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Sir Babygirl

Photo courtesy of Father/Daughter Records

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Sir Babygirl On Her Brand Of Surrealist Pop, Covering Kesha & "Being A Little Elf Playing Flute In The F**kin' Forest"

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The Brooklyn performer talks to the Recording Academy about her busy 2019, the bonus songs on 'BICONIC' and the struggles and emotional triumphs of learning to become a queer pop diva on her own terms
Eli Enis
GRAMMYs
Oct 30, 2019 - 10:42 am

There's a lot that goes into being a D.I.Y. pop prince(ss), and Kelsie Hogue would know. The 27-year-old Brooklyn resident and New Hampshire native writes, performs and produces cartoonishly exuberant bubblegum pop under the name Sir Babygirl. After studying musical theatre in college, spending time as an absurdist stand-up comic and playing in numerous rock bands in her early 20s, Hogue developed an unusually multifaceted understanding of creative expression. All of those disciplines, and her love for both Britney Spears and My Chemical Romance, can be heard leaping and bounding throughout her debut album, Crush On Me, which was released back in February of this year via San Francisco indie Father/Daughter Records. 

In the time since its release, Sir Babygirl has been covered in nearly every major music publication, lauded as a must-see act at this year’s SXSW, featured as a main stage act at L.A. Pride, and sold out both of the headlining shows she played in New York. However, with no major label backing or external income source, Hogue's journey to pop stardom is being entirely carried out on a D.I.Y. budget. "I want to be able to make it to the big leagues and I believe that I can because I have what I call a healthy delusion," she says with a confident chuckle while calling from her home in Brooklyn. "I'm basically trying to instill what I imagine pop stars do within a budget in my control." 

Flamboyant costumes, backup dancers, colorful makeup and unparalleled energy are all central to the Sir Babygirl performance, and Hogue recently completed the first leg of her first-ever headlining tour—which was just her and her tour manager Flynn Hannon out on the road together. "I've done some headlining dates but that was the first tour so I have nothing to compare it to and it’s a very isolating industry so I don’t really know what other people's first tours are like," she says. "So I have absolutely nothing to go off of, which is essentially how this industry works: you have nothing to go off of every step of the way and you're just stabbing in the dark and hoping that your gut is the superior gut."

On Nov. 8, Sir Babygirl will be releasing Crush On Me: BICONIC Edition, a remastered version of the record that also features a cover of Kesha's "Praying" and a bombastic acoustic rendition of her song "Pink Lite." In advance of that, we talked to the generously transparent Hogue about her busy 2019, the bonus songs on BICONIC, and the struggles and emotional triumphs of learning to become a queer pop diva on her own terms. Our conversation has been condensed for clarity. 

A lot has happened with Sir Babygirl in 2019. What are some of your most memorable moments since Crush On Me came out back in February? 

I made Rolling Stone print, that’s f**king insane to me. I got to play L.A. Pride, the main stage, which was crazy. I sold out both headlining shows I did in New York. There's just been some really cool milestones that are kind of shocking when I actually say them out loud. Because when you’re inside of it you’re just trying to fucking hussle to f**king get the job done. I think what’s so cool about the fact that I've been able to tour is that that’s been the most concrete, like, "Okay, we're all present here, there are real human beings in the room showing up for me. It's not just likes on an Instagram post. I'm living, breathing with these people. 

I was so taken aback at the support that I got on this tour. The size of the rooms changed every night. I had some packed rooms I had some f**kin’ ten people in a room, but the dedication and the energy was so intense at every show. At one of my smallest shows in Raleigh, there were probably like 15 people there but almost everyone that was there at the end came up to me and was like, "We drove two hours to see you. We've been waiting for this for months." And it was random queers in the South who were from little towns that nothing ever comes through.

So it's very exciting to be able to have these rooms where it is really the queer people are centered but there's also straight people there supporting. That's my whole point: I'm trying to be accessible. I'm not trying to create an underground closed-off space where it's just the queerest of the queer people. I don’t believe in queer elitism or separatism; I'm really into inclusivity and accessiblity and so I just want anyone to be able to, at the end of the day, come and shed a little bit of their snakeskin from the day that they had to use to protect themselves and be able to relax into it and have a f**king good time. 

Beyond being a space for queer people to congregate, your live performance is a pretty spectacular thing to witness. For someone who hasn’t seen you, describe what a Sir Babygirl show consists of. 

Well, rule number one is that it's never the same. I am a student of the element of surprise and I call it controlled chaos. It’s not like GG Allin where you go and you're literally not safe. I want it to be exciting, not scary. You don't know what’s gonna happen next but whatever happens next is gonna be a fun surprise, not "I'm gonna kill you." [Laughs.] I do a lot of live banter where I'm very, very interactive with the audience. But I think I really work to gain trust with that.

So at my shows I feel like I lose my mind on stage to allow other people permission to lose their minds in the audience. There’s a lot of different D.I.Y. costume changes, you might see a strap, you might see a guest DJ. I like to bring on my friends to DJ for me who have no DJ experience and just let them go off on my Ableton. I love to have dancers that aren't actually dancers. . .So it’s kind of a big circus, it’s a f**king gay circus and I’m the carnival barker and I’m just kind of gonna dominate you for 45 minutes and you're gonna love it. Or you're gonna hate it and that’s f**king cool, too, at least I got a reaction out of you. 

You mentioned the strap, which I see all of the time on your social media posts. When and why did you start bringing that on as part of your costume? Does it represent something to you or relate to your music in any way, or is it merely for the shock value or the silliness? 

The thing is, to me it’s not shocking. I’m kind of trying to play a little game with you all. This is my whole big comparison. Britney Spears 2001 VMAs walks on with a Python, a very phallic symbol; she’s gyrating with it. What is so different and shocking compared to that and me wearing a harness around my pelvis that intimates the fact that I’m going to f**k someone? It’s just that it’s gay and hence "subculture," hence "not the norm." And my kind of mission is to just f**kin' bring that queerness into the mainstream and just normalize it. 

And also yeah the humor is intended where it’s like, yeah it’s f**king funny. I'm wearing this f**king strap. Because there is this level of intimacy that I really have with the audience where I want to poke fun at in that literal way where it’s like, "Yes, you are in the bedroom with me. We are in the bedroom together." And not in sexual way but you’re seeing me in this really intimate, vulnerable space, but at the same time the strap is so cool because it’s intimate but it's f**king power. Because it's like, "I’m gonna f**k you." 

I know you have a pretty rich history and a background in musical theatre, so you've been performing on stages for a long time. But I'm wondering what you've learned about yourself as a performer since you started touring regularly as a pop musician? 

