Kreayshawn Interview

I was delighted to get the chance to interview the fierce Kreayshawn for Think-Work-Play - big joy!

Here’s female rapper and overall style icon Kreayshawn. Famed for her outlandish, cartoon-influenced videos and outspoken ways, the Oakland native released her first official video ‘Gucci Gucci’ on YouTube and got more than three million hits in three weeks, which in turn led to Columbia Records signing her on the spot.

Despite rolling with the big boys in hip-hop, Kreayshawn remains true to her punk roots and talks about her mum’s band Trash Women, why she loves shopping in London and what inspires her creative process.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

Spice Girls, Kool Keith, The Trash Women, Lady Dead, Eve, Missy Elliot, N.E.R.D, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam and V-Nasty.

What’s the worst fashion decision you’ve made?

For a while I didn't have a full-length mirror at my house & I didn't know what I was wearing really. Then I would catch a glimpse in public in a window reflection sometimes and just shake my head like "damn how did I leave in this... I really need a mirror."

Describe the world today in one word?

Kray! *Kayne voice*

Gucci Mane or Cartier Kitten?

Well, I'd go with Gucci Mane because V-Nasty & Gucci just released their new album BAYTL and I bought it at Best Buy last night! SO excited. But, I love Cartier Kitten. Not just because I love kitties.

Can you take a photo of something in your room for us?

Here’s a pic of one of my two cats, Choppa snuggling in my bed.

What is feminism to you?

Feminism sounds very intense. I prefer the term "Girl Power". I don't know why I am associated with this question a lot. But, I get a lot of compliments on my role reversals in my music. That's just how I live my life. I was raised by a single mom and a lot of aunts so, I grew up around a very STRONG group of women that just love emasculating men.

What do you like most about what you do?

I like travelling all around even though I HATE airports. I also like giving my friends opportunities to do what they wanna do as well and travel with me!

Who’s your favourite person on Twitter?

@LL_FOOL_J

- THINK: where do you come up with your ideas, is there a special place or do random places spring up best ideas - examples?

Sometimes I do best alone in my room just chillin' and sometimes I will be at dinner and lines will just pop into my head or I will get a idea for a mini-show or a music video. Most of the time my little green tree helps me think too:)

- WORK: where is your studio, or work place?

When I lived in Oakland I was always recording at Nexxus it is like my home base for recording. Now that I'm in L.A I move around a lot to different studios.

- PLAY: unwind, party – do you have a favourite place?

All my favourite places are really in The Bay Area. I haven’t had much time to explore in L.A but, I love going to Japan Town, The Berkeley Marina, Downtown S.F to just lurk around, The 23rd Yards in Oakland, & WEST OAKLAND PARTIES!

What’s the best thing about London?

It was for sure Brick Lane. I loved shopping over there! So many cute stores with LOADS of 90's stuff!

What’s your favourite word?

BITCH.. just like Too $hort.

What your favourite sound?

LA LA LA!

Finally, you’re on top of your game right now; tell us something boring about yourself...

I wanna quit smoking for New Years.

The Best Songs of 2011

The best songs of 2011 according to me. Well worth a read. Just sayin'... Best albums of 2011 here. 

1.     Waters - For The One - I’m well into this.

2.     Drake – Headlines - SWAG.

3.     Bombay Bicycle Club – Shuffle - Like it. Good melodies and all that.

4.     Rihanna - We Found Love – So damn catchy… 

5.     Lonsdale Boys Club – Light Me Up – Superfan! 

6.     Various Cruelties – Great Unknown - Swoon. 

 7.     Kele  - What Did I Do - Didn't get it at first, then I loved it, happens to me a lot...

8.     Frank Ocean – Swim Good - Deep.

9.     Lykke Li – I Follow Rivers - Epic. 

10.   A$AP Rocky – Palace – Earfuck. Literally. 

Crush of the Week – Liam from Various Cruelties

Right now I’m crushing out on something/someone that I usually never ever crush out on. A proper Northern lad who plays guitar and writes songs in the vein of Oasis and Kasabian. WHAT.IS.HAPPENING.TO.ME?

I cannot help but like Various Cruelties frontman Liam, who combines just the right amount of lad, poet, geek, shy boy and (yikes) musician.

