Get familiar with the Odd Future-affiliated New York rapper/singer/poet/all-around-artist making waves in hip-hop and beyond

Is Kilo Kish a rapper? It’s a claim that gets thrown around a lot. However you want to label her artistry, the general sentiment is the same: Her music is a new wave of hip-hop/R&B that is picking up speed.

Despite the high praises for her Homeschool EP, which was released in April 2012 and produced mainly by Odd Future sub-group The Internet, the 22-year-old is looking to stake her claim as a multi-faceted artist. Her self-directed video for “Navy,” released last September, was a hypnotizing clip that showed her jazzy, spaced-out mode in action. She also made a random cameo in the video for A$AP Ferg's "Work." The increasing momentum and attention has allowed her to get comfortable with experimenting and molding her own sound. The result is her latest project, K+, where Kish shared her efforts with more than 25 collaborators, including The Internet, Earl Sweatshirt, A$AP Ferg and Childish Gambino.

Kish, who has received nods from her friends in the A$AP Mob and Odd Future, is focused on taking her music to greater lengths. In our sit down with Kilo, XXL gets familiar with her move to New York, her musical influences, her favorite tracks on K+ and if she considers herself an MC.—As told to Eric Diep (@E_Diep)

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Moving to New York and Getting Into Music:

Kilo Kish: “I’m from Orlando and I moved to New York to go to art school. I originally wanted to do fine arts, so I went to Pratt. After one year, I decided to just take a year off because my financial aid got crazy. I was just working around the city—like restaurants and downtown SoHo boutiques. After that, I realized that I was really into textile design because that was what always kind of grabbed me as far as design went. I love clothes, but I just love patterns more.

“I went to school for that. I went to F.I.T. I graduated in May and while I was at F.I.T. I worked at restaurants and stuff to pay my rent. Then, I modeled for stuff here and there. But, in my year off from school, I was actually living with J. Scott, who is my manager, and Smash Simmons who I actually make music with. Smash had a little studio setup in our house. Whenever I would come home from the boutique or whatever and I would just be bored, I would just go hang out with him in his room and see what he was up to. Because he has been making music for years prior. I was like, ‘I wanna write songs or whatever.’ You know? [Laughs] I wanted to do it too. He’s like, ‘Yeah, whatever. Go ahead.’ That’s kind of where it started.”

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Being Influenced By the People Around Her:

Kilo Kish: “I listen to soul music and I listen to Boyz II Men. [Laughs] And I like Janet Jackson, but I don’t think it directly influences my music. I don’t really know what my musical influences are. I get inspired by just conversations and people in general. I spend a lot of time observing situations just because I am a creep and I love people-watching. [Laughs] Human interaction is so interesting to me. I really get inspired by just talking to different people and some of the situations that people get put in. A lot of my songs are just bits and pieces from my real life. [There are] situations that I’ve had. [There are] situations that [my best friend Kitty Cash] has had. Little things that someone said—being at a bar eating dinner alone and watching a couple and their interactions.

“Everybody I see, I just wonder what their life is like. ‘I wonder where you live and what you do.’ It is just fun to postulate things like that. So there’s where influences in my music come from. I am very visual so I like to try and describe those places to people.

“A lot of people are inspiring, but it is so inspiring that it makes you not want to do music. If you listen to Kendrick’s album, I am just like, ‘I just quit.’ [Laughs] You know? ‘I just quit making music.’ But yeah, I think some people are super-inspiring. I will always say I love Frank Ocean’s songwriting. That’s really inspiring to me. The way Kendrick laid out his album was super-inspiring. I don’t know, music-wise, I guess I am inspired by R&B a little bit. I think I take my approach to rap as more in an R&B sense than anything else. It is very chill and melodic.”