The level of stamina it takes to be a pop artist is, to me, unparalleled. I had respect for pop artists, obviously a deep reverence, which is why I got into it. But I could truly spend days and fill novels about it: I am shocked at the level of stamina it takes, the level of health you need to be in. It’s very expensive to be healthy and to be in the level of shape that you need to be. And I don’t mean shape as in fit, I mean shape as in functioning health. So I think that's been a big thing for me. I deal with a lot of chronic health issues and it is a trip.

I feel like I have really good vocal health, I started taking vocal lessons when I was 14. So I have been studying the voice for 13 years and I would say that it is my strongest instrument and I play a lot of instruments and have been playing instruments since I was nine, and it is the most challenging, vulnerable, easy to damage instrument that exists. It's the only instrument that can be past the point of repair. And we’re in this industry where we don’t really take vocals seriously as an instrument. We kind of act like it's this accidental thing like, "Oh, someone can just randomly belt and you should be able to do that like the Energizer Bunny every single day."

There's a lot of things that take stamina. Like knowing how to deal with sound dudes, and knowing how to give a good set when the sound isn't working. The thing with tours is that it’s not a question of if everything is gonna go wrong, it's just what level of grace can you bring to the chaos? Its just kind of moving chaos. Like I said, I love controlled chaos and tour is uncontrolled chaos, and I am trying to bring this circus around the U.S. essentially and maintain my composure.

One of the new songs on Crush On Me: BICONIC Edition is your acoustic rendition of "Pink Lite." What I like about that song is even though it’s a very stripped-down version of the track, it actually sounds like you're singing harder and louder than you do on the full version of the song. Do you want your acoustic songs to be bangers as well? 

I've gotten a lot of comments that are deeply flattering in a very funny way where people will be at my show and be like, "Oh, I literally thought you were kind of a robot voice on the internet, I didn’t think that that was actually your real voice." And I’ve even gotten people at live shows before thinking I was lip-syncing and then I start ad-libbing and they realize that I’m not. I wanted to do the most stripped version possible to be like, yeah that's my voice, that’s how I sound. 

I'm very proud of my instrument and I've worked really f**king hard. I worship vocals and I'm just so inspired by so many female vocalists that came before me and so to me, I just wanted to share that kind of passion and have people really hear the nuances of my voice with all the production stripped away. 

Another song on the reissue is your cover of Kesha's "Praying," which is an incredibly powerful and vulnerable song. What sort of relationship do you have with that song and why did you want to bring it into the Sir Babygirl universe? 

I think we're at a point where it should be pretty implicit that if you are someone who has been socialized as a girl—slash anyone—a lot of people have been assaulted, have been raped, have been sexually abused. It’s just a rampant systemic reality and I didn't really want to make it a big part of the campaign, I did not want to have to talk in interviews about my own trauma, I don't always love that marginalized people are there to be a spigot for their flowing trauma. But at the same point it just kind of got to this point where I was feeling so consistently retraumatized by experiences being in the music industry, and I have always related to Kesha. 

I experienced my sexual trauma when I was 19 and I wasn't able to even come to terms with approaching it until I was 25. And "Praying" came along when I was just starting to accept my trauma and I honestly there’s not a song I can relate to more. The way that she writes it, it’s just like holy sh*t. I can’t be really poetic or articulate about it, it just floored me when I heard it. I listened to it on loop and cried and was like, "Holy sh*t." That feeling of "I'm not alone" and someone specifically in the industry I want to be in has gone through this f**king insane, horrific pain, and is going to experience it for the rest of their f**king life.

I’ve always played that song at shows in and out and just in my room and it just got to this point where I was, like, “F**k it." I really want to do my own spin on it, it’s really cathartic for me to do. And I just wanted to put it out there that yeah, this album is deeply informed by my trauma and my recovery. But that's not the point of the album, it just exists. And so I kind of wanted to make it a clean, clear statement like yeah, the trauma exists. It’s there, I don’t want to talk about it all the time, but I want it to be understood and I want you to understand that this is a part of me. I don’t need to tell you the details of it for you to take it seriously, for you to believe it. 

I saw you perform that at South By Southwest and it was very moving to watch. What I find most striking about it is that it's a very serious song and you perform it in a very sobering way, but the songs in between that are very playful, theatrical and sometimes humorous.  Do you think by playing the song has opened up a different creative side of you that maybe you weren't tapping into?

I think I just wanted to carve out a little more nuance for myself. It's very hard for me to be fully serious, like ever. I would say humor is my biggest defense mechanism and biggest survival mechanism and it’s also a great thing and I love it and it does so much for me. I did want to give myself permission to take up that kind of space because I’m really afraid to. And maybe it doesn’t look like this from the outside but I can get very self-conscious about being really big and being huge on stage and being a clown is easy but being like, “No, you’re gonna f**king stand here and listen to me go off about a serious f**king thing," is so scary to me.

So yeah I like that challenge and right now I'm in the process of doing a lot of writing again and I'm just trying to not be so clever. Just understand that that’s just gonna exist cause I’m a little f**kin' imp, I’m always gonna be a little elf playing flute in the f**kin' forest pulling tricks on people. But that’s my whole thing, I just like the dichotomy. Let me be funny and sad. Just let it all be a joke and all be f**king dead serious, and that’s what I'm really trying to get people to latch onto. They don't cancel each other out, it just deepens the world. 

L.A. Pride 2019: The Veronicas, Sir Babygirl & More Celebrate The LGBTQ+ Community

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Tim Farriss, Kirk Pengilly, Jon Farriss and Andrew Farriss of INXS

Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

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INXS Guitarist Tim Farriss Talks Wembley Show, Partying With Queen & The Band's Legacy

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On the heels of their concert film "Live Baby Live" returning to theaters for one night only, the INXS guitarist looks back on the Aussie rock favorites' famed 1991 show
Bryan Reesman
GRAMMYs
Dec 3, 2019 - 11:38 am

INXS fans are getting a royal treat on Monday, Dec. 9. The band's famed Wembley Stadium show from July 1991 in front of 72,000 fans—released back then as the CD and concert film "Live Baby Live"—has been upgraded to high definition, with audio remixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios, and it will be screened in theaters across the country for one night only. For longtime fans and new converts, it will be a vivid trip back in time when the Australian sextet was at the peak of their musical powers, with late singer Michael Hutchence leading the charge.

