Interview: Krista
We had the honor of sitting down with Krista, a new artist on J Records. She’s a fun cross between pop, punk and hip-hop. She recently performed at the Winter X Games and Bamboozle. Her new album is due out this summer. Here’s what she had to say:
Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into music?
I feel like music raised me. I come from a broken home, and my dad was working all the time, and my grandmother is a lot older than other grandmas and she was really conservative. So there wasn’t really anyone in my household that I could relate to, and I discovered music as something I could relate to as far as my experiences in my life.
I’ve read that Brooklyn, NY was one of your main inspirations for this album since you grew up there. Can you talk a little bit about how the city itself influenced you?
I would say it definitely gave me the raw, “angsty” attitude. It gave me that “Yo, you know what? If you’re from Brooklyn, you can make it anywhere.” That’s the kind of attitude that the city helped me develop. New York City helped me embrace the different people, the different sounds and the different lifestyles. I think all these things are in me and come across in my music.
Is there a song off of your upcoming album that feels the most personal to you? If so, can you explain?
All of my songs are personal to me, but I feel like the song that makes the album is a song called “Stained.” It’s a song about me just basically rapping about the things that went on in my life and the things that represent where I come from. It’s not where I come from, it’s a part of who I am, it’s a part of me.
Do you have a song that is your favorite to perform live?
I like “Boiling Ashes of Pain” because that’s a song that I wrote completely for me. Well not completely for me. I wrote it for me, but I wrote it letting people know that you don’t really need anyone to believe in you but yourself.
Do you write your own songs and if so what is the song writing process like for you, does the melody come first or the lyrics?
Yep. The concept comes first, the whole idea comes first. If I hear a beat, it just makes me automatically think of something messed up that happened to me, and then I know where to go from there.
I read that you consider your music to be emotional therapy for you. Does that make it hard to perform your songs? Does it make you feel at all vulnerable to the crowd? If so, how do you overcome that?
Yea I do, but I embrace that feeling, I like that feeling. There have been some days where I felt like walking away from everything. And my manager was like “No, you have to do this. If you don’t do this show, you’re going to regret it in when you wake up in the morning”. And I went, I did these shows. I got such a positive feedback because I fell apart on stage and I didn’t care. I gave all of me to them and they accepted and appreciated it. A lot of people are a mess, a lot of people aren’t real and I let them know that. There’s something going on with me but I’m still giving all of me to, so please just take me in.
Was there an album that you heard growing up that really changed your life and convinced you that music was your future?
Yea, “Hero” by Mariah Carey.
What can fans expect from your concerts?
They can expect to jump and sweat. They should expect to jump and sweat and maybe even cry.
What do you enjoy doing on your downtime?
I’m always working on music, that’s the thing. That’s why it became as big as it is in my life because it’s all I do. If I’m not doing my own music, I’m sitting down with my friends and showing them albums of songs that relate to things that went on in their life, or showing them new artists’ stuff that people haven’t heard of before. I like to be my neighborhood’s A and R (artists and repertoire).
What’s next for you?
I plan on getting on tour and touring a lot. I want to do that so bad. It’s funny because I don’t think the industry’s ready for me yet, man, I’m trying to kick ass. I’m ready for the 2 year tour bus (shit), I’m ready for it. If you tell me to jump in a van with 6 sweaty guys, I’m like “Alright, for how long?”
Interview By: Emma Loggins
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