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" 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. "

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" 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. "

K. Flay

Hip-Hop

Much

Started

" 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. "

" A friend of mine encouraged me to try rapping, so I started experimenting with it, writing verses, seeing if I could fit an extra word or syllable into each line without tripping myself up. "

" I feel like, for me, different environments are very important to me creatively. I think it's my norm to be on the move. "

K. Flay

Feel

Move

" 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. "

K. Flay

Words

Direction

" 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 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. "

K. Flay

Friends

Style

" I know that in my own mind, I struggle with a desire to be both entirely absent and entirely present in any given moment. "

" 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. "

" I think, initially, working on your own is really great because it allows you to just be really free and not worry about how things are perceived or if people are going to think you're an idiot. And once that becomes ingrained, at least for me, I think I'll feel really comfortable to work with other people and still feel that same freedom. "

K. Flay

Think

Work

" 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. "

K. Flay

Serious

Look

" 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. "

" I think the key for any kind of artist - and this transcends music - is a certain degree of authenticity and sincerity. "

" I've always had a duck personality. Calm above water, feet going crazy below. "

" A good sign for me, that I'm a good spot mentally, is when I'm super prolific. And I just wake up every day excited to make or replicate music in some way. That's really nice. "

" 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. "

" Remixes are so much fun. For me, it's like this great release of energy. I like producing stuff for myself, but I also enjoy making music that wouldn't really suit my own vibe. "

" There's something distinct and interesting about a live performance. There's this weird immediacy that's, for me, really invigorating, and it just feels really rewarding. "

K. Flay

Live

Performance

" 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. "

" I hope people describe my music as lyrically driven, cross genre. Kind of alternative, kind of indie, kind of rap, kind of everything. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm intrigued by people who are super adept at manipulating their own image. We all do it to a certain extent. "

" I was thinking about how we're so in touch with our image now. That conception of ourselves, in a very physical sense, can be oppressive. You find people wanting to be in dark places, not really see themselves, see themselves as a filtered image. A curated image. "

" Feeling anxious or depressed sometimes is part of what it means to be a person, and it might even be essential to success. "

" 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 think it's more important than ever to be as vocal as I can be about things I believe in outside of music. "

" 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. "

K. Flay

Psychology

School

" 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. "

" 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. "