KidSuper, Giggs & Quavo's Big in Da Game

KidSuper Records was always a pipe dream... we even made merch for it before it existed. It’s crazy to think something that started as an idea over 10 years ago has now evolved into a real song, debuted at Paris Fashion Week, with Giggs and Quavo, out on our very own record label.

This step into music represents more than just a creative outlet; it’s an evolution in Dillane’s distinctive approach, rooted in collaborations with musical legends like the late Mac Miller, Ed Sheeran, and Joey Bada$$. Now, through KidSuper Records, Dillane amplifies his community-centered ethos, bridging fashion and music in a way that’s as unexpected as it is exciting. Watch the music video below.

Music

"Hope To See You, in New York or Somewhere Else": Del Water Gap

December 07, 2023

Holden Jaffe, the artistic force driving Del Water Gap, returns with his latest album, I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet. Drawing inspiration from "romantic encounters and dimly lit rooms," Jaffe's vocals are steeped in nostalgia, serving as both a lament and an ode to the transient nature of tour life. The album delves into the in-between spaces — between cities, hotel rooms, where you are and where you aspire to be, and the evolving sense of self.

Before writing the album, Jaffe reckoned with stepping away from the world of music. The looming possibility of Del Water Gap's demise fostered a raw and urgent dimension to the album. The album hits deep, evident in the album's punchy basslines and poignant lyrics such as "I think your music got worse since you went fully sober, at least now you won't kill yourself." Jaffe refuses to maintain a distance from the audience, baring his soul despite the psychic toll, touring challenges, and the perpetual complexities of love. Addressing the central question of navigating the unknowns of the present and the aspirations for the future, the album is a testament to its necessity.

We sat down with Del Water Gap to talk "Holiday Inn malaise", delve into heroes and hummus, and the adventure of losing track of the state you're in — all set against the backdrop of an alternate universe where Jaffe is a CPA.

Words by Izzy Capulong
Photos by Erica Snyder

Where are you right now?

I'm in LA. I just got back here. I was in New York for 24 hours.

What were you doing in New York?

I was playing a little party for Thom Browne, so I just took a redeye there and a redeye back, but it was great. They’re really nice people. They feel less cliquey than a lot of fashion people I've met. They feel like this Gryffindor in a sea of Slytherin in the fashion space, you know. It was really sweet.

I love Thom Browne. If you have a bunch of teddy bears on the runway, I can't imagine you'd be anything less than a cool guy.

Yeah, he's really nice, and I love a short suit. There's nothing like being able to dress up while having some ventilation.

So, how did you start making music?

When I was a child, I was very shy and not very good at sports, so I decided I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write books. I carried a journal everywhere and wrote stories down — little things I was thinking about. I was that kid in the corner at recess by myself, writing. In second or third grade, a teacher of mine told me that I would need a publisher to put out a book.

So, right around then, I had gotten into music — my parents got me a Walkman, and I realized that there was writing in music as well. It occurred to me that this three-minute format of songwriting was a quicker way to share literature, so I started writing songs. When I finished high school, I turned a storage closet at my high school into a recording studio. That's when I started really recording and, and putting together the ideas for Del Water Gap. I moved to New York City and then, you know, off to the races.

When did you move to New York?

I moved to New York in 2012 and I lived there for about seven years.

Wow. So you left right before the pandemic started?

Yeah, exactly. I left right when the pandemic started. I had an apartment in Greenpoint and I got out of my lease. I spent a couple of months outside of New York. I hadn't really lived out of New York City in a long time, so I moved to Maine for a bit and I never really went back.

I ended up signing a record deal and moving to L.A. I really only intended to spend a few months in L.A. to make my album, but then I owned a car all of a sudden. I spend most of my time touring, so I’m really in New York as much as I am in L.A. but my home and all my things are in L.A.

New York, Maine, and L.A. — those are three totally different vibes. Has that affected your sound at all?

Yeah — I'm sure you get it. As a creative, we really are what we eat. What we read, what we watch, who we’re around, where we spend our free time, how much we’re sleeping — it all really affects our art. New York is where I learned how to be an artist. I showed up when I was 18, I bought a leather jacket and some boots and an electric guitar and decided I wanted to be just like The Strokes. [Laughs].

As I spent more time in New York and as I became more confident as an artist, I started to become something different than my heroes, and naturally, when the pandemic happened, I had that big existential check-in that we all had. I really started thinking about what kind of an artist I wanted to be — or if I even wanted to be an artist. The pandemic was a big moment for me, as far as thinking about stepping away from music. Ultimately, I didn’t step away from music, and I doubled down and started touring and making some albums. I was moving around as life was happening.

What made you want to step away from music?