It's been a pleasure for guitarist/co-founding member Tim Farriss as well. "What blew me away is I'd never seen my band like that before," he tells the Recording Academy of the HD reissue. "I'd seen it on television and computer screens, but I'd never seen it on a big screen. It was extraordinary. The band started back in '77, but I'd never had that experience before."

A bonus on the new "Live Baby Live" is the inclusion of "Lately" from the album X. It was recovered through former band manager/Petrol Records founder Chris Murphy's decade-long search for the original 35mm film cans which were found in Australia. From Farriss' recollections, an audio glitch, likely from tapes being switched in the middle of the song, kept "Lately" from being used back then. Through the wonders of modern digital technology, that problem was fixed. Farriss and his bandmates—brothers Jon and Andrew, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Gary Beers—could not tell when watching the new version. He adds that the three standout performances for him are "Lately," "Hear That Sound" and "The Stairs," and that "Who Pays The Price," "Lately" and "Hear That Sound" only received a very short run in their touring career.

Interestingly enough, the opening song "Guns In The Sky" blasts off from an extended jam resulting from drummer Jon Farriss running out on stage, while the band was finishing their champagne, to get the groove going. It was neither planned nor rehearsed and shows how comfortable INXS were as a unit. Their exuberance and love for playing together clearly shows.

"The attitude we had was, 'Let's have a good time, guys,'" remarks the guitarist. "We didn't start with a hit. We started with the first song off the last album, then went into playing songs that a large percentage of the audience wouldn't have known because we were promoting a new album. We were doing what we normally did in a club—try out the new songs."

While "Live Baby Live" features plenty of hits like "Suicide Blonde," "Need You Tonight" and "Never Tear Us Apart," the set is unusual in that it comprises mostly two albums, Kick and X, which were their most recent studio offerings at the time. Nothing is featured from their first three records including Shabooh Shoobah (not even "Don't Change"), and The Swing and Listen Like Thieves are represented by only one track apiece. Farris says that this was not a conscious decision towards commercialism. The band just wanted to play the songs they connected with most emotionally and musically.

"The version of 'Send A Message' is so different from The Swing version, and 'What You Need' was always fun to play live," recalls Farriss. "Then Michael went into the audience singing a part that went for much longer than it normally would. We just had a really fun time playing that show. We didn't want it to finish. The who's who of our friends all wanted in on the Wembley Stadium show. It was just a great party."

The new triple vinyl, double CD, and digital reissues of "Live Baby Live" represent the Wembley show, as opposed to the original CD release which collected tracks from different concerts on the tour and was criticized for being inconsistent and not sounding very energized. The new package comes with fresh liner notes by the band and by broadcaster Jamie East who attended the show.

Farriss says one of his fondest memories from playing at Wembley was recalling their previous engagement there opening for Queen during their 1986 European tour together. He remembers how approachable and friendly they were.

"They would go out for dinner together," he says. "In fact, they invited us to go to dinner with them in places like Belgium. We suddenly realized that there was this amazing similarity with how they were amongst themselves and how we were." While Farriss felt that some bands they had toured with were lacking in great personal chemistry, Queen "seemed like genuine friends."

On one special night in Montreux, Switzerland, Freddie Mercury had the presidential suite at the Grand Hôtel Suisse-Majestic. He invited Hutchence, Farriss, his brother Jon and their tour manager Gary Grant to party there.

"Freddie had his personal assistant there, and he had a big stereo system and a microphone in his room," says Farriss. "We were partying up there, just the five of us, and Freddie's playing us this stuff. He's got Michael singing into this microphone with Freddie holding the microphone. They had their noses about an inch apart, and they're both belting it out to some new music for Queen. I was sitting on the sofa with Jon going, 'Hey, this sounds pretty good.' At the time it was just fun. Now I look back and I think, ‘Holy sh*t, if only I'd had an iPhone then.'" (That said, he is glad INXS came up at a time when people actually watched concerts live without holding up their phones.)

Farriss hopes that the "Live Baby Live" re-release will attract a younger generation of fans to the group. While there are two video screens flanking the stage (but barely visible on film), the Wembley show features just music and pure adrenaline emanating from the band.

"There were no dancers or backing vocals, there was no grand piano wheeled out for the ballad," says Farriss. "There were no pyrotechnics." It is an organic experience that feels anathema to the multimedia overload of today. "I see young kids today loving vinyl, and I think that they'd love a band of guys that do it tough together and grow up in front of everyone and stick it out. It gives everyone hope, you know? That's the one thing that we hung onto and that worked out for us. I think every young person deserves to have that."

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INXS at their Wembley Stadium show in July 1991
Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Films

These days, many classic rock icons have been getting their due with accolades. One can hope that INXS will get long overdue recognition from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The 2014 Australian television mini-series about the band, "Never Tear Us Apart" (which has not aired in the U.S.), was the highest rated of all time Down Under, although, despite having consulted on it, Farriss did not feel it accurately captured the group. A proposed Broadway musical is reportedly in the works, although Farriss is more excited about the possibility of a full-length documentary. The Michael Hutchence documentary "Mystify" is being shown in U.S. theaters for one night on Jan. 7. While Farriss and his bandmates participated in the film, he does not want the INXS story to end there.

The guitarist says that while "Mystify" director and longtime INXS music video collaborator Richard Lowenstein "was a great mate, it's a story about Michael. It's not just about INXS, it's about Michael from the time he was a child and delves into a lot of what really happened to him after the accident. There’s stuff in it that we just didn't know about at the time of the mini-series, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think that would have made as good television either."

Farriss adds that there has not been a comprehensive documentary about INXS. The iconic Australian band won six Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) awards, have sold an estimated 60 million albums globally, won five MTV Music Video Awards and were nominated for three GRAMMY Awards.

"A television series is one thing, but there hasn't actually been a blood, sweat and tears documentary," stresses Farriss. "And it shouldn't finish with Michael either. It needs to go on to post-Michael because some of the stuff we did after Michael passed [in 1997] makes him all the more relevant, and as well shows the depth." He feels that the album they made with singer JD Fortune, 2005’s Switch, was fantastic, and that making that record with producer Guy Chambers, plus doing the "Rock Star: INXS" reality show where they procured Fortune, was an intense experience. "It was so different for us as opposed to just album-tour/album-tour/album-tour."

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Michael Hutchence of INXS
Photo courtesy of Eagle Rock Films

Farriss is also open to doing a book as he feels his perspective is different from anybody else. "Looking back, the whole idea of the six of us getting together was really my doing," he declares. "And being the person who did 85% of the publicity with Michael, I had a pretty good gauge on where he was at, sitting in limousines going from radio station to radio station or television station to television station, just having a whole day of media. It was exhausting. All that stuff could be used in a documentary. I quite enjoy that doco side of things, so that's something I'd really like to get my teeth into."

