V Exclusive: Kreayshawn On Signing To Columbia, Hipsters, Her Hood Pass & The White Girl Mob
Her name may be unfamiliar to most hip-hop fans, but Internet lurkers know Kreayshawn from her multi-platin
Coming straight from the Bay Area, this 21-year old rap newbie landed herself a major record deal and millions of admirers from across the Interwebs. VIBE was allotted some face time with the fair skinned artist for deets on the Godmother of the White Girl Mob. Sucka Mcs beware! — Shabazz
VIBE: You blew up overnight, from being a “little white girl” to a viral queen, do you think that’s accurate?
Kreayshawn: I think I was more than just a “little white girl” always, but it’s definitely been crazy. It’s definitely something I’ve been building up towards just from my directing and making music. Whether it was for fun or for me and my friends, but it’s definitely interesting now that I’ve decided it to put it out there and everybody is gravitating towards it. All the press and everything has been out of control, but you gotta do it.
I heard Drake hit you up on Twitter.
I’ve hung out with a couple of different celebrities. Me and my sister V-Nasty made a song with Snoop Dogg. We’re just hanging out right now. It’s only been 3 weeks since the intense, life changing s**t.
What was that experience like, I’m sure you guys smoked and everything.
We definitely medicated ourselves. He smokes a lot more than I’m used to smoking. It was definitely an experience. I left there and “I’m like whoa what I’m doing with my life? I’m paranoid, I’m never paranoid from smoking weed. I’m too high!” [laughs] It was a studio kickback session. Me and V-Nasty made a song together. It’s like when you’re in the studio, it’s like yeah, we’re going to make a song, but then when listen to the song after, it’s like oh s**t it’s Snoop Dogg on my song.
The news is out that you’ve officially signed with Columbia Records. What made you sign with them?
Columbia is all down for the creative freedom, they want me to keep doing exactly what I’m doing. They’re telling me, ‘if you ever want to make folk music, we’ll support you making folk music,’ they trust me as an artist and I think that’s what’s important because I wasn’t making music like ‘yo I’m trying to get a record deal and this is how I’m going to make my money and this is how I’m going to live.’ It was like I was being creative and doing whatever I want and this became an opportunity so it was important for me to make sure I keep my creative freedom or it wouldn’t be something I was interested in.
A lot of people would say “Gucci Gucci” is the summer anthem for hipsters, how do you feel being attached to the hipster term?
That whole hipster thing is something I don’t see. I don’t walk around and see a whole bunch of hipsters, I know what they dress like and look like. I don’t think I have anything to do with the hipster culture, there’s gonna be a whole bunch of people who like my music and just because certain types of people like my music doesn’t mean it’s just for them. I’m making music for everybody not just for a hipster culture, but being a hipster means you’re hip I guess. So it would be nice to be hip in the end.
The video caught a lot of people’s attention, talk about your relationship with Odd Future. How does it feel to have that stamp of approval from them?
Those are my friends before anything. I’ve known Left Brain for a long time, so it’s not like they’re like ‘yo we support Kreayshaw’ they were like ‘I know Natasha, I’m going to hop in her video.’ Those are my friends—that’s all I can really say.
You were enrolled in film school at Berkeley, but with your music career blowing up how serious do you want to take your video directing?
I always want to keep my hands in every medium. I don’t want to be known as just as a rapper, because that‘s not what I was doing solely. I don’t wanna be known as somebody who’s using rap to start their directing career. I wanna just make sure that I’m playing everything evenly, like right now everything has just been so wild with all the interviews and stuff I really haven’t had time to figure out what I’m going to be able have time for with music. After all I, I did sign as a music artist. They’re telling me you can design your own logo, so yeah I’m definitely going to keep shooting videos. There’s going to be more of a budget behind it and it’s going to more of what I want to do now.