In case you ever find yourself with the #blessed opportunity of being able to conduct an interview at a spa, I would not recommend starting said interview inside the “Color Therapy” sauna. Sure, you may be able to balance your chakra or whatever it is color therapy does for you, but you may also feel extremely lightheaded within a few minutes. This could easily turn into a very awkward situation, but when the person you’re interviewing is Awkwafina, you should probably have no fear of the awkward. When this happened when we met up with Awkwafina at Spa Castle in Queens, we quickly ditched the therapy and went straight to massage chairs. There, Awkwafina filled me in on the stories behind her music videos, her alter ego, and living life with no idols.
Is it more important to you to make people laugh or to make people think?
I think both [are] important. I don’t know, that’s actually subjective. It’s easier to make people laugh in a lowbrow, really stupid way. To make people think is something that is really subjective, especially if you’re rapping. I think making people laugh I like better.
Do you do think you do that better?
I can make people laugh in a really stupid way without having any thought. [Making] people think is a little bit more of a challenge. Rappers like to think they make people think. You know what I mean?
Yeah, kind of like the Dave Chappelle conundrum. With “My Vag,” I think a lot of people maybe took that too seriously. The PC police came out, especially with the Janet Reno line.
Yes.
So how did you deal with that? It was sort of a backlash.
I didn’t really feel that. Sure there was some sort of backlash. It was more of [the expectation of] me being this feminist which I am and I’m not. I don’t try to be political. At the end of the day I’m a woman. If I’m going to do a cover of “My Dick” I have to do “My Vag.” It doesn’t mean I’m doing it for these hyper-political feminist reasons. [I] never wanted to rap being that crazy feminist. I think it was definitely miscommunicated on some level. A lot of feminists took it to the next level, overanalyzed, and tried to make me out to seem this new political feminist Gloria Steinem figure. But if you dissect “My Vag” word for word there’s going to be something offensive about it. It’s not strictly feminist. It is it’s own thing.
If you could have anybody feature on one of your tracks who would it be?
It would probably be Charo.
Oh my god that’s amazing.
[laughs] It would actually be a tie between Charo and Jeff the Drunk from the Howard Stern Show.Why?
Charo’s energy is incredible and I would love to have that. Jeff the Drunk also has an incredible energy but in a different way. I think they would add something good to the mix.
You produce a lot of your own stuff right?
Yeah a lot of the stuff on the Yellow Ranger album I did, but there are a couple of songs I had other producers do.
You started with GarageBand and went up to Ableton. How was that process?
I think when I first started messing around with GarageBand it was kind of in the same way that a photographer and editor would go into iPhoto and have dreams. I spent a lot of time just knowing that everything I made would be shitty. If you go through that and you’re patient with that period, all of a sudden your stuff is actually okay. It just takes a long time. By the time I got to Ableton I had already been doing GarageBand for, like, 5 years. It took a while to know all that and speak in that language, but now I feel better with that than I do with rapping.
Then, or even now, are there any producers that inspire you?
Right now the whole Hudson Mohawke camp inspire me. Mad Decent; everything they’re putting out that’s theirs [is] characterizing a new sound. A lot of people are trying to move into that direction. Grimes — I’ve always respected what she’s doing. I feel like where I started came from a very similar place where she started. I really respect Hot Sugar. They’re all interconnected at the end of the day. Everyone has a similar sound, everything is highly digital.
It’s cool that all of these younger artists are going after the digital and creating with these new tools.
It’s so accessible nowadays. When I started, if I needed advice on how to master something, it would be really hard to find. I couldn’t just google it. Now there are forums. Every question you need is out there, everyone’s doing it. That’s why I feel kind of lucky that I’m able to produce and have it go somewhere I have people listening to my music
Going back to when you first started, when did that turning point happen? Where you were just like, “Fuck it, I’m going to become a rapper,” because you were doing something totally different before, right?
I started out just producing beats. The rapping came as a result of that. It was like, If I want to fill in my songs I have to rap. That’s how “My Vag” came about. When I was 18 [or] 19, I just wanted to put out a song that made my friends laugh. I went to college, graduated, [and] was working at a really cool company. I showed [the song] to my friend Court who is a director. He was like, We have to do a video for this. I was feeling pressure from work. I tentatively told my boss about it and she said, “Respect the company. Don’t make an ass out of yourself. Whatever you put out there is always going to be there.” I put that into consideration. It got to the point where music was all I had to do on the side and my job was my job. I had no other investments in it, [it was] just to make money. At that point I [realized], I can’t do what I want to do. The biggest leap for me as Awkwafina was actually deciding to put a video out.
That makes sense because the videos are really upfront about who you are.
There’s really no hiding. You either just own it, come out and do it, or don’t do it at all.
Speaking of owning it, all of your videos are hilarious and amazing. Is that just all you? How do you come up with the concept for the videos?
Me and Court [Dunn] pretty much share all of that. He is a video director, he’s worked with Bone Thugs N Harmony, Talib Kweli, and Waka Flocka. The thing with [most] rappers is that they don’t let him take control. I can hear them say [imitates deep voice], “We want a warehouse. We want all my friends in black and white. We want to be smoking weed.” Court’s a funny guy and he’s very film-centric. When we sit down I let him do whatever he wants. In “My Vag” when the doctor’s pulling stuff out of the vagina that was all him. They were all my concepts that we bounced off each other but I consider me and him like a band. Awkwafina wouldn’t exist without him. I feel like it’s all shared.
When I saw you perform at Tinderbox I think you mentioned something about your dad’s opinion on you being a rapper. How was it breaking it to him that you wanted to do that rather than something more conventional?
I think I might exaggerate it a little when I’m performing. At the end of the day I’m a spoiled only child. I’ve only done what I wanted to do. My mom passed away when I was young so I was pretty much raised by my dad and my grandma. My grandma supports me 100 percent but my dad not so much. But it’s not like he’s not talking to me. He calls me up and says things like, “You need some toilet paper? You need some paper towels?” I think I’ve always just wanted to show him that without his guidance I could still be all right.
You live with Kitty right now. Is there any chance of you two working on anything together?
I think if we were to do it, it wouldn’t be something that we planned. It would be very spontaneous.
So you don’t bounce ideas off of each other or anything like that.
Not really. We played a show together [recently] and it felt so good to play a show with a female rapper. I listened to Kitty before I became Awkwafina. I loved her music. I was a fan of hers from way back. Kitty’s young but she’s been around [the music industry] for a long time, so she knows certain things that other people can’t really tell me. She gives me good advice.
You’ve said you don’t have any other female rapper role models. I thought that was a pretty honest statement because of the way that we’re raised there’s all these male rappers in the media and you don’t get to see that many women.
Well the question was if I idolized any. The truth is I don’t even idolize any male rappers. As a hip hop artist should you really idolize? Who is my idol? George Washington, George Washington Carver, or Eleanor Roosevelt [laughs]. Not to say I don’t listen to female rappers or I don’t like them. I’m not trying to model my career after any one of them because my career is so different right now.
Just be like Kanye.
I know, right? I am Jesus. Fuck it! Fuck everyone else! [laughs].
Awkwafina’s latest album, Yellow Ranger, is available for purchase here.
Interview by Alex Martinez. Follow her on Twitter at @xxalexm
Photographed by Cheryl Georgette Arent for Issue #1
StyledByPhil
Awkwafina wears
eyewear: Mercura
top: Daniel Palillo
Top-International Playground
Bottom-International Playground
socks: American Apparel
Shoes: Chromat
