Blend

Aldous Harding's latest album Party is available now.

Teleport with John Carroll Kirby

On this album, each instrument sits distinctly apart from one another, so their tenors and harmonic contributions can be easily picked out. Wood flutes hover above round 808s; simple melodies on the piano poke through swirly sheets of retro synths. The combination is familiar and foreign. On songs such as “Blueberry Beads,” it’s as if David Axelrod scored the soundtrack to a Nintendo Gameboy game. On others, like “San Nicolas Island,” it’s as though the expressive muzak at your favorite Chinese restaurant was covered by Daft Punk.

office caught up with the composer to talk about meeting Karl Lagerfeld, third-generation exotica, and how his time with guru Sri Dharma Mittra has influenced his music.

Your last LP, a visual album Travel, featured a lot of found footage. Why'd you op for previously recorded footage instead of recording it yourself?

I was really just working with the means that we had. It was more just to have a visual component. I actually ended up doing it again down the road. On Tuscany, my piano album from last year, we did a bit of found footage.

Have you found any benefits to using found footage?

Aside from the obvious, that it's easier, it's just cool to do. Especially with my music. I'm not gonna make a music video where two attractive people meet at a party and fall in love, let's say. It's not the kind of narrative I'm creating. So in a way, it's cool to use things that already exist, because I'm not really a fan of narrative music videos. I'd rather have it where you can just listen to the music along with light, visual suggestions of something.

I read in an interview that you have a guru, Sri Dharma Mittra.

Yeah, he's actually in New York. He's a very accessible guy. But I wouldn't say he's my personal guru—it's not like I go to his house or anything. Though, he is the person I study yoga philosophy with very intensely and who I refer to in times of confusion. He's been very helpful to me and to a lot of folks throughout my life. His teacher, known as Swami Gupta, was one of the first to bring yoga to New York. That was probably, 1940s or '50s. Dharma Mittra is actually himself Brazilian, but he read a book about his guru and left everything behind in Brazil and came to New York, really never looking back. He's done a lot in New York to pass along that tradition.

How'd you find him?

I found him because I was practicing Bikram Yoga quite intensely, which has since fallen apart because of scandal. One of the gentlemen who was actually the Bikram World Champion, a guy named Jared McCann—also just a phenomenal yoga teacher in New York—he came in and saw that I was going to Bikram a lot, and he said, "Oh, this is cool, but you got to go check out Dharma. He's up in Flatiron. You got to go take his class."

Do you find that your yoga practices make their way into your music?

It does. I released an album a few years ago called Meditations in Music, and that was recorded when I felt I was at a very peaceful place, really sticking to his teachings a lot, following a calm and peaceful process throughout my day. Since moving back to LA and being away from him and his teachings, I think I've maybe fallen off a little bit, but it works its way in my music a lot. On my upcoming album, the first song, it's called "Blueberry Beads," is also inspired by him. "Blueberry Beads'' is another name for rudraksha beads, which are kind of like rosary beads for a yogi. [Mittra] is a very funny guy; he always keeps things very light. Almost at the end of every class, he says, "Hey, I'm just passing on to you what I found helpful in my life. If some of this doesn't resonate with you, no pressure." I like that approach a lot. In my music, I wouldn't want anyone to feel like I'm belaboring any point or overemphasizing any kind of spirituality.

I'd love to know more about your introduction to music. When did you start playing?

I started playing when I was 13 years old, when I started piano. I was studying with this really funny dude, a kind of neurotic Woody Allen–type dude, Roark Honeycutt. I really enjoyed those lessons. He was a great teacher, because he just made it fun. A lot of times we would go into the lesson and just talk the whole time, bugging out on stuff. On whatever. I remember there was a stain on the ceiling this one time, and I think we talked about mold. I think such a big part about being a musician is actually just being able to hangout and talk to people—it seems like you actually do that more than you play sometimes. On tour, or if you have a gig, you might play for an hour, but you'll be at the gig for five or six. After Roark, I went on to study music at the University of Southern California with a man who became my mentor. His name is John Clayton. He himself was a bass player and arranger in Count Bassie's orchestra. He was first actually a family friend, then when he saw that I was serious about music, I got to study with him.

How does your process change when you're collaborating with someone like Solange versus when you're making your own music?

