00:00I'm curious for all of you, what was the first time you sort of saw yourself represented in pop culture?
00:05Whether it was a queer artist or a straight artist or a musician or other kind of celebrity,
00:09what were sort of the first kind of moments of seeing some form of entertainment and thinking,
00:14that's me, like I feel seen?
00:16Tegan and Sarah was like my big influence because they were cool and edgy,
00:23but then they still wrote really good music, like they were bops that people say now, they were bops.
00:30And I just remember, I was like, that's me, like I want to be cool, but I want to do pop music.
00:36And I want to write music that you just can't get out of your head.
00:40And that to me was this like opening that narrative and that door for me to be myself.
00:47For me, it was Sylvester. Sylvester was an icon that I looked up to and always wanted to be like,
00:55and he was just fierce and, you know, being himself all the time.
01:00And when I used to listen to some of Sylvester records and me and my uncle, he taught me a lot about Sylvester.
01:07It just opened so many doors for me just to be myself and just get out there and live my truth.
01:11So Sylvester for me and also RuPaul.
01:13I don't know. I just feel like now I think with events like this, a lot of the creators are being able to be shown and showcased and get, you know, their recognition for what they do.
01:26And I just feel like the artists that we've been supporting just needs to support us as well on their platform and let, you know, let them know that, you know, I don't know.
01:38It's hard to say this is where I'm getting my swag from, you know what I mean?
01:41Because if you guys found out, then you guys would go and see the source.
01:44But it's like, you know, people just need to be open and say, you know, because I feel like the queer culture has been pushing a lot of the hip hop and R&B culture.
01:52And it's just a lot of people behind the scenes, as in the makeup artists and the fashion designers and all these people, they don't really get their recognition.
02:01And everybody is kind of praising the artists on stage and the artists on stage never really tells about the team.
02:09And so the team is really the queer team that's making it look so majestic.
02:13So we all, I think, no matter who you are, where you come from, we all just want an opportunity to be heard and to share our stories and to find our people.
02:29And so, yeah, I mean, releasing Curious, I didn't think that that was directly made for frat boys specifically.
02:36But I do think as a musician, as an artist, we all go through love and loss and lust and, you know, sometimes depression and all these things.
02:48And, like, that's what connects all of us.
02:51And so no matter what your sexuality is, why should we be put in a box?
02:56We all have those same feelings.
02:58We all get heartbroken.
03:01So why are we different?
03:02For a long time for me, the music was just captivated in New Orleans.
03:09And so I performed the first 10, 12 years of my career doing homework in New Orleans and getting people to like me and to understand me.
03:18And for the most part, I had all the girls in New Orleans.
03:21I had all the women around New Orleans.
03:23And it was a journey to get the men to like it.
03:27So once you, like you said, the frat boys, it was the guys for me that once the guys was like, oh, yeah, you bring all the women, you make all the girls shake their ass.
03:35So, you know, I learned that once I got all the girls, the guys were followed.
03:40So I kind of knew what I needed to do.
03:44I mean, you guys were talking about how a lot of the time it can feel like a cycle of like, oh, we're getting this press and they're doing these things.
03:52But somehow there's still all this homophobia and transphobia in the media as well.
03:57And so I was wondering, like, as artists in the song industry, how you guys kind of navigated that line.
04:04That's a great question.
04:05I mean, I know for me, it kind of harkens back to the boyfriend story.
04:09I mean, ultimately, it's just we just always talk about it.
04:11We bring it up in every meeting.
04:12You know, we talk about it, you know, in our own organization.
04:15We talk about it in the press.
04:17We talk about it on stage.
04:18And I mean, ultimately, I think just it's not like any of us have the answers on how to fix it.
04:23But I think we want to participate in trying to, you know, basically disrupt and rebuild the system.
04:28And I do think that that is it feels very much like that is what we're trying to do as an industry.
04:34I think we are all trying to look at all of the systemic problems that are still within this, you know, in the music business and talk about it.
04:40I don't know if there are answers, but for us, it's just constantly bringing it up and making it uncomfortable.
04:44Sometimes at moments of real awesome, like, great meeting, everything's going great, everyone's patting us on the back,
04:50and then Sarah will just lob something incredibly uncomfortable into the middle of the conversation.
04:55And I just think, like, well, that's how you do it, you know.
04:57Just don't get comfortable and just keep disrupting.
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