Until recently, the world has not heard much from INXS. Their last album, 2010's Original Sin, offered re-recorded and reworked greatest hits with different singers. They released the new songs "Tiny Summer" (studio track) and "We Are United" (live) with singer Ciaran Gribbin through the internet in 2011. The last time they played live was 2012 when they announced their retirement from touring.

Many years ago, Farriss opened a recording studio and recently slowed down with that, but he wants to get back to making music, particularly as he wrote songs for Switch that he inexplicably did not offer up. "I've got this catalog of material," he reveals. "I feel like now's the time to go there again and maybe get into writing some more."

When asked how his left hand is doing—his ring finger was severed in a boating accident in 2015, then reattached, but he cannot play with it—Farriss says solemnly, "It's pretty f**ked. It's painful emotionally. It's painful psychologically. It's painful just as in nerve pain." But that's not stopping him from writing new music.

Indeed, if there is anything that has defined INXS beyond music throughout their career, it is persistence and passion. When asked about advice he would give to younger musicians, Farriss replies, "Keep it fresh. Keep it real, keep it fun, and always be positive. Even if you're feeling like you want to be melancholic, do it in a positive way."

That ethos served INXS very well and will cascade from the Wembley stage into theaters this week.

(GRAMMY.com contributor Bryan Reesman is the host of the podcast "Side Jams" and author of "Bon Jovi: The Story.")

Jeff Goldblum On His Lifelong Passion For Jazz And His New Album

Tei Shi

Tei Shi

Photo courtesy of Downtown Records

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Tei Shi Has Found Her Happy Place

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Ahead of releasing her sophomore effort, 'La Linda,' the "mermaid music"-maker spoke to the Recording Academy about moving to L.A., Spanish representation and continuing to work with her "creative kindred spirit" Blood Orange 
Laura Studarus
GRAMMYs
Nov 11, 2019 - 11:00 am

There’s a certain romantic connection artists share with New York City. As Valerie Teicher Barbosa recalls, for a time the city acted as an effective creative incubator while she made music as Tei Shi. It was where she introduced herself in 2013, anonymously at first, with a series of crystalline vocal loops she called "mermaid music." It was also where she met collaborators, including Blood Orange (Dev Hynes), and where she wrote and recorded her first Tei Shi album, Crawl Space. But after closing what she calls a "chapter with a lot of baggage," she knew it was time to leave. 

Like many artists before her, the Buenos Aires-born Barbosa ventured West, landing in Los Angeles' Elysian Park, a neighborhood known for hiking, Dodger Stadium, and—like most places in Southern California—year-round sun. 

"It was almost like rebirth, I was so much happier immediately," she recalls of her relocation at the top of 2018. "I would do writing in my little studio and then I would go lie outside for a couple of hours and get some ideas and go back in…It was a really different experience for me. I felt like I had stepped into this otherworldly paradise."

That vitamin D-saturated euphoria informed her forthcoming sophomore effort, La Linda, arriving on Nov. 15 via Downtown Records. Barbosa is especially eager to put La Linda out in the world, as it spent most of 2018 lost in, as she diplomatically puts it, "label purgatory." A showcase of her skills as both a musician and executive producer, La Linda features Hynes again on the hushed duet "Even If It Hurts." Describing Hynes as a creative kindred spirit, Barbosa was pleasantly surprised to find a new coterie of collaborators this time around. As she describes, cherry-picking the right person for each job was what she needed to infuse her humanity-forward R&B/pop with a slick sheen. Ahead of the release, Barbosa spoke with the Recording Academy about Spanish representation, refusing to fight fate and a surprisingly influential apartment building.  

What does "La Linda" mean to you?

"La Linda" to me is like a place. It's representative of how I was feeling during the phase when I was first writing the album. I had just moved to L.A. from New York, and felt like for six months after I moved here I was in this oasis. I was so inspired and felt so free. I felt in this really beautiful state of mind. It was sunny and beautiful and nature all around. Every day I would wake up and I felt like, oh open space. I can breathe and take my time with things.

I live in a house now. I would do writing in my little studio and then I would go lie outside for a couple of hours and get some ideas and go back in. It was something that I had never experienced before. I feel like in the past, when I made music it was, "Okay, we have this amount of time in this studio." It was a really different experience for me. I felt like I had stepped into this otherworldly paradise. 

I think what was going on internally and in my life on a personal level was playing into that. I felt like when I was leaving New York I was closing this chapter with a lot of baggage. When I came here it was almost like rebirth. I was so much happier immediately. I think that combined with the sun and the green just made me feel so euphoric. I wanted the album to reflect that. All the songs on the album aren’t happy songs by any means, but I wanted it to feel very beautiful and lush and bright. The title was something I came across; it was an apartment building called La Linda. It had this sign. A really cool sign. I took a photo out in front of it. In Hollywood. In Mid-City. And stuck with me. The name felt right to me. It felt like that vision of that sign stuck in my head. It was a sign for something I was entering into. It was something I wanted the album to feel like and look like. All the visuals to reflect that. 

The album includes the wonderful Spanish track "No Juegues." What inspired the bilingual shift?  

After I released Crawl Space and that song in Spanish, I got a lot of response from my listeners and fans. I realized there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people who listen to my music, which encouraged me to tap into that more. But it was more an organic thing. The past few years I've been more actively reading in Spanish, watching more stuff in Spanish. Revisiting the music that I grew up listening to and loved and influenced by that. 

I lived in Columbia until I was eight years old. And then my family moved to Canada. To Vancouver. And then when I was teenager we moved back to Columbia and then back to Canada. I basically grew up back and forth between Columbia and Canada. It was almost polar opposite places. But the cultures really complimented each other in how I absorbed them. I think once I opened up that, okay—let me actually try to write stuff in Spanish I'll try to release, it was really interesting and really freeing. Like anyone, you hit walls sometimes creatively. Once I was writing more in Spanish, it allowed me to step outside of myself a little bit. 

Is that something you want to tap into more?

I definitely want to tap in more. I want to be an international artist. I've always felt like that's just who I am. I want my artistry and career to reflect that, and to be able to resonate in different places around the world. I think it’s only natural for me to explore both Spanish and English sides of me, for sure. 

"When He's Done" seems to break that R&B pop mold you've created for yourself. 