When I was living in New York, I had made some records that I really loved, but being an artist was not affording me the life that I wanted. I was working really hard, and I was working a few different jobs. I was doing Photoshop help for old ladies. I was working for a photo booth company, I was painting, and I was doing a lot of things just to make life work in New York. I had a couple of unfortunate record deal situations and an unfortunate management situation, and I got my first real break right before the pandemic. I DMed girl in red and she offered me an opening slot on her US tour. So, I finally had something to look forward to, and then of course the pandemic happened, and that tour as well as every other tour in the universe canceled. I was feeling very frustrated, as I’m sure a lot of us were, and being the storyteller that I am, I took that as a sign from the universe to step away.

I called some friends saying, “I think I’m done. I think it’s time for me to figure something else out.” I really thought about becoming a CPA — which is kind of funny in retrospect. But, just as I stepped away, things started to change more. People started finding my music and I got a new manager who basically told me, “Give me six months and we’ll see what we can do." We're still working together today, soo I'm really happy I didn't leave, but I needed that gut check. Sometimes you need to imagine the other side of a big decision in order to realize you don't want to make that decision.

That’s deep. You should put that on a fortune cookie.

Sometimes you need to imagine the other side of a big decision in order to realize you don't want to make that decision.

This existential dread you're talking about — is that the story behind the new album?

Totally. A lot of the album is about transcience and what it feels like to be in the world, our post-pandemic political landscape, where every day we’re forced to think about the realities of an environmental crisis, the wars, the general unrest and instability that’s present in the world right now, and amidst all that, trying to figure out how to be good people, taking care of ourselves, opening up to loving and being loved.

I had a real moment of reckoning that a lot of our lives — a lot of the time that we spend in life is the time in between high-highs and low-lows. I think that feeling is very magnified on tour. You have a lot of explosive highs — you play a show, you have a lot of adrenaline. And then you spend a lot of time alone, sitting and waiting, eating hummus, and wondering what to do — that is just a lot of life. It's like doing the laundry and doing the dishes and spending time with yourself in your head– thinking about where you are.

When I listened to it, there’s this obvious emotional transience that comes with being a touring musician, but there’s also a lot of physical transience that can have an emotional effect. On tour, you never really sleep in the same place twice. It can get really disarming.

Oh my God, yeah. Especially when you're in a hotel every couple of nights, they really do all blend together and it’s something I call this “Holiday Inn Malaise,” where you just forget where you are because they’re all the same.

Once while I was on tour, I needed to order something from Amazon, and when you order something on tour, you order it to a couple of cities away from where you are, so you don’t miss it. I don’t know where we were — we must have been in the Midwest somewhere — but I get to this hotel, and I’m in the lobby saying that I’m looking for a package that’s supposed to be there. They don’t have it, but I show them my app, where it says it’s been delivered, and the guy looks at the app and says, “We’re not in Texas, we’re in Illinois. That package was delivered to a hotel in Texas.” And I was like, “What? I could have sworn I was in Texas right now.” And he’s like, “No, you’re really confused.”

It was such a funny moment, and there’s something so beautiful about constantly being in transition. It allows you to practice some avoidance, but it is really unsettling, being on tour and traveling — it breaks down a lot of the things that tie us to our sanity, whether it's cooking or being able to go on a walk in the morning, your routine of going to your coffee shop, of seeing your neighbor — all that stuff goes out the window.

I can imagine. Are you settled in LA, or are you about to up and go again?

I’m here for four days, I’m just rehearsing. I’m basically touring until Thanksgiving, so I’m really here just long enough to do some laundry and see a couple of friends.

I worked for this record for a couple of years, and there’s a really beautiful moment when the shows start. There’s this funny period of time between the record coming out and the tour starting because in between that, people are interacting with the album and you’re seeing it online. But for me, the release always really starts when tour starts. Because all of a sudden you're with human bodies– you’re in a room with people who are singing your music back to you. That’s a real moment of affirmation, that’s when you know the work has paid off. So I’m extremely excited to go tour.

I feel very lucky to be able to do it. It's the coolest thing. It's a good way to see the world. I've had the good fortune of seeing most of this country and we've done a few Europe and Australia tours. It’s a nice way to travel with purpose — going somewhere for a reason beyond just pure, touristic enjoyment.

You spend a lot of time alone, sitting and waiting, eating hummus, and wondering what to do — that is just a lot of life

The album itself is pretty upbeat, considering what it’s about. It’s groovy, even though you’re singing about transience and the depression that comes with it. What made you want to have the album sound that way?

A lot of that comes out of touring a lot. For the last three years, I’ve really thinking about making a record in the context of the live space — which I had never done before. So in the studio, I’m making songs and thinking about what a production would feel like live. I think there’s something really cathartic about moving around a bunch while you sing about wanting to leave the earth. And for the first time in my life, I’m allowing myself to make the type of music that I listen to.

I used to silo music into two categories — music that I like listening to, and the music that I let myself make. But for this record, I had the opportunity to work with some really wonderful producers and writers, and they pushed me to just make an album that I thought would be fun to listen to, and to not overthink it. Making sad bops has always been the dream, and it took me getting out of my own way to let myself do that.

