If we actually supported these gay artists and pumped money behind them the same way they pump money behind these divas, a conversation of homophobia in hip hop wouldn't be. Because I would have the money and the revenue coming in. It's not about homophobia or who's going to push back. It's all about who's supporting you and where there's money from.
I like to consider myself a student of hip hop. There's a certain level of certification and wit and craftsmanship that comes with rapping. As rap progresses - it's a young genre - it's becoming way more mainstream, crossing over to different lanes. I feel like it's losing its essence in a way, because it's getting commercialised. I want to keep it fresh and keep it progressive, but I also want to respect the foundation of what rap is about.
For you to be able to rap fast and fit many words into a bar, that's what rap is about, the showmanship. That's the thing we're kind of losing now. I'm not saying that the music now is horrible. I mean, I don't listen to it. The showmanship and creativity in rap is what made it special and what made it different.
Coming into this, making music, I knew that was something that was going to be held over my head. Okay we get it, you're openly gay, but do you know how to rap? Can you really rap and deliver? And I feel like I have that pressure put on me that other artists don't. A lot of people don't have to focus on being so lyrical and actually putting on shows. Before anyone was gonna tell me I was bad, I was gonna prove that I was good.
In this day and age of social media, where everything is so centred around how many Instagram and Twitter followers you have, what's keeping me afloat is the fact that my live performance is something that people can enjoy.
I don't know [whether] if I didn't get paid, or my career didn't keep going where it goes, if I would keep doing music.
Now I'm in the business and I do have to have these awkward conversations about how I look, how I talk. But I'm still here.
I was doing my music because it was fun, and I always was like, "If it becomes a business, or it becomes too demanding, or if people try to tell me what to do or control what I'm doing, I won't do it."
It may look like things have gotten better, because everyone is semi-being appreciative. Not appreciative, but conscious of people being gender fluid and all those things.
I don't think it's completely better. I still have to do annoying things sometimes and explain things that I don't feel I have to [about LGBT].
I think it's very important that LGBT narratives are spoken from LGBT perspectives. I think that what I do is important as far as creating a lane for myself to be independent.
I think each track tells a different story about what I'm going through. But overall it's just me being young, my love of alcohol, and my love of turning up.
I think what's keeping me making music - the money is great, but I make music for the visibility.
There are two singles I did with Noah Breakfast, ["Talkin Greezy" and "New Phone (Who Dis),"] which was a cool experience. So it's cool either way, I think. It depends on the relationship you have with the other person - not everybody is going to work the same way.
Sometimes I start with the beat. Sometimes I can write something down and it takes me a while to figure out how I want to say it or the beat I want to say it to. I definitely like to live the experiences that I cover.
I'm a SoundCloud, online kind of artist. It's not like back in the day when everyone was like linking up physically to do music. But with the album, I did have my first experience with meeting with a producer and us making things from scratch.
I'm a lot different in my career since that interview. To have someone like Diplo tweet "Cakes' album is really cool" is cool, but in the same breath I still like what I do without anyone's approval. It's still good music.
I've been working with Peaches for a while as far as doing shows, maybe for the past two years. Everyone else seems to think that this is a new relationship, but me and her have been touring off and on for a while now. I was doing my album and I needed that heavy-hitter.
In the industry there's this whole mentality of working with someone who can open the door for you, but my whole thing is that I like my work to speak for itself. So I still do have that same mentality.
Living New York, everyone has a million hustles, so I was doing party promoting, working the doors at parties, doing that whole nightlife thing.
My love of words, alcohol, and stage antics basically cemented me as a rapper, but it wasn't a career that I wanted to do. It was just, "I like to do all these things at one time."
Not to sound egotistic, but I've gotten kind of good at it. It's something that came naturally to me, but my rapping is rooted in my writing.
I write a lot. I used to write a lot of poetry when I was younger, write for my school newspapers. Also reading is very important because you need to be on your word game if you want to be a lyricist.
I am a rapper. The reason why I was against the whole rapper title is because I know so many people who want to be rappers and they're not.
I didn't choose to be a rapper; it's just my talent.
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