When I'm collaborating, I'm always trying to think of myself as the accompanist. I'm still learning this, but sometimes all you need to do in a recording session as a keyboard player is just play the most basic and simple voicings and pads. It doesn't have to be the coolest synth sound; it doesn't have to be the coolest voicing. Sometimes that's really all that's required. When I'm collaborating, that's the primary objective. When it's myself, I get to cut loose a little bit. I still try to apply that. I still try to take the simplest approach, but at the same time, I can add more flourishes.

How'd you come to meet Solange?

We were kind of in similar circles in New York. She had been working with Chris Taylor from Grizzly Bear, and I had also been playing in Chris Taylor's side project called Can't. She had done a tune with my friend's band, Rewards. And so we would be playing at venues all around New York, and sometimes she would come in and sing the song. So I got to know her that way. But it wasn't until a fair few years later that I started working on A Seat at the Table.

How was working with her?

Great. She's great. She's really an inspired person. She has a really unorthodox approach to making music, to getting inspiration from different visuals. It's funny, she can talk about jazz, like she'll tell me all kinds of shit I didn't know about jazz, but then I'll see her talk to someone about fashion, and she'll school them on fashion, or visual arts, or movies too. She's really a knowledgeable person, and she would draw on that stuff a lot. She's also very free.

Can you tell me a little bit about when you met Karl Lagerfeld?

I was working with my good friends, Sebastien Tellier and Dan Stricker; we have a band called Mind Gamers and also an LP coming out sometime soon. So, Sebastian had been doing music for the Chanel shows, and he had toyed with the idea of asking Karl to do something for it. He was a little nervous but decided fuck it, the worst he could say is no. He asked him, "Would you maybe want to read this little poem at the top of the song?" The song is called "Golden Boy." And Karl's right hand, a woman by the name of Virginie, got right back and said, "Yup. Come in tonight. Karl shows up to work at 8 p.m. Come in at 7 p.m." We were all so excited. We went immediately to the bar to have champagne to pre-celebrate and ease our nerves. Because Karl is the kind of guy who commands a lot of respect, we didn't want to be too nervous. So we came in with this little intro to the song, and we said, "Karl, we want you to read this." And he looked it over and goes, "Who wrote this?" I raised my hand, and he said [in his best German accent], "It's güd." From then on, I thought, "We're cool. He's happy to be doing this. I can tell." He then told us, "I will do this in Sprechgesang." And we were like, "What is that?" He told us, "It's this 20th-century technique employed by the likes of Arnold Schoenberg." And so he reads it perfectly, and his whole team, all his assistants in the room, start clapping, saying, "Brilliant, Karl. It was brilliant." And it was really true. It was great. He nailed it.

It seems to me that you have a pretty solid grasp of music theory and history, so given that, how would you describe your music?

I think a big part of my music is imagination. You know someone just told me recently, "I feel like I'm in a surrealist painting—but a very simple one. Not like a Dali, where the clocks are melting, but there might just be a statue in the distance, or a mountain, or a coyote." I try to create a space when I make music that you can sit in, a mood. I'm actually very inspired by a Larry Hurd album called Sceneries Not Songs. I find that's a cool way of putting it. For Travel, I was very inspired by the genre exotica, because it tries to elicit a certain vision using sounds that you're already familiar with. So if you're making music about Polynesia, let's say, you would use sounds from the regular, European orchestra, but while trying to make people feel like they are in a certain location. And I thought that was a cool technique—to use your imagination with sounds you might already know.

You've mentioned before that your music is "third-generation exotica."

Yeah. So the first generation would be something like Les Baxter. And then a few years later, Haruomi Hosono's Yellow Magic Orchestra sort of reproached exotica with their own view, using synthesizers instead of orchestral instruments. My third-generation exotica uses synthesizers, uses real instruments, but also samples—things downloaded off the internet or played in contact. But the mindset is still the same, the goal is still the same.

Why the fascination with non-western themes?

Well, my upcoming album My Garden is really more focused on LA, and my previous album Tuscany was really focused on Italy. But I just find it really peaceful. I've been attracted to a lot of eastern ideology. I find that it resonates with a lot of people. When I was living in New York, studying yoga was a really great way to balance the chaos of the city. I've just found it to be very helpful in my life. It's certainly a personal connection. I've always been attracted to mythology, and I've found that the stories in a lot of eastern cultures are very rich and have a lot of meaning.