A lot of people try to do that, having depressing lyrics over eighties synthy groovy instrumentals. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it feels purposeless.

That was my fear — I didn’t want to just be another guy thinking about depression over some eighties music.

It's cool that you're having fun with the album. Why you were relegating yourself only to sad music, or music that you didn't necessarily listen to?

I came up in the New York indie scene. And at the time when I was becoming an artist, a lot of the music I listened to had artists expressing themselves at arm’s length. I came up listening to Iron and Wine, Fleet Foxes, and The Tallest Man On Earth. That was the music I learned how to be an artist around soo I think there was always something very comforting about hiding behind my work a bit, not showing too much of myself, not trying too hard, or not letting people know that I was trying at all. I think there can be something inherently embarrassing about being artistically ambitious, or trying to have fun musically. I think I’ve really leaned on colloquialism in my writing and in my artistic output as a way to not have to show too much of myself.

I think that a change started happening in me over the last couple of years, where I decided that it’s okay to pose for a photo, it’s okay to swing for the fence a bit, and try to make something fun or make something that will allow people to dance. It’s okay to dress up and wear an outfit onstage that isn’t something you’d normally wear. When you try, it opens you up to embarrassment and failure. But I think you can really reap what you sow. I just got a bit more confident and realized it was okay if I wanted to push myself.

It’s cool to put in an effort now, which is nice.

Yeah, it's super cool. Not everything has to look like it fell into your lap accidentally.

Tell me about the title and your grandma!

I just saw her! I was struggling to find a title for a long time, and when I’m in New York, I stay with my grandma — her name’s Patricia. She’s 98 and we’re really close. She’s one of the only other artists in my family. She has this great old apartment that she’s been living in since the fifties, and the room where I stay used to be my grandfather’s study — he’s since passed away, so now I stay in his office. It’s floor to ceiling with bookshelves and poetry books, books about opera and Sen Buddhism — a lot of esoteric things. There’s not great internet at her house so when I’m there, I just spend a lot of time poking through the odds and ends I find in the apartment.

One day I was just rifling through some poetry books and I came across this William Carlos Williams book collection. He has a poem called, “This Is Just To Say”, and I flipped that poem because it was the one that I knew, and at the top of the poem, my grandfather had written, “Dear Patricia,” and at the bottom he wrote, “Love David. I miss you already and I haven't left yet.” It was a very striking moment of coming across a very private poetic anecdote, but there was something very funny about it too —something sort of lazy about turning a poem into a love letter, instead of writing your own love letter.

So I walked into her room with it and I was like, “What do you think this is?” She said, “I have no idea. He could have been leaving me or he could have been going to the grocery store. I really don't know," but I loved it and I held on to it. A few weeks later I asked her if I could use it as my album title, and she gave me her blessing. She’s been such a big part of my artistic upbringing. I've always had a ritual of showing her my music and my videos as they're in progress, so it seems like a nice way to honor her and honor their relationship. And it also just felt very topical. The phrase “I miss you already and I haven't left yet—” really does reflect transience. It’s like catching someone in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a step out the door. I imagined him scrawling it really quickly as he was running out the door. For me, this album feels a bit like that. I feel like I wrote it as I was running out the door.

In terms of being on tour?

Being on tour — sort of what we were talking about before — the ways that we try and center ourselves when everything is moving around us. I think of this record as a means of finding some stability, or bringing some meaning to the motion. I think sometimes we just need to be able to tell a story in order to get through a life experience. Being able to write this album has tied together a lot of the chaos of the last couple years. It’s made it all feel like it’s really been worth something.

And I’m going on tour soon, so come hang. Hope to see you in New York, or somewhere else.

Music

Lolo Zouaï's Vision is Clear

Having collaborated with Lolo on various projects over the past couple of years, I've felt privileged to witness her creative process firsthand. With a natural-born talent for success, it's genuinely no surprise to see how far Lolo has come and how far she'll likely go. I sat down with the singer to delve into her latest EP and chat about her return to being an independent artist, her autonomy as a musician, moving back to NYC, and how she's really coming full circle from where she started.

So how are you doing today and what's your headspace like today?

My headspace is very cozy. It's raining. I just wanna be home all day. I went out last night, so kind of just trying to make up for that. I just wanna hang out with my cat.

What's your cat's name?

His name is Cocoa. I just adopted him from my mom.

Oh, cute.

I flew him from LA to New York.

How long have you had him?

I've had him for three weeks.

How's that? How's that adjustment been?

It's good. I think he really wants to play all the time, but I don't get to sleep. He actually says my name! I can't make this shit up. He knows how to talk.

Oh my God. Wait, that's actually so funny. You have to take a video next time he does it. So Crying in the Carwash just released in anticipation of your new EP. Can you tell us what this song is about and what was the inspiration behind it?