That's good! I like to hear that. That was my personal favorite for a really long time. That was the first song I wrote for the album. I wrote that song right before I dropped Crawl Space. I thought about putting it on that album but it was too late and I wanted to take my time with it. That one feels special because it was the transition between Crawl Space and La Linda. I think to me, it’s the closest I've gotten to writing a classic song. Anyone who heard it, it's not about genre, it’s a song. It’s the one that I feel like I could sing that with just a guitar and it's still the song. That’s what I was going for. It’s also something a little different. My singing on it, it’s more powerhouse vocals. Which I don’t do a lot of but I love to sing that way. 

What came to mind was a modern take on "I Will Always Love You." My first thought was, "Wow, that girl knows what a broken heart feels like."

Oh, my god! I wrote it in kind of a crazy time. I made my album Crawl Space, I made with my ex-boyfriend. He was the other producer I worked with on it. We broke up halfway through making that album. And then we had to spend six months in the studio, producing it and recording it and finishing it after we broke up. 

I was experiencing being single for the first time in a really long time. Trying to find that companionship, that kind of love I was missing in different people—and being disappointed over and over again. We all go through that at certain points. So, it was kind of like coming from this place of being really jaded about love and falling for someone or opening yourself up to someone, and the inevitability of when you find yourself really into somebody who you know is not good for you and you’re like, "I know it’s going to end up in sh*t." When he's done, he's going to have his way. But it's also resigned in a way—but I'm still kind of going through the motions because I feel lonely. I feel like that’s a very relatable thing, the heartbreak not just of losing a relationship but the heartbreak of putting yourself out there and hoping for something or trying to find something. 

You're pretty upbeat about life in Los Angeles. Do you consider yourself to be an optimistic person? 

No! Absolutely not. I find myself being way more positive now in recent times. I think that's a result of me getting into a better place emotionally. Just being healthier all-around. Mentally and physically. I think it's been a journey to get to a place where I can draw from positivity in my work. For a really long time when I wrote music it was always coming from a place of sadness or despair or anger. It’s really hard when that's your nature to write music or to make any art inspired by just feeling good. I’m trying to make more of an effort. I don't think I'm an overly negative person. But I'm definitely not someone who you'd be like, "My friend Val, she's a very positive person!"

I think we do romanticize the suffering artist while forgetting you have to also live all those hours every day when you're not an artist. 

Totally! I think it’s also a negative thing because a lot of artists feel a weird pressure to self-sabotage. When you start feeling happen, for me, when I was in a really good place. Suddenly it's, "I'm not going to be able to write any music and I need to f**k up my life right now. I'm done!" That’s a horrible thing. I think a lot of people feel that pressure creatively. Sometimes it’s an internalized thing, but a lot of the time it’s what you’ve absorbed from the outside because it is such a glamourized thing. The suffering artist. Pain is art. Yes, that's true, but there's so much amazing music that’s come from people being positive. Redemption. People want to connect with a positive, empowering message. 

What does self-care look like for you?

I think it's surrounding yourself with people that contribute to your self-care. As you get older you realize how important the relationships you have around you are, in terms of your energy and mental health. I think one, it’s having people around me who are contributing to my well-being. And also for me, the number one thing, I need alone time. I'm the kind of person who recharges off being alone. And having space around me. So now that's a lot easier for me, not living in a place where anywhere I go you're in a crowd of people and you’re surrounded and there’s so much stimulus. I think the peace and quiet is really good in that sense.

And then taking care of my physical health too. When my body doesn’t feel good, that's when my mind is not good. Sleep is crucial! When I'm busy and stressed, my body doesn't process hunger. I live with my boyfriend and we were joking about it last night, when goes out of town, I lose weight. I rely on him for 90% of the time to feed me. When you're stressed and overwhelmed and overworked and stuff, something goes out the window. For me, nutrition is that thing. 

Do you feel like you were meant to move to Los Angeles? 

Yeah! I think so. I believe in fate to the extent that I think that every decision and action leads to the next. While I'm here because of every choice I've made before, it’s definitely not like there’s an alternate reality where I’m not a musician and living somewhere else. I do think everything worked in a way where everything felt like it had a purpose. The purpose was my own personal and creative growth. The finished product of the album.

You think about things that at the time felt terrible. How could this happen? I'm so upset about this! And then you realize that if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have ended up here. It's important to think about those things because sometimes you can dwell on negative experiences. When you follow the path and you realize those things lead to good things—I guess I am positive! 

After claiming the genre "mermaid music" during your first alum, how do you feel about mystical beings now?  

I wanted to distance myself from that, but then the album cover of La Linda ended up being literally the most mermaid thing that could have happened. That term—when I first made my Facebook page, there's the genre section and I didn't know what to say, so I said "mermaid music." When I started making music, I was using vocals to make these soundscapes. So, there was a lot of layered and looped vocals. Very ethereal. The siren song thing. That felt cute and kind of funny and natural.

As my sound has evolved and what I want to do musically has changed, I felt like it didn’t really resonate. At the same time, what is mermaid music? It's not anything, really. I like the idea of mermaids. It's always been super appealing to me. The concept of a fantastical creature whose voice can draw in people and cast this spell. There's so much power in the voice and the mystique. That always resonated with me. When I saw that album cover I knew I had to be a mermaid. 

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Ryan Cassata.jpeg

Ryan Cassata

Photo credit: David Yerby

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Trans Artist And Activist Ryan Cassata Opens Up About Sobriety, Living With Hearing Loss & Love At First Sight

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Five years sober and just a few months shy of 26, the Long Island-born, L.A.-based folk-pop performer understands perseverance like no other
Crystal A. Frost
GRAMMYs
Oct 3, 2019 - 11:10 am

Be resilient and persevere. These are the messages that transgender singer-songwriter Ryan Cassata resonates, not only through the lense of his storytelling alternative folk/rock songs, which span four LPs and six EPs, but also in the way he lives his life. Five years sober and just a few months shy of 26, Cassata understands perseverance like no other; his entire life has been riddled with curveballs and roadblocks. From Bay Shore, New York, Cassata experienced his first of many obstacles before he was even born.

On December 13, 1993, Cassata's mother was in her third trimester. Already sick with Lupus, she suffered a severe allergic reaction to pine in the early days of the Christmas season. While a blizzard roared outside, doctors urged her to abort the baby, arguing that its additional strain on her body could end both of their lives. Refusing, she instead insisted on inducing labor six weeks early. It was on that day that Francine, a.k.a. "Fran," gave birth to Cassata. The doctors said it was a miracle they both survived. 