Crushworthy (mainly superficially) because

Voice

Style

Hair

Lyrics

Bad inward pointing teeth

Bottled up emotions that he can only express with music (eeeeek)

Comes up with great band names

That shy smile…

Someone Special

Disclaimer - totally self-involved blog post to follow – Disclaimer over

I was brought up to believe that I’m someone special (insert joke here now – well done). Someone unique and lovable. I’m an only child and my parents always made me feel like I’m the centre of the universe, because for them I was and I still am the centre of the universe. Sometimes (let’s be real - most of the time) I still think I’m the centre of the universe. Not in a bad, super arrogant, deluded way, just in a natural way - if you can call that natural. Things in my little Linda world tend to revolve around Linda. Hence the blog name. Hence the over-sharing. Hence the sensitivity. I always think everybody feels what I feel, cause I feel it, cause I think it, cause that’s my reality.

But, bada bing bada boom, in the grim real world no-one gives a fuck about how special I think I am because everyone is too busy and stressed and self-occupied to really care. It’s a harsh world out there. Just so you know.

Finally understanding that I’m not the best in class anymore, the one that always gets what she wants and the one that everything revolves around depressed me. Big time. I don’t deal with criticism very well. I don’t deal with rejection very well. I don’t deal with loss very well. But it finally hit me (after long conversations with BFFs and my mum) that change can be good.

Like my mum said: A raw diamond is very beautiful, but a diamond that has been polished for a long time shines even brighter. (Yikes, cue emotional wreck) 

So, ANYWAY, after these long and soul-searching paragraphs (I really am turning into Drake) I thought it might be helpful for anyone that shares my sentiments of occasional self-grandeur to come up with a check-list of how to avoid the traps of human OMG-I’m-So-Special frailty and maybe start working on taking in lives’ lessons and starting to shine. (LOL worst blog post ever?)

No he’s not looking at you, he’s looking at that lipstick on your teeth.

No he’s not looking at you, he’s looking at your see-through top.

The man in the supermarket wasn’t smiling at you, he saw the reduced shelf behind you.

If you’ve done something great, don’t make a big deal out of it.

You probably haven’t done something great, it was merely average, duh. You’re not a rocket scientist.

Not everybody will like you. You’re not Princess Diana. Deal with it.

You’re not Princess Diana. Or Beyonce. Or Marilyn Monroe.

No he’s not looking at you, he’s looking at that bit of spinach stuck to your cheek. HOW MANY DAMN TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU?!?

Not everybody thinks that story about how you met Jedward is as enticing as you think it is.

I still love you and I think you’re special. Unless you like Coldplay.

Fashion Fix #45 - Christmas Wishlist

My Christmas Wishlist. Show some love. If you can get me that October's Very Own varsity jacket, I'll marry you on the spot and I will love you forever. Promised.

The Best Albums of 2011

The best albums of the year according to, errr, me.

1.     Drake – Take Care

Immense. I mean it’s Drake. The best album I have heard in a long time.  

2.     Waters – Out in the Light 

Just fell in love straight away…

3.     James Blake – James Blake 

Next Level.

4.     WU LYF – Go Tell Fire To The Mountain 

Primal, pure and at times petrifying, also pretty weird in a good way.

5.     Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes 

....simply stunning

6. Ben Howard – Every Kingdom

Nothing like Jack Johnson. Thank God. 

7.     Yellow Ostrich – The Mistress 

So understated, so underrated, so simple and yet so beautiful. Okay gonna stop with this alliteration shizzle now. 

8.     Frank Ocean – Nostalgia/Ultra  

Different. Good.

9.     Patrick Wolf – Lupercalia 

On top form.

10.     Iceage – New Brigade

Intense

Heart Things

I'm into heart things. In a lot of ways. Here are some heart things I ♥ 

 

Top Five Vibes - 90s

I know nostalgia is a wonderful thing, so today’s top five vibes is about the 90s and all that was good about the decade and I’m not only talking grunge and Beavis and Butthead. Here it goes….

My So-Called Life.  I have expressed numerous times how much I love it. An institution. 

Those ‘empowering’ female musicians  – Bikini Kill (yes), TLC (double yes), Huggy Bear (angry), Alanis Morisette (I admit it…), Hole (totes!!) and let’s not forget this…..TUNE. 

Flannel never looked better. Nor did moodiness.

 Brad Renfro wasn’t yet completely fucked up (and dead). 

When the decade ended I was only 15 years old….oh beautiful teenage years. Sigh.  

Top Five Vibes – Drake

We all know I’m obsessed with Drake. He’s an amazing lyricist. His delivery is killer and I actually believe that he’s as sensitive and intelligent as his songs portray him to be. Maybe I’m naïve. Anyway, top five vibes about my fave Drake songs today.

Fireworks

“You could’a been the one but it wasn’t that serious. There was smoke in the air before that was me clearing it. That felt good, all and all I learned a lesson from it though - you never see it coming you just get to see it go. Yeah, I should have looked up at the sky at first
, now I can see it in her eyes; fireworks.”