So it's about my time in LA which, you know, is why there was a car. LA never rains whereas it's raining in New York and it's just on theme. I was with Oscar Scheller who produced it and he had a guitar lick that really just inspired me. I had spent some time in the car wash earlier that day and I often write about what's happening in my life, or what I see visually. At the time I was feeling really down and just not happy about my life in LA — feeling isolated and like I had to be happy because it was sunny. I didn't feel like that was what I wanted to do, so I came up with Crying in the Carwash, which was a fun play on words. It reminds me of High Highs to Low Lows kind of title where it's playful but has depth.

You talk about that transition from moving from LA to New York. How has that transition been for you?

It's been good because I spent seven years here before and I feel like this is where it feels more like my home. New York always feels like a hometown show and all my friends live here. Especially now that I went back to being independent I feel like I'm kind of coming back into my authentic self.

So you're independent again and it's your first time releasing music since. What's this process been like this time around?

It's been so fun. It's been just kind of me and Doug, my manager. We make the choices together and I've been doing a lot of features this year. Like I did the Slayyyter feature, Tkay Maidza on her album, and both of those girls have incredible albums. I feel free to do whatever I want. I mean, I could have probably done that before, but I'm mentally free in a way. I feel really confident about my releases and I feel like I have so much music in the vault.

I remember from one of the first time's meeting was right before you dropped PLAYGIRL. The shoot with the subway cart, right? You were posting on Instagram announcing PLAYGIRL and I remember watching you do that and you were just so meticulous in your creativity and how you come off and present yourself to your audience. So I feel like it's nice again to be independent where you can have complete control over that.

Thank you. Yeah, that was the day I announced. I posted the trailer which was so next level and I was really excited. I'm really creative in the sense where I can edit my own videos and photos. I know how to use Photoshop and Premiere. I'm really hands on with everything in my career. So it's not like I lost a giant team at a label, but there's definitely things like music videos and budgets. I just have to be more mindful of what I'm spending my money on because now it's just all my business. But it's been really fun taking that control over again and making decisions like that based on what's the best move for me.

Definitely. And as you continue to grow, how important is it for you to have your own autonomy?

That's number one. I don't feel good when I don't know what's going on. I need to be tapped into every aspect which is a curse and a blessing because I know that some artists are really hands off and they're just like, "Oh, I just wanna look good and make the music and whatever." But I'm not at all like that and sometimes it really makes me have an overload of stress. I designed the vinyl for this project and obviously there's people that help, but ultimately it's up to me. It's hard work, but I love it.

I think it's super inspiring to see. I feel like every time we've worked together there's been some new project you're working on. Remember too before the Jagermeister commercial, you saw the CDs come out for the PLAYGIRL album and even then you had such a hands on looking at all of it.

For me, it's not just about being the artist on the outside. It's about the process and the whole package. I wouldn't enjoy it if I wasn't doing it, was hands on, or if I didn't have a say in everything, you know what I mean? I don't see myself as just a singer.

You're just an overall creative from head to toe, top to bottom.

Yes, I hire myself. [Laughs]

And earlier this year you wrapped the PLAYGIRL Tour. What was this experience like? How did it feel being on stage and having all of these people come out and support this album?

It was the first tour after the Dua Lipa tour and then my first tour since High Highs to Low Lows. So I was a little bit scared. After the pandemic, people didn't really go to shows as much, but I was very excited to bring PLAYGIRL to life. I felt like the album needed a live version for people to understand the concept. It was such an intricate concept with three different Playgirls. and all these colors. And so I was like let me bring this Playgirl claw machine box to life. Thankfully, I had that Jagermeister Tour bus which was insane. I wouldn't have been able to do that show without them.

I feel like you have such an onstage presence that you really brought your album to life. And when we all came and saw you in New York, we were like, "Oh my God, you're a performer, performer." It's so different to hear it on streams or just on Spotify or something, but going out and seeing it and like no shade — but I've been to some pretty bad shows. But the way you captivated the crowd was really incredible.

Thank you. That means a lot. Irving Plaza was so nice. It was such a great show. But I feel like that's one thing that people forget about me is that I really sing. I really be singing and, and every time I have a show people are like, "Oh." Some people will be like, "I forgot that you sing. You sing your ass off." Live performance and live singing is something I'm really always trying to get better at, and that's why I'm working on some live stuff for the EP so that I can share.

I mean, there's a difference to somebody that is just out there and singing versus an all around performer. And you really brought that energy where it had the whole entire crowd, dancing and singing along to every song which was really fun to see.

The one thing that I wish I had actually stuck with when I was a kid was dancing. I remember I took a ballet class and I thought it was a hip hop class, but it turned out to be a ballet class and I started crying because I just thought ballet was lame. I got kind of discouraged after it and I never forced myself to dance and now I really wish I had. I can dance naturally, but it's so hard for me to learn choreo. It would definitely take a lot of practice, which I haven't been doing.

Well, I mean, I feel like that gives you something to continue to try to work harder towards. I mean, you're a great dancer, but maybe it can be your New Year's resolution.

