Chatting With The Glitter Trap Rapper: Kitty

By Georgina Langford

Daytona Beach, Florida, produced a glitter-loving girl who was always destined to be big on the Internet. After catching everyone’s eyes and ears by collaborating with Riff Raff on ‘Orien’s Belt’ in 2012, and touring with her mate Danny Brown in 2013, Kitty has become a rap star in her own right with a whole weird corner of Tumblr dedicated to her fans. Her new EP ‘impatiens’ is quietly amazing, so MTV had an online conversation with the artist formerly known as Kitty Pryde. 

MTV: So…no more Kitty Pryde, you are just Kitty now?

Kitty: There’s an X men named Kitty Pride. I didn’t want to deal with copyright and people getting mad about it and stuff so I was just like whatever, I’m just Kitty now.

MTV: After two years of making music, what’s an average day like for you right now?

Kitty: It depends. Theres times when I’m like doing shows, going on tour is very different but when I’m home I’m writing songs and actual writing, I write for VICE and freelance. I do a lot of crafty things and I don’t like to spend time in the studio but I spend time with people working on beats. My friend and I throw themed parties in Brooklyn and we’ve been doing this one that people really like, where like we play old emo rock songs that were really popular when we were in early high school. I also go to a lot of shows.

MTV: What was the last gig you went to?

Kitty: I’ve been like going to just like random things just at bars. Last night I went to see these people called Hand Job Academy that was very funny. It was like a bunch of girl rappers.

MTV: From what you said earlier, it sounds like you prefer writing songs at home?

Kitty: I can write melodies in the studio but not verses. There are a couple where I’ve had to just because I needed to get them done and those are always the ones that I’m really embarrassed of. I do a lot better I’m just like walking around or just like riding the train so I’m just like thinking about nothing.

MTV: How did touring with your friend Danny Brown affect you?

Kitty: I definitely learned. That was my first like, long tour all over the country. I learnt which states are strict about the underage drinking laws.

I learnt a lot about like performing, because before tour every show felt like a big deal but then on tour it’s another show,  another night, which is good because you like practice and practice and I had a lot of time to like perfect it. I also figured out how stressful it is and also boring, like there are parts of tour that are SO boring like driving for hours with no one to hang out with, everyone’s asleep and you’re just like oh my god.

MTV:  How do you feel about performing in general?

Kitty: I used to really not even like it, but like now I’m getting more to a place where I enjoy it. It gives me a lot of anxiety, which a lot of it is like good anxiety I just get excited and really hyper, but it’s still really hard for me when I don’t feel like I’m connecting with the audience. But at the end of that first tour I got a lot tougher.

MTV: Let’s talk about the EP, which is great – the concept, the visuals, even the little emojis you put in the track names. The title, ‘impatiens’ is the name of a type of plant. Are you green fingered?

Kitty: I just really like flowers, pretty much all of the titles of my stuff has names to do with flowers. I’m not necessarily very good at growing them but I like them.

MTV: Why did you make the visuals to go with each track?

Kitty: All of the songs on the EP were really like personal and intense for me and they all represented stuff that happened  to me last summer.

MTV: The video for “emo bounce” is great because of all the glitter, ever.

Kitty: I love everything to do with sparkly. Those were fireworks we were shooting up on the beach.

MTV: There seems to be a contrast between the sparkly girly fun visuals, with the slightly sad tone of the songs. Is that an accurate interpretation?

Kitty: Yeah, I wanted that because the songs are sad. I had a like rough summer  when I wrote them and I had all these feelings at the time, now like I’m the type of person that kinda gets over stuff pretty fast. So the memories that I have now are all happy ones, you know, we still had fun.

MTV: Can you explain your DIY video for ‘BRB’ where your friends and fans are taking off their clothes and dancing in front of their webcams?

Kitty: I wrote that when I was far away from my boyfriend cause he was in New York and I was in LA, so its just about how like we would like we would fight and get mad each other all the time but then like whenever I would leave we’d just be sad and I’d miss him. I have been in a lot of long distance relationships because I love the Internet and I know a lot of girls that do the same thing so I wanted it to show how like, awkward and annoying and weird it is to like be like an online relationship. And I asked all the girls to just be themselves, because everyone looks stupid dancing in their underwear. All of them are girls who follow me on tumblr.

MTV: There’s a brilliant line in that song; “I’ll never get bored of brainstorming reasons I adore you.” Which is just a really original way of expressing your of love and longing for someone. Are you the kind of person that gets crushes easily.

Kitty: Yeah. I get crushes a lot. On everybody. It’s a problem.

MTV: So you share a lot of personal stuff on your Tumblr, and a lot of people have discovered your music via there. But there is so much negativity online, if you could live in a world where Tumblr didn’t exist would you choose that?

Kitty: I’ve always kind of been very open with everything. I’m just that type of person. I used to write like funny things or my feelings or whatever and it would be a good outlet, bur now I have this whole like community of people on Tumblr.

I know a lot of girls that look up to me and that are younger than me and I know that there was a lot of like stuff that sucked when I was that age and now that I’m older I’ve kind of figured out like ‘ways to feel better about yourself’ and like just ways to make life suck less. So I feel like,maybe I can help. I like to share a lot of personal stuff even though sometimes it gets embarrassing. All I want to make them feel is like I understand and I wanna help.

MTV: On a lighter note, you recently interviewed 50 Cent, how was it meeting him?

Kitty: Oooh. He was so nice! Every really famous rapper I’ve met has been a little condescending and they don’t usually really like me, they think I’m annoying but 50 Cent was like the nicest guy I’ve ever met. He was like so sweet. I was thrilled about that because I was like expecting him to be a total jerk and I was like god it’s going to be so hard interviewing him I don’t know what to do., but he made it easy.

MTV: Did you call him ‘Fifty’ or did you call him Curtis?

Kitty: I didn’t call him anything! I just didn’t know what to do. Mr Cent maybe?

MTV: Yeah we would have probably gone with Mr Cent too.

The ‘impatiens’ EP by Kitty is out now and she is going on tour with Kitten in the US and Canada. Listen to Kitty’s new track  ‘Marijuana’