This was only the first of many tests of Cassata's resilience. His parents split up when he was five years old, and it wasn't long after that this middle child among brothers began begging for guitar lessons. Fran remembers him being around six when he started asking to play the red guitar that always sat in the corner of the living room in silence. "It was mostly just collecting dust, and I was drawn to it," Cassata says of that crimson guitar his older brother Vincent used to play. "I begged them for a long time to sign me up. They said I was too small and young, but I kept asking and eventually they let me."

Cassata's other primary interest also rose to the surface before grade school when he successfully convinced his parents to sign him up for another extracurricular activity: Little League. Although beyond disappointed when he learned he'd have to play softball instead of baseball on account of his sex, he was still elated to be part of a team.

Though he rarely speaks of it today for reasons that will become clear later, baseball was almost as important as music when it came to the core passions of pre-adolescent Cassata. In fact, by age 10, scattered among his Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen posters were newspaper clippings, memorabilia and souvenirs related to baseball—the Red Sox in particular. 

"I would stay up past my bedtime and sneak downstairs to watch their games at night. I had every player's name memorized," Cassata explains. Despite the fact that he was a New Yorker in a family of Mets fans, The Red Sox fascinated him. "I was transfixed. I started watching when they were underdogs. I liked their handshakes and the overall chemistry of the team. I felt a part of it in some way."

He didn't have many friends at school, but he had baseball, music, and by this point, a close relationship with his stepbrother Mike, or "The King Of Cool," as Cassata called him, who instantly became his role model when Fran remarried. Though he always knew he was different, the excitement and confidence brought on by music lessons, Little League and strong family bonds enabled Cassata to be a happy kid.

When middle school rolled around, however, Cassata's world turned upside down in a whirlwind of back-to-back tragedies. Seventh and eighth grade were two years that would prove to be the greatest testament to Cassata's resilience.

In 2006, Cassata's guitar teacher, Lou Parasimo, lost his life to Crohn's disease, plunging 12-year-old Cassata into his first-ever experience with death. These new feelings of devastation left Cassata stunned. Thankfully, Parasimo had been a major source of inspiration to young Cassata, thus enabling him to turn to music for comfort. Shortly after the tragedy, Cassata wrote his first song, "Wonderful, Beautiful," which appears on his first EP, Distraction.

GRAMMYs

Lou Parasimo & Ryan Cassata, 2006

"I wrote it on the piano," Cassata says of this early creation. "My mom came home and [asked], 'Who wrote that song?' I said, 'I did.' She couldn’t believe I wrote it because I’d just started piano lessons."

Parasimo's passing had quickly opened a door for Cassata to begin taking piano lessons from Lou’s friend, Dave Defeis, of the rock band Virgin Steele. Dave was instantly invested in Cassata's talent. "He believed in me from the very start," Cassata recalls. It was Dave who recorded this first-ever song of Cassata's, and it wouldn't be the last.

Though Parasimo would never be able to hear it, his death unlocked a new level of musicality and creativity in Cassata. This was only the beginning of songwriting serving as a coping mechanism for Cassata during hard times.

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Ryan Cassata and Dave Defeis, The Village Club, 2009

In early 2007, Cassata suffered another emotional blow when his stepbrother Mike died of a heroin overdose at just 16 years old. "I thought of him as the coolest person ever," Cassata reflects on his beloved stepbrother, whose memory he wears proudly as a tattoo of a skateboard gravestone that reads "King Of Cool." 

Topics of drug addiction and substance abuse are scattered throughout Cassata's music, sometimes in reference to his own struggles with drugs and alcohol, which plagued him until his early 20s. The song "Sobering Up," though, tells Mike’s story in Cassata's raw, lyric-dominant style. No one could or would ever replace Mike, but Cassata would soon find that the gaping hole this loss created in his heart could, in fact, be filled by something else. 

Cassata's mom had surprised him with Spring Training tickets for his birthday a couple months earlier, and the tickets were coming up. "It was only a week after my stepbrother had died," Cassata explains. After some discussion, Cassata and his mom decided they should still go and make the most of it. 
"We went on a tour of the ballpark, and this man [in Red Sox colors] noticed me, this really sad kid, and asked, 'Hey, do you want to wear my World Series ring?" It turns out this man was Carl Beane, the announcer for the Red Sox. Cassata's spirits were lifted in that moment, and thus began a life-changing friendship.

"One day, you’re going to see that all of this hard stuff you’re going through will be worth it because you’ll have the ability, then, to help others through their struggles." 

Cassata and Beane became pen pals after that, and their friendship steadily grew into something truly earnest. A few times each year, Fran would drive Cassata to meet Beane for dinner at Perkins Restaurant and Bakery, where Beane would ask to hear Cassata's newest songs. This man appreciated Cassata for who he was and remained one of his greatest supporters through each milestone and hurdle, including Cassata coming out as transgender. "Everyone always asks, 'Why the Red Sox?' The Red Sox saved my life. It sounds corny but it’s true," he says. "I was on a path to eventually meet Carl."

Beane would later die in a car accident, shortly after Cassata's top surgery in early 2012, and the young musician's heart would break once again. But as he had learned time and time again through the losses he already had to endure, the only answer was to be resilient and persevere. Cassata again harnessed this willpower in the form of artistic expression. The acoustic elegy he wrote for his beloved friend entitled "Mr. Beane (Fenway Park)" is rich with imagery of Fenway Park and revealing of Beane's impact. Cassata also wrote two poems, one of which is published on his blog. The unpublished poem contains a moving foreword from which the following quote is extracted:

"The impact that [Carl Beane] left on my life continues to live on. He [was] the angel that [got] me through some of the hardest moments in my life, and he was essential in my upbringing and survival."

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Ryan Cassata and Carl Beane, Fort Myers Florida, 2007 

Another moment Cassata refers to here is when he lost his hearing. Although the majority of the general public is unaware, Cassata has suffered from profound deafness in his left ear since the age of 14. Cassata remembers that winter day in 2008 vividly. It was the day after the Superbowl when he awoke, head spinning in a hellscape of endless vertigo. "I couldn’t stop throwing up," Cassata recalls. "Imagine being on a rollercoaster that never stops."

But, as with every other curveball life has thrown at Cassata, he found ways to cope. Relearning to walk within three weeks, Cassata refused to let this new disability destroy everything he had been working so hard for. He also remains good-humored about it. "Sometimes people shove me at the grocery store because I didn’t hear them say 'excuse me,'" he laughs. "It also sucks that people say 'never mind' when I didn’t hear what they said to me. Now I’ll never know what they said!" Cassata smiles, shaking his head, clearly of the mind that there is no use in being exasperated by this type of ignorance.

