By Jacob Pellegrino
Payday is a unique artist whose music is influenced by an incredibly wide range of genres and styles: she writes her own songs, raps, and sings. Payday’s most recent album RAP IN A CAN exemplifies this diversity, also seen in her live set at ACL and contains the single “Vampire,” which features Danny Brown. At ACL, Payday’s performance contained a mix of slower songs based on singing along with harder raps that created a really nice balance for the crowd.
Below are excerpts from an interview with Payday and Rio, her DJ:
I was gonna ask because I liked your “My Jordans” song, what is your favorite Jordan silhouette?
Payday: Okay so my all time favorite Jordan silhouette has to be the Jordan fours because it’s comfortable, it’s you know it’s slightly affordable to still a little bit of a flex when you get them depending on the colorway, like motorsport whatever you’re working with. I’m pretty sure I was one of the most artist collaborations. My second favorite Jordan 13s: comfortable, great ankle support, and great colorways.
Rio: I like fours and threes. But my fours are my favorite.
That’s definitely a good shoe. I’m yet to get fours, stuck on the ones right now.
Payday: I mean the ones are tight.
Rio: Ones are cool, I’ve seen some really cool one collabs.
Payday: I just think you could get a better price cut if you can get dunks and it’s a similar silhouette. And I skate more than I ball these days.
Who would you describe as your primary influences or did someone specifically inspire you to do music?
Payday: This is so weird and I feel like no one would expect this but the first concert I ever saw was Lorde. And when I saw her on stage I had this weird feeling in my heart where I was literally like I want that to be me. Like the way people felt so moved by her in the crowd. They knew the words and I was like, man, I’m not trying to hit that same genre or anything but I want that feeling and I want to be up there. So I’d say Lorde is a super big influence.
Rio: Payday inspires me.
Payday: Aww.
Rio: It’s actually so true.
Payday: Let’s go!
How did the collaboration with Danny Brown come around?
Rio: I met his manager… bro there’s Remi Wolf over there, I wonder if she recognizes me. Okay so I met his manager and I held him to the table, forced him to listen to RAP IN A CAN. Nah, he wanted to hear it, but he listened to it and he was like, “Yo, I got an artist I think would really fuck with this.” Danny Brown, turns around, he fucked with “Vampire,” so, yeah, we got him on it and he killed his verse.
Yeah, that one’s great, such a great fit for your style, but I can also see it fitting into “Atrocity Exhibition.”
Payday: Literally, he has such a unique voice and I would say, like, I have a pretty unique voice, love it or hate it. I feel like we both have that element, so it’s good to hear it come together.
How long have you been writing music?
Payday: I used to make songs on my DS and I was like, really little, but I don’t count that. I officially started releasing music on SoundCloud when I was around 12 or 13 years old, still pretty young. But just like dumb songs for fun, like freestyles and stuff like that.
How do you write a song on a DS?
Payday: Okay so basically on DS, there’s this thing on DS called Flipnote and you can record a voice memo and it has effects on it. So my friend Harley, I would say, “ok Harley make a beat,” and she’d go like *beatboxing* and I’d be like “I’m on the beat, I’m on the beat”, like whatever, it wasn’t very good, but we would record them and we’d have all of our different songs. They’re only like 10 or 15 seconds long, but it was fun.
That’s pretty great though. How’d you two meet?
Rio: So it was 2009, at Freaknik and Payday, she was wearing some apple bottom booty shorts and I was wearing this fresh ass…
Payday: Wait, you had the tuxedo on!
Rio: …purple tux, and I was like yo, and I looked at her shoes and she’s wearing these big ass chunky zebra print platforms. And I was like, that’s when we’re gonna make the perfect dynamic duo. Yeah, I’m just kidding. We met at my uncle’s house
Payday: We met at a barbecue, we met at a cookout.
Rio: And I was like, “oh I like your shirt.” She was wearing a Campbell’s Soup shirt. And I was like wow that’s so cool. And I was like 12 and she was like 15, I don’t know man. It was funny though.
Payday: And now she’s my DJ, let’s go!
Have you two rehearsed that other story before?
Payday: No, that was improvisation.
Rio: That was improvised, I’m gonna tell that to everybody now though.
What has been your favorite part of ACL so far?
Rio: My favorite part of ACL is, like, the crowd was fucking so cool like they’re jumping with us. Interacting with a bunch of people.
Payday: It’s just like a bunch of friends.
Rio: I feel like I have so many best friends just by being on stage for 30 minutes or whatever.
Payday: Word, I feel the same way.
I’ve gotta ask, why comic sans [in the Payday logo/stage background]?
Payday: So listen, the original inspiration was the Play-Doh logo.
Rio: That’s what it is? I had no idea.
Payday: That’s exactly what it is, we took the Play-Doh font and we’re like, that’s my vibe I want it to be colorful and fun. I feel like that’s how my music is.
It definitely goes with the music style too.
Rio: I feel like she is a Comic Sans gal. Yeah. Like when I see her, I’m like oh, comic sans.
Payday: And Play-Doh helps people be creative and shit, they be making shit with it.
—————
Payday: Do you freestyle?
No, no. I am so bad at rapping.
Rio: Why are you asking?
Payday: Cause it’d be fun if we went a circle and freestyled. What if you do something, she does something, and I do something. Like “I’m at ACL.”
Rio: I’m… you go next. This is such a weird, he’s gonna be writing this like “they asked me to freestyle. And I said, I’m not that good.”
Payday: It’s fun, you just make up shit.
***there was a small amount of freestyling that was not transcribed here. Payday pretty much just did a verse after Rio and I gave up, it was pretty fun!
Y’all have anything you want me to specifically mention?
Rio: Sid is the best. [from earlier: “she helps us with everything and is so nice”]
Payday: What’s your name?
Jacob.
Payday: Shout out Jacob.
Rio: Shout out Jacob, the interviewer is fire as fuck.