So if My Garden is focused on LA, what specifically did you want to focus on?

As opposed to my other works, which have been thinking about things far away, for this one I wanted to bring it home and talk about stories, locations, and feelings that are meaningful to me. Like I have a song about Arroyo Seco, which is the natural area near my house where I grew up. I also have a song called "San Nicolas Island," which is about an indigenous woman who was left on an island for 30 years of her life, all by herself, just off the coast of Santa Barbara. Her name is Juana Maria, and she's known as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island. Missionaries came to the island, captured her tribe, the Nicoleño tribe, and brought back everyone to Santa Barbra except her. It wasn't until thirty years later that they found her still living there. They ended up taking her to Santa Barbra, but she didn't live long. I think she died of smallpox, or something very common. It's a sad story but inspiring too that she was able to survive like that on her own.

Music

ZSELA Talks to Herself

Zsela, in fact, is not one to rush things. Despite coming from an artistic background, she’s gradually eased herself into the industry. Her father, Marc Anthony Thompson (also known by his collective’s name, Chocolate Genius) has been a part of New York’s singer-songwriter scene since the '80s; and her half-sister, Tessa Thompson, has already made a name for herself in Hollywood. After three years at SUNY Purchase, toying with ideas of what she wanted to do, Zsela dropped out to pursue music full-time—but even still, she was hesitant to call it her “career.” She began performing at fashion events put on by friends in New York City and at art museums, such as MoMA PS1—unconventional venues, but venues which suited her music. Around this time Zsela gained a manager, and through her met Daniel Aged, who would go on to produce her long-awaited EP. Things began to coalesce, and almost simultaneously, she went on tour with one of her idols, a friend of her father’s: Cat Powers. Only then was she beginning to think of music as a career.

A week before the April 24 release of Ache of Victory, office caught up with Zsela to talk about her debut EP, her love of Times Square, and her first steps into the music industry.

Where are you holed up for quarantine?

I live in New York, but I'm in California right now, staying with my family. I flew out to be closer to them and help them. As much as it's been hard with space and everything, it's been really beautiful to be close with them.

Have you been keeping busy?

I somehow always feel busy. I'm with my parents and little brother, and somehow there's always something we need. But personally, I have this EP coming out, so I've had to get creative. I want to do something for the day it comes out—some sort of live performance online, so I've been thinking about how to do that. I want to record a radio show, too, so I've been trying to get my dad to help me with that. We also have a game night every week that we do. My sister comes over; my brother MacGyvers a ping-pong table on our dining room table. We've gotten super into it. Everyone LOVES it. We've been playing until 1:00 a.m. I'm pretty steady—I'm trying to get better at those hard, slam dunk moves—but my dad and my brother are the best.

Are you doing anything to celebrate the release of the EP?

I feel lucky that I can have my sister come over, so maybe we'll do dinner or something. Daniel Aged, who I did the EP with—he's in LA too, and he's been quarantining for awhile, so it'd be great to have him over and do a performance. Even just having him will be a celebration, I think.

Yeah, seeing any new faces at this point is a big deal.

Yeah! [Laughs] Yeah, it'd be amazing.

How'd you get connected with Daniel?

I met him, when was it? Two years ago? Through my manager, we met in LA. When we first started working together, we were still trying to find our footing. I think there was a lot of newness for both of us. He has produced for people, but I don't think he’s done a whole project with just one artist. It was mainly just me and him shaping it all.

You told The Cut that the best album ever made was one of your father's, called Truth vs. Beauty. You must have a lot of respect for him.

I do. I really do. For his music, especially.

What was it like growing up with a career musician as a father?

Both of my parents are artists, and growing up in a home that was super supportive and fostering, a real creative environment—I feel very lucky to have had that. They were never pressuring me to pursue music as a career. They weren't trying to send me to law school or anything, but they weren't telling me I should do this. My dad, having a life in music, knows the hardships of it, the finances and inconsistency of it. He would always be supportive of my voice, and I would sing on stuff as a kid, but it always came to me to put that pressure on myself.

Knowing that it's such a hard industry to be in, was he concerned at all when you began pursuing music full-time?

