The next generation of queer voices and visionaries are history in the making, changing the world in a way that's uniquely their own. For our Pride Issue, we're celebrating rising artists who are taking a stand while taking the stage. Check out our other cover stories, featuring Chika and Ian Alexander, here.
I’m emotional all the time. When I was younger, I was drawn to art that was almost upsetting; I’ve always used music as a tool to understand my own thoughts and feelings. I grew up in Williamsburg, New York with music all around me. My father owned Mission Sound, a Brooklyn-based recording studio, and I spent most of my time as a child around creative people. My upbringing was this mixture of going to school and then playing in the studio with artists and instruments and layers of sounds and lyrics. Even at a really young age, I started to understand myself through music; I listened to a lot of Queen, Lady Gaga, 70s rock, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Jack White. Although it was never forced upon me, music was always something that I internalized and understood about myself and my future: I am a musician. Now, at the age of 20, I think more than anything the way I process emotions drives the art I put out into the world.
My work is also definitely informed by my queerness. Not to generalize, but I feel like queer people are so good at making things; so many of us are so artistic and intuitive. While I was figuring out who I was and how I wanted to self-identify, I started watching anything and everything that was really gay: TV shows, films, shows online, all of it. There was one point when I stopped watching straight shows altogether because I didn't want to want to look at fucking straight people anymore. Today I gravitate towards art with real substance more than anything, but I’ll still check out anything queer, because it was so foundational to my sense of self.
I guess I really came out in middle school. I had my first queer kiss in the eigth grade. It was over the summer, and this girl I was friends with asked me directly if I wanted to kiss her at a party. Immediately after we kissed I was like, "Fuck. That was good. I’m gay.” Six years later, queer love continues to teach me more and more about who I am.
There is something so powerful and layered to it when two women love each other. There’s this inherent foundation in friendship, mutual respect, support, and connection that I experience in relationships with other women. I’ve learned so much from the women I’ve loved. I think that queer love is really beautiful, obviously, but wild and complicated, too.
It feels challenging to write about queer sex, and that’s maybe why so few artists do it. I think it’s part of the reason why my single “Pussy Is God” got such a response. It comes from a really honest queer perspective, and I feel like there aren’t many songs like it. Sometimes I listen to songs that explicitly mention straight sex and I’m like, “Do you even want it?” People aren’t conditioned to talk about sex comfortably in our culture, so not many people do it. I can imagine it being difficult for other artists to spit out gnarly lines about sex if they’re not doing so around people they trust. But I’m really lucky to be surrounded by people I love when I’m making music, people who also trust my creative process. I wrote “Pussy Is God” for myself, but it’s been special to see so many young people rejoicing a song about eating pussy. I can’t even imagine what I’d be like today if I had a song like that to listen to when I was growing up.
There’s so much about identifying as queer that’s different for young people today. I feel like the nature of coming out is changing. It’s definitely less shocking for a young person to come out today than ever before, but that fact might also create pressures for those who might not be able to come out yet. I want people to know that coming out takes time. It’s a process and a privilege. There were so many people who fought for my generation to have this freedom, and I never take that for granted. For so long, queer visibility was accompanied by such intense fear, and it makes me think about how I move through the world now. I personally love being gay in public, and feel the most comfortable being out when I’m with my friends. I’m lucky to be able to express my queerness openly with those closest to me, and I think that’s really beautiful.
I admittedly struggle with my queerness too, especially when I feel like it limits how people perceive me as an artist. I hate being thrown into categories and grouped into conversations with other gay people just because we’re all gay. LGBTQ+ artists are not all the same, and I think our differences tend to be overlooked when we’re pushed together onto the same guest lists and thrust onto the same stages. It’s not like we are the only gay people making art.
The queer community still has work to do, especially right now. We still encounter unfathomable amounts of hatred every day; we have people in power literally attacking our most basic human rights. And I see so much hostility on the internet even between queer people, and I do not think we can afford to be resentful towards each other right now. We are all we have. We need to treat ourselves and each other with patience, kindness, and understanding.
I don’t have all the answers, though. I’m still grasping what it means to be an adult. My new album is the culmination of so much of my recent growth, most of which is really painful for me to revisit and relive through my music. But it is definitely cathartic, too. I exert so much therapeutic energy when I’m performing, and I feel infinitely lighter after sharing pivotal hardships — deep-seated feelings of loss, conflict, and pain. When I get it all out there, it feels so freeing. Recently, I've been playing the album to everyone in my life that I love, and their admiration makes it feel more complete. It’s crazy that this is my career.
In terms of the future, I would love to be the type of artist who just puts out really good music, constantly, while still performing. I’ve also never played a Pride festival before and I’m about to share a stage at San Diego Pride with Melissa Etheridge, a gay legend. I’m really excited. It’s a huge honor, especially since this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. I respect queer history so much, and I try to carry our legacy with me in everything I put out into the world.
And when my new album finally comes out, I’m just going to fucking cry.
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