Justin Strauss Reimagines Kasper Bjørke’s “Tears We Haven’t Cried”

Nuna is refreshingly thoughtful and introspective, and more than happy to indulge my philosophical trains of thought; the arrival of our order of mozzarella sticks is enough to trigger an existential train of thought about culinary arts as the most primal form of human creativity. We discussed returning to the root of her love for music, staying true to herself, and riding the wave of the new digital revolution. Read our conversation below.

AUDREY wears JACKET and SKIRT by DION LEE, SHORTS by 7 DAYS ACTIVE, SHOES by ALEXANDER WANG, JEWELRY by CHRIS HABANA

Brook Aster— What was your early childhood like in New Jersey?

Audrey Nuna— It was very peaceful. Definitely a bit confusing, in terms of just not having a community around, but still I think all of it just played into finding myself on the creative side and filling a lot of my time with making things at a young age, and that was great.

What was the early conversation with your parents like, telling them that you wanted to pursue music?

I don't think it was ever even a conversation. I expressed interest in music and singing from a really young age, so it was kind of just known, like, she loves that. They pushed me in the route that they knew, which was a very academic form of music; joining choirs, doing musicals, that sort of thing. They were really supportive from the beginning, and they saw this thing in me that they probably in a way recognized in themselves, but they didn't get the chance to express it that much. They had to learn how to survive in a completely new country, and that takes up a lot of your time, a lot of your energy. They're both creative and they saw that in me, and they really wanted to give me the opportunity to build it more than they got the chance to.

Even if you grew up in this country, having the self-possession to pursue art is already hard. I always wonder what my mom would have been if she was born a generation later, and was born here.

You just gave me chills, because I just met with my friend who's also first generation, she's Filipino. We were just talking about this, about how much our moms have given to us and how much they had to give up in order to allow us to do what we want to do. And I started crying at lunch. I was like, why is this hitting me so hard? 

Out of all the people that I've never met, there’s no one who I care about more than the version of my mom before she had me. Like, If you showed up somehow in today’s moment, I would do anything for you.

It's actually wild because I had a show yesterday at Ludlow House, and my mom was there, so I brought her with me to the office [issue 21 release] party after. My mom loves music. My love for music, I think, or at least rhythmic music, 100% comes from my mom's side, and my love for melody comes from my dad. We had this moment when Memphy was playing, where I got to see a version of her that I felt like we were the same age for a second. We were dancing to this trance-like music together and it was just so genuine. I just felt really grateful to be able to share that with her. 

Would you expect them to be into the kind of music that you make if you weren’t their kid? 

[Laughs] To be honest, probably not. Maybe those certain songs my mom loves the R&B side and the dancier side of things, and then my dad loves just like the more classic melodic side of things. I think there's pockets of my sonic world that they would appreciate. But it all comes from them honestly.

AUDREY wears DRESS by ACNE STUDIOS, BOOTS by SACAI, JEWELRY by MARTINE ALI

On set, we talked about how you took a year off from NYU to focus on your music after freshman year, which turned into dropping out and releasing your first album. What was that first year like?

I was just rolling with the punches. My first year was awesome. I had such a good time moving into the city, moving into a place with so much more energy than I grew up with. For basically the first 18 years of my life, I was in this crucible of pressure, and a lot of creative suppression, and doing things out of boredom, like I wanted to do them but I wasn’t fully expressing myself. I think that when I hit NYU, I had so much potential energy. There was a moment where it shifted to kinetic energy.

What was the specific catalyst for you to take the next step and leave school to focus on music? 

It was something I thought about for a long time, for the whole year basically. I was juggling school work and music, and going to the studio every night till 4am and then trying to make it to my 3pm music history class or whatever. It just came to a point of curiosity: what if I just put all my energy towards one or the other? 

And also, affording school was really a big factor of why I wanted to stop, because at that point, I had been able to get some academic scholarships and financial aid, but then starting my next year, I would have had to go into student debt and affect my future in order to continue school. 

All the signs pointed me to take the leap and just try. So I did. I didn't really have that much of a plan. I moved to a town right outside of New York, called Fort Lee. It's like the K-town of Jersey.  I stayed there for a year, wrote my ass off, recorded my ass off, just worked on my craft for a year. And then, I don't know, things kind of just fell into place somehow from there.

