Words matter. These are the best K. Flay Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I’m letting inspiration move me, in whatever direction it may, without concern if this sounds too rap or too indie, or there’s too many words in it.
As an independent artist, you control the means of production, which is the ultimate form of empowerment.
Hip-hop is rich in musical allusion. It takes something that already existed, respects it, and reuses it.
Even the dark places are places. You’re still somewhere.
I’m having this disbelief and dissatisfaction with an establishment that feels like it’s moving backward, and I think there’s a similar feeling with everyone of my age and in the world of music and artistic stuff. Art is an important way those feelings get expressed and help people process their feelings and opinions.
I went in reverse with this whole thing. People I’ve toured with were kids who consumed as much hip-hop as they could. I didn’t do that until I started rapping.
My default is e-40 because there’s no one else in the world who raps like him. I’ve always loved e-40.
My songs are a mix of my own weird raised-by-wolves perspective and civilization.
When I first signed to RCA, I was sort of excited and shocked that it was happening. But over the next couple of years, it really started to feel like that game you play when you’re a little kid – the one where you put your nose on a bat and then spin around and try to walk.
I studied psychology and sociology. I think my assumption was that I would go to graduate school, and I don’t know what I was going to do after that.
A college degree is not essential, but if you’re already in college, and if it’s at all possible, you should definitely try to finish. In college, you have a very supportive community right there, and it can give you opportunities to try out new things.
The more I talk to people who are at a place I’d like to be at, whether its music or writing, or being a doctor or entrepreneur, sometimes you get lucky, and right away something happens. But for most people, the common denominator of success is just working really hard.
Most of the people at my headline shows are in their 20s, but it varies a ton: like, I’ve had a six-year-old hug my leg after the show and a 60-year-old shake my hand. It’s cool to see people connecting with the music across different generations.
I’ve always had a duck personality. Calm above water, feet going crazy below.
My dad played guitar, and he taught me enough to play some Beatles’ songs. But primarily, I was a bookworm. I loved reading and still do. My whole family does. It was part of the family culture. Accomplished literacy was a value.
I’m a big advocate of revisions, of living with something for a month and then realizing what needs changing, what was lazy, what could be better.
Feeling anxious or depressed sometimes is part of what it means to be a person, and it might even be essential to success.
There are people who are profoundly mentally ill. But we now have a very weird perspective on mental illness and what it means. I do think that people are overmedicated.
My sound is, at its core, a mix of things. Definitely an imperfect mix, but one that incorporates elements of the music I love – a bit of indie rock, super rhythmic rapping, and lots of synths.
What I’ve discovered and try to integrate into my show is when you’re up there, and you are loud and more visible, you’re setting a tone for how people can behave and how they can feel comfortable behaving.
I was always very academically focused when I was growing up, and music was something for which I really had no preconceptions or expectations for myself or really any rules. It kind of represented, at least for me, a divergent path of creativity and self-discovery.
The one thing that I’ve always kind of had, ever since I was a kid, was that I lack a certain degree of self-consciousness, which is alternately good and bad.
I think the key for any kind of artist – and this transcends music – is a certain degree of authenticity and sincerity.
What’s become a big theme in my music is my dad as a narrative character. I never had the opportunity to understand our relationship in a more adult capacity. The unknown is great material for any creative outlet.
I think a part of me thought that I might be interested in academia because I really do love school. I mean that on all levels – I like educational environments; I like being part of that community of learning and exploration. And I like to talk.
I don’t put a ton of time into my on-stage style, largely because I’m dumb about clothes. But I have friends who are very smart about clothes, and they teach me things. For the show, I’m mainly concerned with feeling comfortable, being able to jump around and get wild.
When I first started making music, I was all about wordplay and how fast I could rap, but over the years, I’ve really gained an appreciation for melody. What’s cool is that when you’re singing, you have to be concise, and when you’re rapping, you have the opportunity to be really detailed with your lyrics.
My dad was a serious alcoholic, and ultimately, that’s why he died. When you’re a child of someone who struggled with things like that, you look for the common thread. Is there a pattern? Is there an inheritance of pathology in some way? That haunts me.
I think, on the rap side of life, I’ve always been inspired by and respected Missy Elliott for a long time. She’s funny and created an image for herself that was non-sexualized but was really interesting and really cool and really kind of avant-garde in a lot of ways.
I hope people describe my music as lyrically driven, cross genre. Kind of alternative, kind of indie, kind of rap, kind of everything.
Even successful musicians have had periods where people say they suck and no one likes them, even after they’ve had periods of great success. So I think it’s like you just gotta do you and try to stay motivated. Until, you know, you decide to stay home and make spaghetti all day.
A lot of people don’t even listen to albums start to finish, but I do – for sure.
The more time passes in your life, I think the greater you understand perspective. So I’m happy that I’ve had experiences that have reminded me that most exciting things might not feel so exciting later, and the most disappointing things might not be so disappointing later, either.
When I was growing up, I wasn’t in bands, and had really no intention of ever doing music. I went out to California for college, and kind of on a whim started making music really as a joke, and over the course of the next five years started playing a lot of shows, and music became this really integral part of my identity.
I love playing in Chicago. It’s the memory lane hometown, which is really nice.
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with sleep. Even as a little kid, I never wanted to go to bed – it always seemed unfair in some way.
I feel like, for me, different environments are very important to me creatively. I think it’s my norm to be on the move.
A constant goal of mine is to try to put myself back in the place when I wrote something – not just to perform it on a surface level, but to re-enter that headspace, that emotion. That’s the point of a live show – for it to feel immediate and present and a little bit unpredictable.
There’s only so many variations on the basics of human relationships. To me, it’s all about the detail and how you tell the story. How you say, ‘I love you.’
Mainly, I hope to inspire honesty. We live in a space where so much can be manipulated, and so much is expected to be manipulated – curated, contrived, edited. I think that’s a real detriment to self expression and happiness in a lot of ways. In my mind, honesty and vulnerability is the way forward.