It's more than dance. It's knowing where your body is in space. It's understanding how you take up space. I feel like if I learn, I would be better at modeling. I would be better at just everything — especially understanding movement.

You mentioned having the three different versions of you for PLAYGIRL. How is Crying in the Carwash similar or different? Or are you just stripping it back to just you now?

Yeah, there's not really any characters for Crying in the Carwash. I was trying to be more vulnerable and more honest. It's about love, which honestly, none of my music has been about. It's kind of the journey.

What's the overall creative inspiration behind this?

I think when I started working with Oscar Scheller we just got so inspired. We both love R&B. He's from the UK, so I got inspired by the sounds he was bringing. It started out as a fun little project that I put together and then I realized that there were all these themes that it felt really icy and wintery, even if it's not a winter project, it feels like it is. "Lava Lamp" kind of feels like a Christmas song in a way. It brings you through the journey of falling in love and letting yourself feel it then letting it go.

It seems like you're coming into this full circle moment. You're the new version of you, but really honoring who you were last time you lived in New York and being an independent artist. Do you feel like you're finding your footing in the type of music you want to continue to create?

I don't think I came into this new project with much. I know this is weird to say, but I didn't come into it with much intention. I just kind of made it. And I've always admired artists that go into the studio knowing exactly what their album is going to sound like because I've never really done that. I've always just been like, "Oh, this is cool." So to me, my next album that I'm gonna work on, I really want to have a strong intention going into it. I did have that feeling for 'High Highs to Low Lows' where my plan was to show that I'm French, that I'm Algerian, that I'm from the Bay, and that I could sing. Then Playgirl, I was just making music and then I figured something out. But this next album that I'm going to start working on I want to have a plan and really dive into my original R&B sound. The darker and moodier sound that I started with because that's like what I listen to.

Even in anticipation of that album and having a more structured plan going into it, how does that look? What do you do when you're sitting down and you're like, "OK, I'm going to write a song right now for this album."

It's all about production for a sound because the vocal can kind of sit on any type of beat. I've just been listening to what songs I really love and putting together a playlist of the kind of tracks that I want to make. I never really have put out an album that is kind of all the same mood because I thought that that's not fun. Now I just want to challenge myself and make something a little bit different and really cohesive.

Definitely. I feel like with the obvious success that PLAYGIRL had, you can see the ups and downs with how each song plays off of each other, but they're kind of different. You have the upbeat tracks and the more stripped back ones. So it would be kind of interesting to see how you make something that you say is cohesive.

I was just actually afraid for some reason and I think I played it safe a little bit even though on the title track, PLAYGIRL, I did not play it safe. There's some things I would change about how I made that album, but also I have to be nicer to myself because it was after a pandemic and my best friend passed away.

I feel like from this conversation right now, there's a lot of growth but at the same time, just really solidifying into who you are as an artist and what kind of message you want to deliver to your audience.

I'm pretty sure my next body of work is going to be my best one.

What is something that you want your listeners to take away from the new music that you have coming out?

I think that people are really gonna relate to this EP because you don't always hear a girl admit in music that she was the one who was wrong. A lot of times guys are like, "I'm sorry, I hurt you, blah, blah, blah." I think that people are just going to feel it and be in their feelings and I think that's all I really want.

If there's anything you could tell yourself when you first started making music with the knowledge that you have now, what would you say?

I mean, you couldn't really tell me anything back then. I was so confident and I think I would just say just keep that energy. Keep the drive and keep the confidence. I would just be like, "You're doing good. Just keep doing what you're doing." Then I'd somehow find a way to stop COVID. I'd say, there's going to be a pandemic but you can fly to Wuhan and stop it all from happening. I was about to go on tour with Dua right after my album and obviously so much shit happened, so maybe I would try that, but everything happens for a reason. I don't think I would change any of my choices. I feel like I've made some good choices and you gotta invest in yourself and just keep going.

There's one thing you said that I really liked. You mentioned that you were so confident in the beginning and nobody could tell you anything.

It's funny how confident I was and how nobody could tell me shit. It's because no one expects anything from you. So when you're starting, no one has anything previous to compare to. But now you don't want to disappoint your fans and some people want a certain genre, but I'm not in the mood to make that at the time. I always keep reminding myself that no, this is your life, your music. I didn't come from money. I didn't come from music or anything. My parents are both immigrants and I'm killing it. I have my own apartment, I take care of myself, and I always try to remind myself this is what I wanted. All I wanted was to be able to make music whenever I want.

Music

Mel 4Ever, Pop Music's Rising Star

December 06, 2023

Mel 4Ever is a born again woman with an uncontrollable flow. This past fall she released her first EP, She Culture.1, made up of some her strongest pop music yet. It's pop music that continues to solidify — hell, let’s be real, glorify — the culture of women and women devotees. Not for a moment does Mel hesitate on her path. She tells me that her inaugural EP featured, “the most psychotic trannies I could get to collaborate with," including kindred spirits like singer and producer BABYNYMPH as well as formerly retired rap queen, Linux. The trio joined forces on a wickedly hilarious yet pretty solid banger, "Big League Chew". “It sparked something really cool for all three of us.”