Was it scary during that first period of time?

It's so funny, because people always ask me that, and my genuine answer is no. 

I don't know why, but I think I'm more scared now than I was then. I think as you get older, your whole goal is to be your younger self. There was this fearlessness and it came from not being so scarred. Then you get hurt, and then you start to lose that fearlessness and you're always trying to replicate it. I realize that that's what getting older is: how close can you stay to that 19 year old self, who genuinely just wasn't scared?

Totally. It’s easy to think that what you're accumulating is wisdom, but sometimes what you're actually accumulating is sensitivity, or pain.

Maybe even a little bit of bitterness, at least speaking from my experience. How could you not get a little jaded out here? It's pretty wild out in the world. 

I really idolize my younger self, I think for good reason. I think we all should. Even with the creative process of making this project, I considered it as a pilgrimage to try to do what I did in that gap year. Not necessarily in the same place, or with the same people or the same conditions, but the energy of it; I was like, what the fuck was I on? and just constantly trying to get to that place.

AUDREY wears JACKET and HOODIE by BALENCIAGA, SHORTS by 7 DAYS ACTIVE, BOOTS by R13

I was watching the videos for “Cellulite” and “Joke’s On Me,” and there's so much floating, flying, and images of you being untethered. How does that factor into where you've been emotionally and artistically?  Do you feel like you’re being set free?

I appreciate that question. The huge theme of the project is this idea that you cannot separate the good and bad. The more you go into this journey of living as a human being, the good and the bad become so intertwined. I really wanted to express that ambiguity. 

I don't want to lie and say that I'm fully there, but I think I'm the closest that I've been in a while to returning to that place of kinetic energy. This whole project was basically just a diary and a journal of the struggle to get there. It’s a very ironic, counterintuitive thing; how do I return to a state that seemed so easy at some point? It was a mind fuck. I think that kind of came across through a lot of the visuals because I myself was a little confused about where I was going. Where am I headed? So there was a lot of unfocused kinetic energy. 

As you can tell, I'm a sucker for a simile, I'm a sucker for a metaphor, and especially in a visual. I'm curious about the crash at the end of the video. Do you feel like you've had a crash in the last couple of years, or a moment where you realize you've reached the end of the road and need to rethink things?

I definitely think so. For the first project, there was this feeling of newness and unfamiliarity in a very romantic way. I think the second project had a lot of harsh realizations, a lot of the darker side of adolescence and the things that you are rudely awakened to as you enter your mid-20’s. A lot of things came to an end. A lot of working relationships, a lot of friendships. My trust in human connection was definitely challenged. 

Moving to LA was very much the end of the romantic era and it was like the start of something different. It felt like I was navigating through a darker side of town or something. Right now specifically, I feel a lot of new beginnings in the air, but this project was me processing a lot of pain. I would say hopefully the next one is starting the cycle over again. I think that both parts are important. 

What is your relationship to LA like?

I would say my beef with LA in the first place was that I moved to a place where the results are so important. People tend to do things there.with just one motive, and I get it, because you're in a center of commerce. People tend to do things to get results. 

I came up making music at my friend's house for fun with his wife cooking us tacos, and it somehow turned into my career. And then all of a sudden, I'm in this place where the career is everything. For a moment, I think that I forgot that for me, it's not just a job. It really is a passion and almost a hobby in a way. Trying to find balance in a place like LA was a really big challenge for me. I found that keeping it about the creativity was the one size fits all solution.

For example, the shoot that we did a few days ago [for office]. That was just a fun time. That was me making some things with really cool people for a day, and calling it press. I wanted to try something new, to explore a different side of this visual art form, so I did that. I have no idea what these photos are going to look like. And that's so exciting for me. That's what makes it. 

I think in LA I tried to chase certain things for a bit and then it was not leading me anywhere. For a moment, I was like, why do I even do this shit? As soon as I found the fun in it again, and then started setting the boundary of, if it’s not fun I won’t do it, everything just started to click way more. 

It's so different when you work with a group of people that are on that frequency. It makes a huge difference. I think that that exists a lot more in New York than in LA. I will say it's rare. You can find pockets of it in LA, but it's almost like a way of life in New York. It’s embedded into the culture.