While Cassata never specifically avoided going public about his hearing loss, he hasn't exactly been vocal about it either. In his experience, people simply do not understand. He suspects it has something to do with the fact that the term "deafness" is applied to a vast range of hearing loss, and rarely are there cases as extreme as this—especially in someone so young. "My left ear is so deaf that hearing aid is useless," he explains. "Hearing aids are for people who still have some nerves working in there."

When asked how this disability affects his music, Cassata explains that it is the worst during live performances. Without a functioning left ear, the ability to stay synchronized with the band is extremely difficult. "We have to strategically place Kyle," Cassata says of his drummer Kyle Dombroski, a Los Angeles local. He goes on to explain how, while he can't always hear his whole band clearly, he can always feel those drums. Thankfully, Kyle, who holds a Master’s degree in percussion performance from UCLA, is always up to the task.

To this day, Cassata's sudden deafness remains a mystery. All doctors were able to determine was that it was an unidentifiable virus.

Cassata, who suffers from an anxiety disorder, often feels like he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders on behalf of the whole trans community. As one of the first and youngest openly trans artists ever to take center stage, both on the "Larry King Live Show" (2008) and the Vans Warped Tour (2013), he felt thrust into a position to represent an entire generation of trans youth, which was a lot for someone who first and foremost identified as a musician. 

"A fan once told me, 'Your success with your career shows me that being trans doesn’t have to hold me back,'" Cassata shares. Sentiments like this, while touching, seem to unintentionally place a burden on Cassata to deliver content and work endlessly in order to succeed. The pressure reached a tipping point last year when Cassata completed a new album that he never ended up releasing and that no one has heard. At some point during the post-production phase, it occurred to Cassata that he wasn’t being himself. The pressure had become so intense that his anxiety took the lead instead of his artistry. "I was feeling so pushed to create that I almost forgot what my fans really want to hear. People don’t listen to my music to have something to work out to. They listen because they want to feel something."

That weight was also noticeably lifted when the real reason for hiding this album came up. "I fell in love," Cassata says. In January of this year, Cassata met someone who, he says, guided him back to who he really is. Jeni, a Hollywood native who has been living substance free for 13 years, initially bonded with Cassata over their shared sobriety. However, it soon became clear on their first date that their journey had only just begun.

"I've been in love before, but this was on another level. The stars were aligning that night," Cassata says in attempts to elucidate the magic of the night they met. Jeni had no web presence or interest in social media, which enabled him to open up much faster. "She didn't want anything from me other than [for us] to love each other, and that was so freeing."

On paper, Jeni's life couldn’t possibly appear more different than his. "I work with veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD," she explains. Before meeting Cassata, Jeni, who studied neuroscience in school, limited her time on the music scene to part-time DJing. 
Still, the overlapping passions between these two creative counterparts go beyond what could be simplified on paper. Within a few days, they were writing music together. To inquiries about Jeni’s lack of experience, Cassata simply replies, "She’s just lyrical." Despite Jeni’s lack of songwriting experience, their combined passions and skills were like perfect-fit puzzle pieces for music creation. 

"While I may not be fluent in the hand-eye coordination of playing instruments, to me music is a language that I feel like I can hear and understand," Jeni explains. "I have always been musically vibrational."

Cassata's fifth LP is set to be released in March, 2020, and he seems both private and eager to talk about what fans can expect to hear. "You can expect deeper lyrics, piano solos, dark subjects and lots of romantic topics too." He also discloses that topics surrounding the Catholic Church's suppression of alternative forms of love are woven throughout.

As for the hidden album? Cassata is careful in his reply. "Maybe someday I’ll release it as a surprise," he says with a shy smile.

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Tayla Parx

Photo courtesy of Atlantic Records

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Thank U, Next Chapter: GRAMMY-Nominated Singer-Songwriter Tayla Parx On Writing With Ariana Grande, Going Solo & More

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The songwriting powerhouse, who has also penned tracks for Jennifer Lopez, Janelle Monáe and Mariah Carey, is nominated for her contributions to Grande's 'Thank U, Next' at the 62nd GRAMMY Awards
J'na Jefferson
GRAMMYs
Jan 13, 2020 - 12:01 pm

At 26 years old, Tayla Parx has solidified her spot as an industry force, thanks to her songwriting accomplishments on the pop, rock and R&B fronts. She began penning hits for superstars like Jennifer Lopez, Fifth Harmony and Mariah Carey as early as 2013, and since then, she’s added Alicia Keys, BTS and Anderson. Paak to her roster of clientele. When it comes to thematics, she's not a one-trick pony—her songs feature concepts pertaining to following your dreams (Panic! At The Disco's "High Hopes"), relationships and trust ("Love Lies" by Khalid and Normani) and female empowerment (Meghan Trainor's "Woman Up"), to name a few.

In 2018, she garnered recognition from The Recording Academy for her contributions to Janelle Monáe's Album Of The Year-nominated project Dirty Computer. Her work in 2019 with close friend Ariana Grande on her smash-hit LP Thank U, Next resulted in another GRAMMY nomination for the 62nd annual ceremony's biggest honor. She provided her lauded songwriting assists on "Needy," "NASA," "Make Up," "Ghostin," the album’s title track and "7 Rings," which is also up for Best Pop Solo Performance and Record Of The Year.

2020 GRAMMY Awards: Complete Nominees List

A triple-threat by design (many may remember her as the spunky, scene-stealing Little Inez Stubbs alongside Queen Latifah in 2007's "Hairspray"), Parx released her debut studio album We Need To Talk in April 2019. Encapsulated by addicting production that plucks inspiration from pop, R&B, reggae and more, the 15-song project finds Parx stepping into the light and developing her identity as a sweetly ferocious vocalist. Aside from being a steadily rising figure in music, Parx works tirelessly to assist other songwriters and creatives in their self-care journeys through her latest venture, Camp Burnout. 

We recently caught up with the GRAMMY-nominated artist to hear more about her songwriting successes, her solo project and more.

This interview has been condensed for clarity.

How did growing up on the acting scene help you approach music and songwriting? 

Well, coming from the world of acting taught me two things. First of all, it taught me work ethic, you know what I'm saying? It was instilled very young because the schedule of an actress is completely different than the schedule of a musician. There is no being "an hour late" or "30 minutes behind," because it obviously costs a lot more money. [Laughs.] So, it taught me that type of work mentality first. 

