I go back, I just am so spoiled here.

Now as a kid, are you like listening to MC magic and mb Ritis? You know who they are? Though? Like you know who MC magic is as a kid. I mean it's more like you know the Latin side of things. But you weren't an EMC Magic fan, just your friend over there from.

Yeah, she's yeah, that's like all she listened to.

All I listened to was little rob Amanda Perez a n b Ritis.

No, but it's because my so the way that I the only way I know my culture and have been informed is from my surroundings growing up. My grandpa was deported when before my mom was born, so I never got to know the Mexican side of my family. We're like finding them on Danna ancestry, which is crazy, like getting in contact with like cousins and uncles and shit, it's wild. So I'm trying to find her dad because we don't even know like where it is or like we're guessing who he is.

Yeah, it's been like a whole So you're Mexican and what black? Okay? Yeah, so you like the whole Mexican vibe going on in Phoenix just kind of passed you. Like there was like the lowrider shows that were crazy and like yeah, what, Yes, did you ever go to the swap meet like on like fortieth Street in Washington. That's where I got my name. I was there selling mixtapes and DVDs and fake purses and fake Jordan's.

Yes.

Almost got arrested like eleven times. I've been banned from the swap meet by the airport, like at least ten times. They told me to never come back. So I would just book my spot under a different name every time, and then I'd pay the guys to like let me know when the security was walking around, and I'd just walk off. How old were you sixteen, seventeen eighteen? I had like a newborn kid when I was eighteen.

Like I'm still doing it today.

No, I'm not. I'm not, I'm not. But I still do get random WhatsApp messages from like Chinese ladies who have shit for sale. So they'll send me like a link and be like new product the vail and I'll be like, damn, they're bootlegging iPods and not iPods, the AirPod like the ads you know those three big heavy duty Yeah, you can get those counterfeit, and they're supposed to sound the same. Wow, I can't get anything counterfeit, Mac makeup. That was a vibe for a little bit

Did you know where that was coming from?

China? Yeah? I was literally I would like I would literally get on like MSN Messenger with like a little Chinese lady on webcam and she would show me.

Shit and she'd be like wow, and then send it to you.

I'd be like, show me the Larry Fitzgerald Jersey, let me see the back. Wow, you get fifty of those.

That's crazy.

That's a great swat me, great place. Okay, so why is there? So you got all your affairs in order, all the all the stuff you went through is finally kind of settled, and now we have the album? Yes?

Oh yeah, So what I was gonna say was the album also had a different name before Okay, it was called Closure. And then as we added more songs and I did more sessions and I was going through more shit in my life, it just didn't feel like I had closure on nothing Like it felt like, oh okay, I'm just like literally talking shit and I am I'm talking about all the shit that I'm going through and there's no answer to none of the things that I'm putting out there. So it's grudges and not closure.

So the new song with LMA, it seemed did someone play you? Is that what happened?

I mean people always play We just talked about this, We just talked about how.

I'm saying, were you like? Because because at first of all, I love the song because it's definitely like a relatable song because a lot of people try to act like they're not jealous people, but you know, like you're like, yo, drop all your bitches, or don't drop all your bitches, but drop all Yeah is that something you actually went through?

Yeah, so I've had that feeling.

So I.

The thing about me is like I'm one of those people who says I'm not a jealous person.

Where every by the way, every woman ever is that.

No, no, no, but no, they're all, I'm not jealous.

Who the fuck is this bitch like in your photo?

No, you can ask Christine. That's my best friend and my manager. She's literally with me every single day because she has to be. But you would choose, but literally, I'm not jealous. The only thing that I'm I get jealous about, which is so valid. Okay, is Instagram, which is okay liking other people's photos, like other bitches photos.

I'm just asking. I just have to ask, Like, Okay, if it's like a girl who's like bent over and says Lincoln Bio, yeah.

For sure, I'd be pick.

It's a problem.

But it's like like girls that like you don't even know, like you don't even be knowing them, and they're like, you know, I love a girl and the bikini pick, I have a bikini pick. We all do it. It's great, right, but if my partner is liking that person's pictures, you don't even know her first of all. Second of all, she's not looking out for you, right she guys don't give a fuck if you're liking her pictures.

So that's that's the line in the Sandie.

Yes, it's just like why because I'm okay with like you looking at the picture enjoying it and then scrolling like.

I know we all are, but don't double tap.

Don't double tap? Why why do you have to go to the extra mile because you want attention? So what do you want the attention? Yeah?

What do you want what do you want that person? That's what If they're just following the person, is that a problem? No?

No, That's what I'm saying, Like, I I understand that we're attracted to people, right, Like do you follow?

Like I'm trying to figure out what the female equation or equivalent is to you know, guys will follow IG thoughts, right, Are there dude versions of that that I'm just not hip to? Like, are there guys with like twelve like twelve packs? I don't even think that's real. That'd be definitely surgical if that's the thing.

I'm sure there is, but I don't want to see it. I be following the Instagram girls because they're women are just so much more beautiful.

I agree, you'll follow the IG women as well. Yeah, okay, so yeah, okay, don't be tapping. Don't don't double.

Tap, don't do it, like, just don't do it. Why, especially because it's like for nothing, right, You're not you're not going to get that attention you're seeking.

You're hoping that you get. Yeah yeah yeah, and then you look crazy because if like one of your mutual friends.

Is like yo, sees that they're liking their show man is.

Over here double tapping Rosa Costa's fucking aspects exactly.

And my worst fear, like I hate other people knowing things about me that I don't know. And that's like the worst part.

You don't want to feel. You don'tant to feel like again, like yeah, not, I hear you.

I don't want to look like an idiot, you know, like I don't want other people knowing shit before me. That was like the most that was the worst part about being cheated on. The one time I was cheated on, I was like, the most fucked up part was that everyone knew except sent you.

So it was like they were like the friends knew because it's I feel like it's like it probably a different situation if like your man is on vacation in Miami and he hooks of the stranger he's never gonna see again. Sure you should hate that and you should leave him for that, but it's not like if like this, it's like a thing, a known thing, and everyone's lying to your face and like you're like, what the fuck, Like I'm just booboo the full at this point.

Yeah. No, it was like it was so bad, like like this guy and his best friend had a threesome basically with this girl. That's that's how I got cheated on. And then his friend that he did it with asked me to pick him up from the airport before I know. Hmm, yeah, yeah, I don't know, man, Yeah, Trash.

I don't know if I, you know, could participate in such activities.

Would you If I'm not sure I can cheated on you, would it hurt you more if they did it because they loved the person, or if they did it because it was just like a one night thing because they loved the person, that would hurt more.

I think, So, huh what about you?

No, that wouldn't hurt more because you