I think he was reserved in a way. He wasn't wanting to put too much of an opinion on it. I think he wanted to see how I was going to go about it. It took me a minute to even be really confident and say this is what I wanted to do. I only started calling it my “career” like two years ago when I got a manager and met Daniel. If any of his concerns came through, it was when I wasn't that confident in it—which is probably fair.

You've spent some time upstate at a SUNY school, but you left before you completed your degree. Why'd you feel compelled to leave?

I really went to college very much to appease my parents. My mom never went to college; my dad never graduated. I was like, "Oh, I should do this." But I went in very undecided. I went from Hawthorne Valley Waldorf High School, which is on a farm with fifteen kids in my graduating class, to a huge SUNY school. I was just really unsure of what I was trying to do. But I made close friends, and then I was going to drop out, because a lot of them were graduating, but I thought, "You know what, let me just try to get into the music conservatory." So I applied, I got in, and they made this major for me. I was super excited about it. But, I don't know. At that time, I just started to get more excited about visiting the city. And then, I started recording in the city and ultimately dropped out, because I felt more inspired doing that.

You started by singing at a lot of fashion events. How'd you get connected with the fashion world?

Mainly just through friends when I moved to the city. I was kinda in the downtown, art-kid scene, and people like doing non-traditional fashion shows.

Do you find that performing at these events is different than performing on tour?

Well, it all kind of hit me at the same time. I had no experience really performing anywhere else. I was at a lot of these really untraditional places, because with my music, we were trying to get creative with where it made sense. I would get hit up by friends who would say, "Oh, you should play at this party." But I'm not really singing party songs, you know? They don't make sense in a club setting. The first show I played at was this lounge bar in Bed-Stuy, and then there was MoMA PS-1. Those spaces made a lot more sense at the time. And when I got the tour—which was a dream tour for me; I love Cat Power—it also made a lot of sense for the music, because the venues were all these small, seated ballrooms. These coincided with the same level of intimacy that the art and fashion shows did.

Your debut EP starts right off with a really poignant song about the effects of alcoholism. Is that a metaphor, or are you pulling from first-hand experiences?

It's pretty specific; it's not really a metaphor. I mean, it was kind of a metaphor for the time I was in; I wrote it during a time when I was going through a lot of things, and a lot of friends around me were going through a lot of things. But it's also been a kind of theme in my life... with family members in my life. So... yeah. [Laughs]

A lot of your music is quite personal. Do you ever find it hard to share it?

In the beginning—well, actually every time I perform it, it's really intense for me. But I've also lived with these songs for a while now, and they're so much a part of me. So much of the EP is about moving on, learning from loss, learning from change, and finding your own success from something that was really toxic and challenging. So, every time I perform or put them out into the world, it feels like I'm exercising some sort of release. In a spiritual and emotional way, it feels like a release. It's wild—I've always made music in a super private way. Like I didn't think about what it means to let people inside of it, but now, I've finally gotten to this comfortable place of really wanting people to be inside of it.

What are some things you've learned while making this EP?

I've learned a lot of patience. I've learned that I need to take my time, and I've learned that that's okay. If I didn't take my time, I don't think I would've liked what these songs would have been. I took care to get them to a place that I feel good about. Also, I feel really good about letting myself get to a place where I'm ready to share with the world. I don't think I was before. So yeah, I guess I've learned a lot of patience, and that time is my friend. That's always something that my dad has said, but I finally figured that out on my own.

Isn't that always the case? Parents can say something again and again and again, but you only realize they're right when you experience it for yourself.

I know! Like, "Okay, you were right." But also, with the songs, they definitely demand a lot of time and space; there's a certain pace to them. I've learned to just trust the songs and what's really supposed to shine through, which for this project is all about the voice and lyrics.

What was the hardest song to fully realize on this EP?

You know, the drinking song. [Laughs] I'm really glad that Daniel and I were on the same page about it. There was something missing or not enough about it all the time. As the deadlines were coming up, we hit a place where I was like, "We need the door slam!" We were just adding things and taking things away up until the last moment. It definitely was the one, at least sonically, that we were tinkering on the latest. It was a very intense song for me, so I got a little obsessed with how it comes through.

A lot of times on this EP, I realize that I'm just talking to myself.