Down at the studio, the pop star's been wordprocessing and voicing new feelings. Rumor has it there's a follow up EP with some fresh aesthetic decisions. It will be full of things like hopefulness and optimism, tossing out the agony she felt during her first year transitioning for the ecstasy of everything else: “I’m writing about what makes me excited to be alive. I keep imagining myself naked, throwing my hands in the air, spinning around.” So cool.

Photography and edit by Danica Robinson
Styling, hair, and makeup @badboyrory
BTS video, assist @pospiando.ok
Lighting, assist @crimson_catalyst

When I think of Mel 4Ever spinning around I cannot help but think of those ad hoc yet kind of avant garde videos Britney Spears posts in her Hollywood hills house nearby. Both pop stars love to play around with a song, to twirl with it and twist it to their own liking. Strange sounds abound. There's the hallowed drumming bass's thunk-thunk-thunk and twink-twunk-dunk or a baby's crying and giggling. It's that carefully calibrated strangeness that really makes a work of art. For some, it might be too much but as the princess of pop admits in her tell-all memoir, The Woman in Me, “Artists are weird, you know?”

Mel4Ever— Hi. What's up?

Johnny Belknap— Just ordered a bunch of giant-sized J Crew button downs.

Gorgeous.

How are you?

I’m good, I’m good.

You're in California now?

Yes, I moved here three days ago.

Okay, cool. How’s that going?

It’s moving, I’ve been moving. You know how it goes. I've been in LA at least once a month over the past year. I'm working with producers and songwriters out here. It makes sense for me to be rooted. I'd rather be based in L.A. and come to New York all the time instead of the opposite way around. Not having a home in New York feels destabilizing, though.

I imagine it's a bit disorganizing. It usually takes a month or two of nesting up for the guesting feeling to go away. Any initial impressions from your new nest?

I’m getting used to the 85-degree temperatures. It's sunny every day. Also, I’m not being yelled at anymore and there’s no street noise. I feel like I'm waiting for all this energy to suddenly be thrown at me. It just simply does not come. It's different.

Sounds different.

I was dying in New York. Things were intense. I was like I have to get out of here or I'm gonna not make it.

What was some of that intensity that you were experiencing?

The public transportation as a tranny was, you know — I was getting harassed every day. I got spit on, I was yelled at, and it was unsafe for me to just be a woman. I didn't have the resources to put myself in a safer place. Plus, New York’s other social aspects were killing me. I was depressed. I wasn't going out anymore. I wanted peace and quiet. So, leaving came down to this huge lack of safety.

That’s real. The city’s public transportation is frustrating. It’s slow. It’s smelly. In some places it’s heavily policed and in other ways it's totally dangerous. It really pits people against one another.

Exactly.

A number of friends have cars or take cars all around the city. Whenever we can and as often we can, it’s just time to drive around town listening to stuff by Sophie or x3butterfly or Flirty800 or Memphy. Did you ever read A.J. Cook’s letter to Sophie?

It's a loving letter, both a eulogy and this sort of social history, in which he shares a lot about his friendship with her and says she: “loved to be on the move, ideally in a car with no particular destination. Even within a few months of knowing me, she would welcome any excuse to drive me around London, usually with the radio on. So many of my favorite memories have her at the wheel, one way or another.” It reminded me of riding beside girlfriends inside their cars. It's funny how a car can become a home, even if one of its uses is to technically transport you home — you might actually already be there as soon as you step inside it.

I haven't read that but I deeply relate to that. I've been called to cars, too, and need my physical space. It's like being a bubble boy. I didn't want a car in New York, though. Having a car in New York means it’ll get bumped into and scratched up and whatever. There’s a little more parking space in L.A.

What kind of car do you have?

Well, I keep failing my driving test.

Haha, totally.

I didn't study too hard for L.A.’s version of the test. I've had a license before and I was like fuck it, I remember how to drive! But, the test used words I had never heard anyone say before. Do you know what a chevron line is?

A line at a gas station glory hole?

Girl …

I don’t know. What is it?

It's the repeating arrow lines that are bicycle lane buffers.

Right.

Got me but I like learning. I’m studying a lot right now. I know I’ll get my license soon. [At time of publishing Mel has her license]

Is studying the reason you haven’t been going out?

No, I just wasn't enjoying myself. Plus, I didn't think I had another New York winter in me, you know what I mean? There's only so much Wellbutrin and Lexapro I can do. The East Coast was beating me up.

It's weathering, a good reason to incubate. Since you’re incubating, does that mean we can expect more music soon?

I'm working on a follow up to the EP I released this past September, She Culture.1, and a track with someone you may know.

Ominous as fuck!

You’ll hear us soon.