AUDREY wears DRESS by ISSEY MIYAKE, EARRINGS by MARTINE ALI

Would you move back to NYC?

I would definitely move back. For the rest of the year, I'm going to be coming back and forth a lot, throughout the summer. I'm putting out a project this year. 

I always used to say, “I never want to see a single palm tree in a music video!” which I still stand by. There's just something about the energy of New York, and my early days of shooting basically illegal music videos, without permits, that has informed so much of how I see creativity. 

Another thing that really helps me — this is crazy, I didn't ever think I would say this — is the dwindling of resources in the music industry. All the budgets are getting smaller, everything is getting just more tough, everything's so saturated. There was a point of frustration, but then I started making shit with my friends who were just down because they love to make things even though it wasn't going to pay their normal rate. Everything just started to shift, the energy was just different. Regardless of the financial resources I may have going into the future, I just want to preserve that, whatever that is. You can't mimic it. You just have to feel it and that's what's so difficult about it somehow.

I’m curious about how you navigate the emphasis that can be placed on your racial identity in the conversation about your music. Is that something you think about, or that bothers you?

I think a lot of times I’ve found myself struggling to answer the question, because it's a very double edged sword. Sometimes people ask certain questions, like, how can we see your Asian American heritage in your music? And I’m like, I don't know. I just make music, and I'm Korean, and I grew up eating kimchi and I grew up hearing classic Korean vocalists, and all those things fed into who I am and in some way or another probably make their way into my work. 

I understand the desire to empower, but I think for me it's all about agency. Who's curating it? Is it an Asian American person? Is it coming from a real place, not a quota? That’s what I pay attention to when it comes to how I view certain articles or certain initiatives. I appreciate the platform at the same time. 

My biggest commitment is to being honest, to being myself. I genuinely think that my culture and everything about my heritage and how I came up will make their way to the surface. It doesn't have to be forced, it can be completely organic the same way that it's organic for any other artist. I understand that, because it's new, we're going to live through that time frame where the headline is always going to read “Korean American” or “Asian American.” But that’s just a transitory period. I think it's unavoidable in a way. I would love to just do my best work, you know, and be my true self.

That makes a lot of sense. How does that factor into the way you navigate your position as an non-Black artist who is making music that can be categorized as hip hop and R&B? 

One thing that is for sure important to me is knowing and understanding the influence, and being a student of the craft and of the game. I have to be very aware where the music comes from, and that there is credit and respect due always. 

Obviously, it really is just about being my truest itself, doing what I love but also giving credit and respect. Being a part of the community, not just like taking from it. Being myself, making sure I’m never putting on a costume.

Curiosity is important, wondering about your influences and digging into them. We need as a culture to head in that direction. I feel like the blending of culture is actually really essential to our human race not only surviving but also becoming better. 

I think that gets at a bigger issue of globalization, and the way that cultural borders don’t really exist anymore because of the internet. 

Obviously, it's a romantic thought, because so much of the world is still really, really, really fucked up. But I do think that we are moving towards a freer world. People have more access to information, and that's where it always starts. This is the confusing stage, but I think it is ultimately a good thing.

I don't want to be a dinosaur and I don't want to be resistant. And not only that, but I have no fucking say in this. This is evolution. We're just riding the wave of evolution. It's pretty cool that we are both alive in this time experiencing this. I think it’s going to be crazier than when the internet started, with the AI shit. Our world just went from black and white to technicolor all over again, and I don't think we're ready.

Things are going to look a lot different in a few years. It’s crazy to have had our brains develop amidst all of this.

I mean, talk about us — I don't even know about this generation below us. What the fuck are they about to be? They're about to be some bionic humans. My producer's kids, they're eight and ten years old. They know how to make beats, they know how to animate things, they know how to do every skill possible because they just look it up on YouTube. So much of our shit is going to become obsolete. It's crazy to think about. It's insane.

AUDREY wears FULL LOOK by SACAI, SHOES by DION LEE, EARRINGS by ALEXIS BITTAR, RINGS by CHRIS HABANA, GLASSES by GENTLE MONSTER