Is there a process that you fall back on when writing songs, especially when they get personal?

Well, these songs are personal, but they can also be impersonal in that they're not always about one thing; they're not very linear. It's funny, you have moments in a song where you can look back with hindsight and realize, "Oh that's not about me; that's about my parents." Also, some of them draw from lyrics written at different times. It's not always a set routine with my writing. Sometimes, when I'm really fucking lucky, it'll come all out at once like word vomit. But other times, I put together lyrics that I've held onto for a long time. Or put them together with new lyrics, and it becomes this story of different times and relationships that inspire me. A lot of times on this EP, I realize that I'm just talking to myself.

When you write lyrics, do you write them to music, or do you keep a journal and jot phrases down whenever they come to mind?

I actually do a lot of stuff in my head, especially when I was writing these songs. I was living with six roommates, and then I was living at my grandmother's house—I really wasn't allowing myself to have that much space. So for a lot of the songs, I recorded melody and lyrics on voice memos. I always like to have a bank of lyrics, which goes back to me saying the thing about drawing from lyrics from different times. Like the drinking song I wrote, I wrote the melody and lyrics as one, then found the chords after, which I've done for most of my songs.

About your music video for "Noise," Daniel Arnold said that he wanted to capture the “New York that drags you through the day when you’re busted… the one who laughs in your flat-broke, sad-sack heartbreak face 'til you’re laughing back.” Is this one of your experiences of New York, too?

Oh yeah. All the time. I think my caption when we put the video out was, "I love you New York. I love dancing with you even when you trip me." It's really weird not to be there right now. I definitely feel such a strong, intense, sicko love for New York. I grew up there, and it's always going to be home.

New York makes masochists out of all of us.

Hell yeah. It's also really wild that we ended up doing that video in Times Square, because I have always loved Times Square, but I didn't realize that was weird. It's like Daniel Arnold's home, and I was living there at the time of writing "Noise," but when I was talking with all these people about it, they were like, "Oh my god, can you even walk down the street?" I forgot that people are really stressed out by Times Square; it was my walk home everyday, and I love it. I just think it's so weird.

It is interesting that so many New Yorkers have such a deep disdain for Times Square.

They hate it. But it's also a thing for New Yorkers to be like, "Ew." And I'm like, "Yeaah, totally." But then I'm like, "Wait, I love it there!" When I lived at my grandma's, I would just go out and run and sing—I didn't care; I wasn't going to run into anyone I knew.

Even though there are so many people there, you have so much anonymity.

That's what it felt like. Nobody cares about what you're doing. You can just be. And the energy of it—I felt good there. It's wild to think about it now and to see photos of it completely empty.

So as a native New Yorker, born and raised for a time in Fort Greene, what are your favorite joints in Brooklyn?

One of my favorite one's was just sold actually. It was called Frank's Lounge. I couldn't go there when I was a kid, because it's a bar. But my dad used to perform there. To practice, he'd do little shows at the bar. They also have this karaoke night, and it's really, really special. A bunch of old regulars come and sing like really well. And it turns into a really cute vibe. I love Mike's Coffee Shop; it's a really cute, old dinner. Fort Greene Park, too. And Soul Summit.

Music

Coming Off of High Highs with Lolo Zouaï

April 24, 2020

Lolo last talked with office right before the release of her debut album High Highs to Low Lows, a moody R&B record with warm, capacious 808s and trap-inspired drum kits that reflected the turbulent times she was going through as an emerging talent. The album accelerated her rise into indie-stardom, garnering her praise from pop critics and the New York DIY community alike.

Since its release, she’s walked in a New York Fashion Week show (put on by her long-time friend Kidsuper), toured nationally (and internationally), and has even secured a spot opening for Dua Lipa on her (now postponed) Future Nostalgia Tour. Along the way, her fan-base has grown in number and zeal; one eager guy went as far as getting a tattoo of one of her lyrics. It’s hard to imagine she’s experiencing many low lows at the moment.

But down-to-earth and reflective, Lolo is not one to dwell on fame or the past. She’s a go-getter at heart, which is perhaps why she’s where she is today.

Interview by Kedar Berntson
Photos by Tommy Nowels

Whether it’s working at Bareburger or jettisoning across the globe, Lolo maintains a leveled perspective about whatever her situation is. She knows what it takes to make it (hard work) and what it takes to keep it (authenticity). No matter the context, she tries only to be herself.