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Recording The Homeschool EP:

Kilo Kish: “The next year—or that same year, I can’t remember—I met Matt [Martians] from Odd Future and The Internet. He was in New York because J. Scott, Smash and him went to school together in Atlanta. I met him, he stayed at our house, and I was like, ‘Oh, listen to this crap that I made. Listen to this shit.’ [Laughs] So then he was like, ‘That was pretty cool but can you come to L.A. and we can work on something?’ I was like, ‘I never been to L.A. That’s fun.’ In that summer, I went and I started working [on my music.] I went there for L.A. for a week. I worked on Homeschool and whatever. I wrote the songs then. I met Vince [Staples], Speak, and all those guys and the Odd Future guys. There were cool. They were nice to me.

“Then, I came back. I was in school still like weaving, printing and making stuff. I just kind of didn’t think about it. I kinda of brushed it off. I worked on it throughout the year. They came to New York and I recorded ‘Navy.’ Over the course of the year, by the time I put it out, it was spring. I wasn’t really thinking about it. I always had homework to do or work. I was like, ‘Whatever, this is just my little side project I am having fun doing.’ When I finally released it in May, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is just something me and Matt were working on. Look at it!’ And then it just totally blew up way more than I expected it to.

“[The reaction] was nuts. We released ‘Navy’ in the winter and it got a good response, but people still didn’t know who I was. They didn’t hear the whole project. It was kind of weird and they didn’t really get it. So that’s cool that some people like it. It just made me happy that some people wanted to listen to it. It trickled in a little at first, but then over time, it just did its own thing.”

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Is She a Rapper?

Kilo Kish: “I think I just enjoy making things. That’s just what I like doing. I really wouldn’t call myself a rapper. Just because I don’t really like the back-end stuff that is associated with it. I just don’t associate myself that way. I preferred being called a singer, songwriter, vocalist, whatever, over a rapper. I’m just talking and I am rhyming. I don’t know if it really constitutes the whole rapping thing. Especially on [K+], it gets a little hazier as to what it is. On Homeschool , I am talking literally how I am talking to you right now. There’s really no melodies or singing involved. On this one, it is a little bit more blurred.

“I don’t call myself a rapper. People call me a rapper and they get mad when other people are like, ‘Oh! She don’t got bars!’ [Laughs] I didn’t call myself that. You did. I just make songs and you guys can label it however you want. I honestly don’t mind. I just wouldn’t call myself a rapper.

“When you meet me, it doesn’t really fit my personality so much to be like, ‘Oh, she’s part of the rap game.’ I don’t care, you know? I’m just happy that I don’t have to be involved with that. I am just put to the side and it is always like Angel Haze, Azealia, you know? They are always like, ‘She is doing something over there.’ [Laughs] I am just happy that I don’t have to deal with all the stress that they had to deal with.”

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Meeting Odd Future:

Kilo Kish: “It was super organic. It was so random. At the time, especially for me, I don’t keep track of rap and what the current people are. When I first [went to L.A.] and I met all of these people, being in the studio with them was kind of like my first time hearing their music—a lot of them. It was nice and I think because of that and them knowing that I am not one of those people that want to use co-signs. I find it tacky and it is just not my personality. I try to separate myself a little bit. Like I am so happy that I have the support of my friends, but I still want to do my own thing. I always want to do my own thing.

“Odd Future is like a close-knit group of friends. They are true friends … to push myself on to that is like kind of disrespectful to them. [Laughs] I don’t do it. That’s just them. When I see Hodgy, I’ma like, kick him in the leg or something. [Laughs] That’s it, you know?”

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Meeting the A$AP Mob:

Kilo Kish: “I met Rocky and I met Yams … I met them a couple years ago. I was hosting a party that they were performing at. They are really good friends with J. Scott. J. Scott is Rocky’s DJ. It was just cool because things were so different then before ‘Purple Swag’ and all the beginning songs. They were just cool guys and they are just wild boys. [Laughs] That’s just them. That’s how I know them. It’s one of those things where it is kind of the same thing. I want to see them and be happy for them and be around them when I am with them. I don’t feel the need to push music necessarily. It is one of those awkward things. I met them and they are awesome—just great guys. I am so proud of New York right now. [Laughs]”

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Getting more than 20 artists on K+:

Kilo Kish: “I just had a lot of help. [Laughs] I would have had more people too if I had time. It was just … I wanted to grab everybody that inspired me who is just interesting and fun to work with and who is super creative. Those are the people that I want on the tape. Like I grabbed Kitty Cash, she doesn’t make music at all, but she is my best friend. I wanted layers of sound that weren’t just my voice. I just wanted it to feel whole. I had Cash do ad-libs. I had all my other girlfriends do adlibs. I just put it all together like a mood board a little bit, where I just stuck Cash here with [A$AP] Ferg. I stuck my other friend here with Vince. I tried to mix it up as much as possible. Put Donald [Glover] on some of Matt’s beats. I just wanted to see how things would sound. I would have made it a little crazier but I was like, ‘Let me chill.’ [Laughs] My mind is going like a hundred ways and I realize sometimes that it is too much of a jump from Homeschool to 100 percent left-field. Let me meet somewhere in the middle with this.”

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Songs to Look Out For on K+:

Kilo Kish: “I really love ‘Turquoise,’ just because it is a different structure from a usual rap beat. It is not really looped; it is kind of its own song. I just tried to fit myself in where I could. I love that song.

“I love ‘Goldmine’ because it was the first song that I wrote in the studio. I wrote that and it was me and Starslinger. It was nice because that was the first time I tried to write like a real song. I was like, ‘I can’t have all these songs that were like one verse and like a chorus.’ And I just give up. ‘Alright, I don’t have to sing anymore. This song’s over.’ [Laughs] It’s like one minute long, you know? Let me just make like a real song or whatever.

“I also like ‘Creepwave.’ It’s kind of like my alter personality. I’m pretty moody and dark sometimes. I don’t know. Some people always see me like, ‘Yay! Butterflies!’ But I am really dark sometimes and I feel like that’s a good representation of that personality.

“I believe every song was done with the person. I was trying to work with everyone’s schedules as much as I could. We had a lot of fun making them. I actually wasn’t going to have Donald on ‘Ghost.’ It was kind of just … ‘I like that. Can I just be on it?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, go for it. I don’t really feel like writing a second verse.’ [Laughs] Go for it. So, it was fun having him on that one and we also recorded ‘Scones’ that same day.”

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What New Fans Should Take Away from her Music:

Kilo Kish: “I just want them thinking a little bit deeper about the music that you listen to. Regardless if it is a parody album or classical music, just thinking more critically in our Internet era. Everything moves so quickly. Whoever can put out a tape and two weeks later, ‘When are you gonna release a new song?’ There used to be a time when they would listen to a CD, listen to it, and burn it into the ground. ‘I can’t play this anymore.’

“I don’t know if it is because just the state of music is different and we have such a variety of access. But I just wish people would slow down a bit. Let it digest and think about all the things that went into it. I never did that before. I was one of those people that just listen to whatever on the radio. I mean, I never really wanted to hear someone’s CD that bad. I never really cared, but I am one of those people who didn’t really think about music. ‘That’s cool you make music, I do this.’ I didn’t really think about it. But now, just actually thinking about it and being a part of it. I just hope the things I make can inspire creativity in other people.”

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Plans on a Debut Album:

Kilo Kish: “That would be the next step. I just didn’t want to go straight from Homeschool to album. You know? It is just too weird. It is like a big jump. The next thing I put out will probably be that. I really want to take time. Ideas just kind of come to me. I woke up one morning and I was like, ‘The name of my tape is going to be K+.’ Then I made the artwork for it. I was like, This is the artwork. This is the concept. Let’s start working on it. It just comes like that. I know when I have a name for an album. It’ll just pop into my head and I’ll know what to work on. That’s just how it works. Until then, I’ll collect beats, get inspired by other things. Then when I feel what I know exactly what I want to do, I’ll rally the troops and work on it.

“For an album, I really want to push myself to try and make something different, classic. I find no gratification in making something that doesn’t challenge you. If it is just there just to be there. I have no problem not putting out anything for a year and having everyone forgetting about me. But when I do put it out, you are not going to forget.”

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