Best I Ever Had

“Ha and you all ain't even have to ask twice. You can have my heart or we can share it like the last slice. Always felt like you was so accustomed to the fast life.”

Karaoke

“I know they say the first love is the sweetest, but the first cut is the deepest.”

Headlines

“I might be too strung out on compliments, overdosed on confidence, started not to give a fuck and stop fearing the consequence.”

 The Resistance

“What am I afraid of? This is supposed to be what dreams are made of, but people I don't have the time to hang with always look at me and say the same shit -
'You promised me you would never change.'”


The Basics (+ some music)

Hello blog-lovers (and non-blog lovers) recently I got a lot of shtick for my blog. And I’m not used to that, I’m only used to love. I mean who doesn’t love the Book of Linda?

So a few basics first.

If you don’t like my blog, don’t read it. Simples.

If you think my blog is ‘juvenile’, then stop being patronising and all grown-up, cause that’s boring.

If you think my blog is ‘not reserved enough’ and too ‘German’ and ‘outspoken’ then you’re a racist.

If you don’t think that music (and yes boys and relationships and affection and love) are worthy to be talked about in a blog, then I pity you. Cause those are some of the big topics in life. Not exclusively but extensively.

If your horizon is too small to understand the underlying issues of everything I talk about, then you need to activate your creative thinking and imagination.

And finally, yes I could write about how Kafka was commenting on the panopticonian society in ‘The Penal Colony’ or how Lord Rochester’s often-trivialised mock-poetry really was a thinly veiled attack on polity, sexuality and society, but you know what, I CHOOSE NOT TO! So please don’t go on about how my blog is not deep enough and how there’re more important topics to talk about. There might be but this is the Book of Linda after fucking all and not the BBC.

Grrr. Okay now that that’s out of the way, here are some great tunes I’m listening to at the moment. Enjoy.

PlayMe

Crush of the Week - Ryan Gosling

Doing a crush of the week post again today. It’s been a while and today I’m on the obvious choice. Ryan Gosling. I know he’s very good-looking and all that and usually I’m with the ugly oddballs, but even I cannot resist the Gosling magic. Especially not after a movie marathon that consisted of ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ followed by ‘Blue Valentine’ and then followed by ‘Drive’ a few days later in the cinema.

Don’t have a lot to say other than he’s got his heart on his sleeve. In tattoo form. Awww. And he really loves his dog. Awwww. And I like his style and his face.

 

Top Five Vibes - Movies

Hello blog-lovers. It's that time. Every Tuesday (or Wednesday or whenever I can find the time basically) I'm gonna do a regular 'Top Five Vibes' post. And yes I totes stole the idea from this amazeballs blog. The first Top Five Vibes is about my favourite films. From 'obsessed-all-time-favourite' first to 'really-really-like' last. Watch them all.

Celebrity Geek Gallery

I mean we all know I love geeks. I don’t know how many posts I have started with this very sentence. Several. For sure. But this time, it’s special, cause are not talking über-awkward socially apathetic nerds with woolen jumpers who love the develop websites in their spare time “for fun”, but geeks that have actually turned into bona-fide celebrities shedding the sheepskin shawl for ebullient bling. Or something like that, I just really wanted to use that alliteration. Soz.

Anyway, welcome to Linda’s Celebrity Geek Gallery. Enjoy. I did.

Eeeeeek. Avril. Ewwwww.

OMG.

Eminem. I still love you.

Shia LeBoeuf. Lost for words.

I mean I have always loved Drake. I love him more now.

222 Words.

I think it’s better to say something stupid in the spur of the moment and not regret saying it than to not say anything and feel stupid because of it. Does that make sense?

If he likes post-punk as much as he likes posting letters, you’re onto a winner.

I don’t give a shit if you can talk the talk as long as you can walk the walk. With me.

Top Tip. If you’re one of those rude people who sit down on the aisle seat of the bus with your bag on the
seat next to you, clearly indicating that you don’t want anyone sitting there, I will make a point of sitting right next to you.

Bus aisle sitters with seat baggage, get some manners!

Once you cross that line, you cannot go back. So cherish what you have and don’t always want more.

Once you cross that line, you might discover that that’s what you always wanted.

Life is a fine balancing act.

Like my mum says (and this is a terrible German-to-English translation) – a sparrow in your hand is better than a dove on your roof.

I think I’m too impatient for the ‘Long Game’. I think I’m more into the ‘Life’s-Too-Short-Game’.

This I couldn’t say it any better.

I love you and I hope you’re happy.