Multi-platinum recording artist Macy Gray, recently stopped in London to promote her forthcoming album 'The Sellout' and she was kind enough to speak to Kieran Yates for The Wrap Up. In this interview they get chatting about everything from Macy's love for Biggie and shopping at Harrods, to going to prison and...Cooch?
TWU: Hi Macy, how are you enjoying the UK?
Macy Gray: Yeah, it’s great, I love London. I’ve been shopping in Harrods and done all that stuff.
TWU: Tell us about the new album ‘Sellout’. What was the concept behind the name?
Macy Gray: It’s a prediction on my record sales and all my concert tickets, ha!
TWU: TWU: How does it sound?
Macy Gray: Oh it’s great. It’s just a story of my life and my career and my love life, and it’s upbeat. It’s kind of up and down and its real warm, it feels good, you know?
TWU: How is it different to what we’ve heard before?
Macy Gray: Well, my voice is a thousand times better, and musically I’ve grown a lot, so it’s a bit of an evolution. I don’t know if style wise it’s a huge departure from what I usually do, but it’s better because I’m better.
TWU: Is it as autobiographical as ‘On How Life Is’?
Macy Gray: The thing about my songs that make my records special is that they are always a story of my life. The things that are personal or from the heart always make the records stronger, you know?
TWU: Does it make it more difficult to perform? Sharing with strangers the secrets of your life?
Macy Gray: No, not really because that always how I’ve done it, it’s like therapy for me. It’s pretty natural. My private life is pretty private, but in my music I like to just say what’s going on.
TWU: I know you consider Billie Holiday as a huge influence, who else inspires you?
Macy Gray: Tonnes of people, Aretha Franklin, Sly and the Family Stone, I’m a big rock n roll fan, 80s led Zeppelin, queen, nirvana, and of course hip-hop was a big influence. You know everything on the beat sounding just right!
TWU: Is it the rebel inside you that is a rock fan?
Macy Gray: Yeah, that’s the beauty. Everybody in rock is always screaming, they have this primal scream that they’re just dying to get rid of, so yeh, I love that. I think we all kinda do that naturally.
TWU: Who would you like to collaborate with on your fantasy album?
Macy Gray: Everybody that I want to is dead already. I would like Bob Marley, Biggie or somebody like that. I was a huge Biggie fan, I love ‘Cant You See’ and ‘Dreams,’ but all of them really.
TWU: So were you Team Biggie over Tupac?
Macy Gray: Well, it’s hard to compare them because they talked about totally different things, but it was probably equal. Though I do love Biggie.
TWU: Have you heard any UK artists that you like?
Macy Gray: Sometimes you know, I don’t even know artists are English until I see them do an interview. But of course Amy Winehouse and Adele I like, Estelle, though I didn’t know she was English until she was like, ‘I just stepped down in London town.’
TWU: Who’s on your iPod?
Macy Gray: I’m not good at downloading, so I don’t have one. But I’m listening to Erykah’s new album, I really like it. At Coachella I heard LCD soundsystem and that was great and I really like MGMT’s new album. Coachella was awesome!
TWU: Were you camping?
Macy Gray: No way, never. I don’t camp!
TWU: What was your experience of working with Erykah Badu?
Macy Gray: Yeah it was good, you know she’s really professional and she really takes seriously what she does. She really loves music you know, she’s a true artist, and she’s for real.
TWU: What do you say to people that call you the ‘rock star of hip-hop’?
Macy Gray: Ha, well everybody has crazy opinions of me, most of them are wrong.
TWU: But you have had a few that have been true, like getting arrested post interviews. Does that kind of thing follow you around a lot?
Macy Gray: Well, I should just say that there’s nothing cool about being arrested. They kind of glorify the wrong things and focus on the weird stuff.
TWU: What are the craziest rumours that you’ve heard about yourself? I heard a few saying you had drug addictions…
Macy Gray: Ha! There was one saying that I was a heroin addict. My manager just said, ‘why don’t you just wear some T-shirts for a while so they [the media] can see and then they’ll know you’re not!’ Because that’s really all you can do, unless you just start screaming ‘no I’m not!’
TWU: What do you say to stuff like that, do you just laugh it off these days?
Macy Gray: Yeah. Once I said to a reporter that I had tasted my own cooch, because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And he was like, ‘oh that’s why she sings like that, she has a hair in her throat!’ That was funny.
TWU: So what’s planned for the next single?
Macy Gray: We’re gonna go full force; you know it’s a great album. ‘Lately’ is the next single, it’s a really great dance number that we did, it’s like disco and I like it a lot.
TWU: Are you a good dancer?
Macy Gray: I do the two step, my kids laugh at me, I’m a horrible dancer. Back in the day I couldn’t do anything, the running man, nothing!
TWU: You were just the kid in the corner of the party taking notes right?
Macy Gray: Ha! Yeah totally.
TWU: How different you are now to where you were before?
Macy Gray: I understand a lot if things I didn’t know before, I had a lot of ups and down, and if it wasn’t for the downs, I wouldn’t have made this album. I think it’s one of the best!
Macy Gray: ‘The Sellout’ – out June 21
Words: Kieran Yates
Online editing: Joseph ‘JP’ Patterson