Whatever. She Culture.1 been on repeat in my headphones since you dropped it. Your EP, plus Kim’s Promblematqiue — thank god she finally did that. And, Troye’s Something to Give Each Other. Living for her "One Of Your Girls" music video — thank god she finally did that, too. She’s getting back to her roots as an actor, and she’s good at it. I always gasp whenever I see her pop up on screen watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine. She played a baby Wolverine.

Oh my god.

Cub claws out. What’s your follow-up EP called?

It’ll be She Culture.II.

Tell me more about the EPs.

The first EP I dropped was about processing all of these external forces coming at me. A lot of it is about my trans womanhood. Some of it is through my experiences from other people's perceptions of me, especially during my first year of transitioning. The only thing I was hyper-focused on was how people perceived me, often all of the toxic ways that you can experience transness.

What were some of those first-year things?

A lot of questions, like: What rights don't I have? How is my life going to be harder? How am I going to survive? So, I wrote all these songs and suddenly I had an EP. Through all that writing I had somehow fully processed a lot of these questions. I didn’t necessarily have answers but I had art.

That’s really brave.

I have less questions now. Instead I’m thinking about what makes me valid.

Which is?

I don't really give much of a fuck about how anybody perceives me. I’m writing about what makes me excited to be alive. I keep imagining myself naked, throwing my hands in the air, spinning around.

Queue Natalie Wood lip-syncing to Marni Nixon: Feeling pretty, oh so pretty!

More like I’m in a garden than I’m in a bridal shop. But, yes pretty and witty and bright. The next era of songs will be more pop-inspired and dance music rather than raging punk stuff.

I don't really give much of a fuck about how anybody perceives me. I’m writing about what makes me excited to be alive. I keep imagining myself naked, throwing my hands in the air, spinning around.

That’s exciting. Who are you working with for the next EP?

I'm working with some songwriters who are the new generation of L.A.’s cool girls. There’s Ava, there’s Alex, and Mothica. I'm working with a producer, Dave Burris, who worked with Slayyyter. Also, I’m working with Ayo Beatz. He produced Slayyyter’s song, “Daddy AF”, which has been my number one most-played song on Spotify for two years in a row.

Some of your collaborators on SheCulture.I are the coolest cool girls, too.

Linux and BABYNYMPH.

What was working with them like?

It was so fucking cool. I am a big fan of BABYNYMPH.

Me too. I met her in Athens last year. I went to see Grace Sands play a party that one of BUTT Magazine’s editors, Andrew Pasquier, was throwing. BABYNYMPH was there and I swear she was hovering the entire night. Maybe it was the platform boots or her luminous energy. She knows her music shit.

Yeah, I love her. She was close to Sophie. I decided to find the most psychotic trannies I could get to collaborate with and we sang about biting dicks off and chewing them for this song called "Big League Chew".

Bubble Boy meets Little Miss Bubble Gum Girl, the Big League Chew.

I sent a demo to BABYNYMPH, and she shot back: let me fuck with this. She really chopped it up Athens-style. You know that thunder sound. Afterwards, I sent it to Linux and she worked her lyrical magic. She’s planning on her music-making comeback.

Wait, amazing.

It sparked something really cool for all three of us. Linux and I performed the song a bunch, and it's so fucking funny to get her on stage.

Now I’m thinking of chopping and screwing, chomping down and screwing. Sometimes I give teeth to end a hookup that’s not going well. Have you ever done that?

I once had this really bad hookup and did that. He was smiling but then I realized something else was desperately wrong. His teeth were falling out.

Panic attack.

Exactly. I said I was having a panic attack. I left.

What’s love life been like recently? Any crushes or flirtations or loves? My sense is that something is in the air. Maybe, I’m projecting a bit.

Well, I had a boyfriend a while ago. We broke up two weeks before I started hormones because he was like, You're trans? I hate that he made that into a question.

His loss.

I've been a revolving door-type bitch since I’ve transitioned. Have you seen that show Veneno?

Yes! I watched the whole series with a bunch of friends a few years back. It was all about women coming in strong through sheer will to power and mutual myth-making. Each character was so hot and profane and totally unafraid of whatever glamor wounds and beauty marks they accrued along their way.

Exactly. You know when Veneno gets the advice that if you want to have sex, go have sex with whoever, and do whatever you want to do? Then there's a montage of her just fucking everyone.

Right, right, right.

That was the last two years of my life I was going the fuck off. I would replay that Veneno scene and assure myself that I'm in my power.

Hari Nef wrote something about that series that’s stuck with me. She writes that the series tells, “Veneno’s story through the cracked lens of talk shows and memoirs: media in which realness — fact — is an expectation, defied here by a woman who finds virtue in fantasy, in her ‘perfect illusion’ of beauty and ferocity.” To speak earlier about some themes from your EP as well as that revolving door idea, there’s something about the manifestation of realness that’s like shaping, or figuring, fiction into fact.

In fact, one of those boys actually stuck around.