The other thing that I learned, later on, was the fact that, when I listened to these artists' stories, eventually it [would] become my own story. It was like you were kind of acting, and you were becoming them. It's like method acting, and when you take every emotion that [the artist] has and break it down, it's like, "Okay, if I were you, I would say it like this," which is essentially what acting is. I realized later on that [this is] the way that I connect to artists. Any time you're writing for somebody, you want to make sure that you're being authentic to them. You're saying you love somebody the way that they would say that, versus how you would personally say it. It's all about getting out of your head and really paying attention, and soaking up this other person. 

From my understanding, your songwriting gifts weren't really discovered until later—​after the acting, after the singing. When did you realize for yourself that this was another gift that you possessed and something that you could take far? 

I think the writing portion of my career kind of started off out of necessity. I was so young and was so wrapped up in the acting world, that [songwriting] was something that I had a lot to prove when I came back with it. I [had] to come back around and prove that I deserved to be in these studios, and show that music is where it all started for me. I [didn't] want to act anymore outside of voiceover, I really wanted to find myself as a musician. 

My dad used to always tell me that I should never want to be an artist that had to rely on somebody to write their songs for them. So, he encouraged me to pick [songwriting] up. I started off like any other kid—writing in my bedroom. I would literally be engineering and writing and was this one-woman show until I was able to get into the different rooms and start to learn from other people. 

What does it feel like to have a nomination for the biggest award of the night for what was such a therapeutic project for your friend, Ariana Grande? 

It feels incredible, simply because [Thank U, Next] is more than just a song and album at this point. Anytime you're helping somebody go through their history and it's something so genuine to them, I think it's more than the numbers that it does in that way. It becomes this moment in history for you—when do you remember making that song? Why did you make it? Why it was necessary for that artist? That's more of an experience. 

When Ariana started to discuss some of the things she was hoping to do with this project, did you have a feeling that it was going to be different than her other projects in terms of content? In terms of impact? 

I definitely assumed that it would be something different and unique because of the fact that she just seemed like she was in a different mindset. We hadn't worked in years before that, and to see her from a fresh perspective as somebody that that wasn't as close as some of her usual collaborators, I think that it allowed us to just approach the project differently and have fun, and she was already approaching it in an unconventional way. I think that it was a recipe for innovation. 

For her to approach it in that way of saying, “F**k all of the rules, it doesn't matter that I just put out a project, it doesn't matter that I might be considered a "pop star…'" The only thing that mattered in that time was getting out authentic music in the studio. She wasn't like, "We're gonna make an album," she just needed to get it out. The best way to do that for her is through music.

From a personal standpoint, did working on Thank U, Next help you in any way?

I think the best part about this project is [that] it reinforced how I always approach music: work with people that you enjoy working with. I think that sometimes, a lot of writers and producers will get caught up in what everybody else is doing, whatever hits that everybody else [tries to] achieve on the radio. It becomes this frenzy, and you forget the type of music you enjoy making and the people that you enjoy making it with. [The title track] really became one of my favorite songs, one of my favorite experiences in my entire songwriting career, and [the album] is one of the biggest albums that I've worked on. That proved to me that I could have my cake and eat it too—I can have success doing the things that I want to do as a writer and producer. 

You have a new album out called We Need To Talk. When you're working with so many people behind-the-scenes, there are a couple of apprehensions that come with stepping into the spotlight as your own person. Did you have any fears about putting out your first project since your 2017 mixtape?

When I dropped the Tayla Made mixtape, it was my first kind of opportunity to say, "Hey look, I’m either going to go for it, or just stay behind the scenes as a songwriter," because I really enjoy that. After the tape, there was something about me that was like, "I still have more of a story to tell, and there's still not a way that I hear this perspective to these types of beats and in this type of language." I feel like We Need To Talk was something that came so naturally. 

At first, it was very, very scary. Obviously, [songwriters] are this muse that people don't see, it’s like the curtain is being pulled. I think that's probably the biggest fear that most people have, but once I got over that fear and anxiety and just said, "You know what? I'm not going to be afraid anymore," I just started to be more open about discovering my story. You can listen to [the album] from the front to the end, but you can also just bump whatever song relates to you. I'm telling you my story, this is what has happened in the past few months or a year. We Need To Talk was me really discovering myself in a way that I hadn't before. It was perfect timing for me because I'm also allowing myself—somebody who’s been working since I was nine years old—to live my life. I've been just living my best life these days and really discovering who I am. 

You also have a tour coming up to support the album. So what are some of the things that you're looking forward to? 

The most exciting thing is getting my own vision out there on that stage, and really being able to create my world. It's different when you're opening up for artists because I have to respect that that's somebody else's show, and you're here to also to be a part of that, which is amazing in its own right. But now this time, I get to say, "This is how I want my stage to look, and this sound, the lighting…" and I'm really excited to show people how it adds to the experience of listening to the album.

You have a camp for songwriters and creatives that focuses on self-care called Camp Burnout. Burnout is not just with working and writing—​burnout can mean feeling like no one is really paying attention to your work or valuing your effort, your time, and your talents. How are you able to nurture yourself and focus on making sure your mental health is on point? 

It’s just self-accountability. It should be easy to say, "Hey, I deserve to take care of myself." I started to discover myself and really reassess my own life... I find new hobbies all the time. I find new ways to keep inspiring myself. I learned how to bake a cake one day, or I cook a few times a week. There's a million different things that you can find that will inspire you. [Self-care] became something that went from "I enjoy doing it," to me realizing that this is a necessity amongst the entire creative community. 

What is the importance of being multifaceted and having the gift of working with so many people regardless of genre? 

[Laughs.] I think that the funny thing about this is that all music comes from around one or two genres if you really know about the evolution of music, right? So, once you become a student of music, you realize that you can allow [yourself] to be open to not being put into a box, a genre box. That's what the evolution of music is: a mixture of genres that just happen to lead to a new one. It's definitely interesting to be able to go on that adventure and continue to break these boundaries.

I've kind of gone away from saying "What is mainstream?" and "What is cool to other people?" to "What is cool to me?" Genre does not matter, it never has. If you're really pushing yourself as a songwriter, you can write any genre. You can be a sponge and you can co-create, and write anything bigger than a genre. It's all lyric and melody. 

What are some of your biggest aspirations for 2020 besides getting that GRAMMY win? 

Besides the GRAMMY win, My biggest aspirations for 2020 are killing it on tour, and really getting to see each and every one of my fans, vibe with them and perform live with them.

Then the other thing is that my publishing company (Parx Publishing) has been doing really well. My writers and my producers are killing it, they have so many records coming out that are changing their lives, and for me to be a part of that is beautiful. I want to continue to instill what I'm instilling with them: that publishing and the music industry in general is going in a new way. If you can be creative enough, it can work in your favor. 

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