In anticipation for the release of her new single, "It's My Fault," the freshman songstress catches up with office to talk about what form her new music may take, some lessons she’s learned couch-surfing, and the origin of her love for NASCAR jackets.

How're you passing the time in quarantine?

I was just about to play my last move on scrabble.

Oh no, sorry for interrupting you!

No no, it's fine! I think I won anyway.

How's quarantine treating you?

It's been different. I'm grateful that I can still record at home. I set up a little studio and even a backdrop because I'm planning on releasing new music, so I've been shooting cover art in the house. I've been finding creative ways to be productive.

So your real name's Laureen. Is "Lolo" a nickname someone gave you, or a name you created yourself?

Lolo is a nickname that someone gave me in elementary school, but I forgot about it and went by Laureen pretty much my whole life. While I was growing up in San Francisco, I was just Laureen. But when I was nineteen, I moved to New York and decided to try and make it in the music industry, so I felt that I needed to have an artist name. I wanted something to separate myself from what my mom calls me and what the public would know me as. So, I thought let's use Lolo because people have called me that before, and let's use my last name, because it has a lot of vowels, and I think they look good together. I've always liked stage-names that have two parts. Even though I think "Rihanna" or "Beyoncé" is really fire, I don't think Laureen can stand on its own. I think it's better for a country or really sweet pop album.

Like a Dolly Parton song?

Oh, yes. I love Dolly Parton. She’s such a great lyricist.

I'm sure you've been asked this question a lot, but what does your album High Highs to Low Lows mean to you, especially right now?

Oof. It's about to be the year anniversary of the album. I wrote it at a time when I was kinda depressed. I was working at a restaurant and had little money—but I was hustling and trying to get in the studio whenever I could. So that album to me is forever ingrained in my brain as the time when I was hustling, struggling, but really, really passionate. Which, I still am, but it was a different kind of passion back then. A, "If I don't do this, I'm going to work at a restaurant forever" kind of passion.

Given that your music tends to be about your personal experiences, what do you think your next project is going to reflect? Especially now that you've established yourself more financially and artistically. You seem to be experiencing more high highs than low lows at the moment.

Well, you would think. But I think last year was a pretty difficult year for me. I was adjusting to everything, so I still had a lot of the lows—even though you'd imagine I'd have more of the highs. I have three songs that I'm working on, which I'm going to put out, that are really moody. I would say that my album had a lot of emotions; it was going up and down and up and down. These new songs don't have that as much. They're looking internally, but I’m still trying to figure out what the narrative of the new album is going to be now that my life has changed.

You've mentioned before that you used to suffer from stage fright, which is obviously a debilitating thing to have as a musician. How'd you get over it?

Oh, man. To get over it, you just have to jump into it. The stage fright is worse when you don't really have a fan base and no one supporting you when you go out to perform. But once I started going on tour and I had three-hundred people singing my lyrics and telling me that they loved my music, that gave me confidence. I could dive into it and just be myself on stage.

That approach seems pretty analogous to how you broke into the music industry writ large.

Yeah, I guess that's true. You just have to go for it and put yourself out there. I think, especially nowadays, people can really tell if an artist is genuine or if it's forced. People want to see something real, and they want to see something unique. That's my approach when it comes to everything. All you can do as an artist is be yourself, put out music, and tour.

Do you like touring?

I like it, but I like it less than I like making music. My energy gets strained really easily. I'm just sensitive to the people around me, so when you're experiencing all that energy up on stage, all at once, and then go to nothing, it's really hard to find some sort of balance. I mean, I've only been touring for a year and a half or two years, so as time goes on, I'm sure I'll get better at managing it. I was really, really looking forward to the Dua tour that was supposed to start this spring.

I was just about to bring that up! At least it's still going to happen.

Yeah, it's still happening. But see, that's different because that tour isn't my tour. So, for me, it's just an exciting opportunity to make new fans and see how an arena tour works.

So like everyone seems to do with you, let’s talk fashion. I’ve read you’re a big thrifter, where’d you get your style-inspiration from? Big hoops, berets, vintage NASCAR jackets—it’s an eclectic look.