See! Fortune favors the brave.

We’re in love now.

Period.

We broke up three days ago because I was moving to LA.

Oh no.

I thought that it wouldn't work. But, I called him this morning and I was like, wait, nevermind.

No way.

He was excited.

I bet.

He said that I had changed my mind a lot quicker than he expected. He thought it would be a week, not two and a half days.

Well, love is in the air after all.

I always thought having emotional support was a crutch or a weakness. I didn’t want to be tied down to somewhere else other than where I'm at presently. Then I remembered that I'm not 21 and dumb; I'm a full ass grown up. I'm creating my own destiny here. I can live in the sun place, make music, and have a boyfriend.

I'm so excited for you.

I’ve learned to not ruin love and support if it is beneficial. It’s so easy to misread a text, believe that someone’s distance is avoidance because of something you did, or spiral into a future trip. We can think like that. Or, we can continue to be in each other's lives and get over being dumb.

Being dumb is cute if it’s like watching Youtube videos all night or making out for hours on the front steps. What shows or music have you been watching or listening to recently?

I’ve been going through Max Martin's top hits discography. I want to be able to make music that’s so easily, distinctly recognizable as one of his songs. A Katy Perry smash hit or a Taylor Swift song. I’m listening to Ayesha Erotica’s old singles and albums. I’ve been watching Realhousewives of Salt Lake City because those are my girls, my women. And, randomly, I’ve been watching a lot of Julianne Moore films: Savage Grace, Children of Men, and May December. Her filmography is completely cunt and insane.

She’s swirling in her culture, she culture. For the music, what was your favorite song to make?

I think my favorite song to make was "Big League Chew". I needed the EP to be this deep, dark creative expression of my recent experiences and people’s perceptions. That was the goal, this was all about aural castration.

Deep, deep inside.

For "Big League Chew", the origin story for that song was that I was sitting in my living room and my balls were hanging out of my thong. My roommate looks at me and goes, “Oh my God, your ballsack looks like Big League Chew.” And I was mortified and said, “Oh my God, fuck you!”

That’s rough.

I started writing it down immediately. I was pissed that she said that but it was so fucking funny. It’s what it looked like at the time: hairless and chewed up.

Gumpy, tongue-tied, and ready to blow.

I gave that prompt to BABYNYMPH and told her to go the fuck off. Then, I brought Linux into the studio and we set up a whole thing. She goes, I'm Nicki [Minaj].

Totally.

Even though the song is 2 1/2 minutes it feels like a time capsule of this frenzy of girls vibrating in Athens, in Brooklyn, and in L.A. We were going global in sisterhood, all centering on this one idea of getting our dicks chewed off.

Were there any songs you wrote that totally surprised you?

My favorite song to write was “So Cool." I wrote it after I had my first hookup as a woman. It was with my new face, I guess, just my factual face. I hadn’t had sex for a long time and then I decided I couldn’t keep hiding from guys. I went out. Someone brought me home after we had a cute night and he was she-ing me down, saying how beautiful I was, and affirming me. He was such a gentleman.

Chivalry isn’t so dead after all.

The whole time I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. But, simultaneously telling myself to be cool and to keep it together. After we hooked up, I went home and I wrote about that feeling. “So Cool.” I wrote it very quickly and there’s a cute pop bridge. It was the only song I wrote that doesn't use any cuss words.

I wonder why?

I love cuss words. They just are so stark and so aggressive so maybe that’s why I didn’t use any for that song.

Cuss words also mean like 20 different things depending on how you use them. Which is what's so fun about them. I don't think using cuss words have much to do with having a low IQ unless IQ now stands for an imagination quotient.

They can be negative. They can be positive. They can be affirming. They could be like a huge insult.

Have you played any of your songs during a hookup? Or, started singing during a hookup?

I have been in a hookup and a melody will come to me and I’ll stop what I’m doing to write the melody down on my phone.

Wait, you’re kidding.

No. I wrote something like that the other day. But then, I put my phone down and get back into it. Some guys think it’s cute. Other guys, though, have been weirded out. I started laughing a little.

What is your writing process like besides workshopping in the bedroom?

I lean towards a Buddhist mentality. I like being in the flow. Music comes when it’s present. Both feeling and thought. I try not to think too hard about it because Nicki Minaj once said, “don't ever edit what you write.” Just let it all go.

Wise words from a beloved postmodern priestess poet. You recently saw Miley Cyrus and Ryan Beatty together at what looked like a super intimate performance. How was that?

It was really cute. Crazy meeting Hannah in real life, I see so much of Hannah in my former self. Obviously massively inspiring. Leads back to my process which is very much that I'm on a city bike and going somewhere. Wait. I stop. I hit up my Voice Notes and give it a few lines.

That’s so good. You’ve found your magic. I remember when we first met and you wanted to be on stage, have some lights on you.

It was in 2018.

Long ago but also not so much.

I’ll be back in New York soon to play something.

Break a leg, baby.

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