Well, I think my love for the NASCAR jackets comes from Le Mans. My family is from this place in France called Le Mans, and there's this classic race there, where drivers drive for twenty-four hours. When I was younger, I went to one of those races, and I was actually the girl who gave the winners Champagne. I remember I was fifteen-years old, and it was my first time on TV. I was super hyped. So finding these jackets in thrift stores in Brooklyn—these beautiful, colorful pieces—reminds me of that. They just have so much history. You don't know who wore it last. Like it could've been some sixty-year-old man who smokes cigarettes in his basement, but there's something about the history of those clothes that I love. I want to be a sixty-year-old lady with this room full of vintage NASCAR jackets.

You're really close with the Brooklyn designer Kidsuper. You went from crashing in his apartment to walking in his New York Fashion Week show. How'd you get to know him?

So my manager, Doug, DM'd me for the first time four years ago when I just had one song out, and he was like, "Hey you should come by Kidsuper's," because he works with him and the company. So he brought me by, and I basically moved in a week later. I was living with my mom at the time, but I wanted to live with people my age and experience Brooklyn, so I moved in with Kidsuper for six months. And that's when I really started realizing the value of the DIY approach. They had worked with other artists who were putting music out independently, and they inspired me to put out my own singles. They told me I could just put them out on this website for ten dollars, and I was like, "Oh, shit." Everyone really assumes you need a label to put music out, and I just thought that was the case. With Kidsuper it's really more like a family than anything.

Colm's really has a magnetism about him. He attracts a lot of talented people. What was it like to live in that sort of incubator environment he created?

It was really eye-opening. I saw a group of guys who really did everything themselves. Like there's one guy who designs the website and merch and cover art, and another guy who designs the clothes and these crazy claymation videos. And it really made me realize that there's always someone out there working harder than you. Nobody's waiting for you to be successful. Being there really motivated me.

Your mother's French, and your Father's Algerian. How do you stay connected with your French and Algerian roots?

Putting a little touch of french or arabic into my music has brought me closer to my origins. I've been able to go to France so many times in the last two years, and that's part of how I've been tapping into my french culture. And my song "Desert Rose" allowed me to go to Morocco, which has a really similar culture to Algeria. It's really amazing that my music is allowing me to get back to where I came from.

In relation to "Desert Rose," you mentioned on Instagram that you were apprehensive to share that part of your life.

It was a very vulnerable subject, and I didn't want to offend my family. It was more that I was being sensitive to them; I didn't want anyone to feel like I was exposing or talking bad about my family. It was just my side of the story because I had a really hard time; some of my family members didn't want me to be a singer. They didn't want me to have their name out there—it's just not part of the culture or religion to be a public figure. I was just fearful of offending my family and them thinking that it wasn't out of love, which it was.

You collaborated with Stelios Phili for your last album. How'd you guys get together?

Through Kidsuper actually. He was working with a rapper who was also living with Kidsuper at the time. We met, got along, had a couple sessions, and once I came in with the idea for "High Highs to Low Lows," we made that song and it really started going from there. It just felt really good, like we were on to something. We've been working together remotely now for other projects. He sends me stuff and I send him back vocals. It's going to be interesting to see how music changes this year. I feel prepared because I've been doing things for myself for a very long time, so I think I have the knowledge to still make music. But I know a lot of people are going to have to learn how to record themselves and all of that.

In your song "Moi" you sing that you have three passport photos, and in a previous interview, you've mentioned that you don't like staying in one place. Does your time in New York have an expiration date?

I do actually have three passports—an Algerian, a French, and an American. But, yeah. I feel like it's actually coming up. I'm from California, and I've been in New York for five years, and I feel like I've pretty much done what I gotta do in here. I feel a move back west on the way.

Back home to San Francisco or to LA?

Probably to LA. It's hard to be in New York and have a healthy lifestyle. I'm very influenced by the weather, and I really miss the sunshine and the beach. I think five years in New York is really a good time. Ultimately, I would love to be bi-costal, but I don't know. I think I might go to LA for a bit.

What do you hope for the future?

I hope we develop a vaccine for this virus. I hope we all get universal healthcare. I don't know how that's frickin' possible, but it would be awesome. I think everything is really uncertain right now, but I think music is a necessity and can really help people. So, I hope my music can give some comfort.

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