- Maxwell Cavaseno

As a treat for the aftermath of the holidays, join us at NoJumper as we interview Kitty Pryde of Jokers In Trousers. Here we discuss the tragedies of being alone at Christmas time, white boys who rap, and the dangers of drunken rap debacles.

(For more on Kitty Pryde, among other female emcees, check out Maxwell’s perspective of women in rap in 2011 here)

NJ: Name?

Kitty: My name is Kitty Pryde.

NJ: Age?

Kitty: That’s a secret….

NJ: Amount of Tumblr Followers

Kitty: At the moment? I have about 999. I actually had 1,000 really…

NJ: When did you first start rapping?

Kitty: Uhm, well, I wrote my first rap when I was drunk last September, and I recorded my first rap last… January?

NJ: Okay, how long have you been listening to rap?

Kitty: Hm. Since I was… a very small child…

NJ: I noticed that at one point, you quoted your dad quoting Biggie or something along those lines. Is that how you were exposed to rap at such an early age?

Kitty: Well, my dad was really into the blues. He’s always, y’know, around old bluesmen, all the time. And I kind of think that blues segued into hip-hop over the years… I’m talking about like, old Robert Johnson and stuff. And that’s kind of how my dad ended up listening to old… stuff I don’t even find interesting. But yeah, he often quotes Biggie, so…

NJ: So before you started rapping, what sort of rap were you listening to?

Kitty: Well… I really, really liked Odd Future. And before that, I really liked Eminem. But back when Eminem was scary, and mom’s were afraid of him. Now he’s too inspirational and I can’t fuck with it… But yeah, people make fun of me and say I started rapping because of Odd Future, but yeah.

NJ: Well, if there was anyone you could rap with who isn’t famous, would you?

Kitty: Like people from the Internet…? Well, I guess probably Brandun DeShay, or Spaceghostpurrrp.

NJ: What are you listening to, at this moment?

Kitty: Well, I’m going to disregard that it’s Xmas and all I’m listening to is Xmas songs, but in my car stero I have “Child’s Play”, and that’s all I’ve been listening to for about two weeks. I don’t know why…

NJ: Favorite Xmas song, and why?

Kitty: Favorite Xmas song? Oh my god, this is the hardest question yet, what the fuck? I guess “Blue Christmas” by Elvis, because Elvis just captures my soul… Why did you even ask me that!?

NJ: Because these are important questions. If you’d said John Lennon “Happy Xmas”, I’d have to stop the interview and…

Kitty: Oh my god, that’s the worst one… Yeah, I just prefer the ones that make you feel upset about yourself.

NJ: Like Wham! “Last Christmas”?

Kitty: Exactly. Just to kick you when you absolutely need it the worst…. “Please Come Home For Xmas” is awful too, because it basically says ‘I have no friends’. It pretty much says that, verbatim.

NJ: If you could work with anybody famous, who would you?

Kitty: Do they have to be a rapper…? Oh damnit, I keep thinking of people who are dead… I guess David Byrne. He’s probably my favorite person ever. He’s not dead though, so, we’re okay.

NJ: This is the inevitable origins of the David Byrne/Kitty Pryde collaboration.

Kitty: Put that on the internet so he can google it.

NJ: Least favorite thing in rap, and why?

Kitty: Uhm… The fact that like, every single boy that I know, every white boy, that I meet at frat parties, just decides they’re a rapper now that Mac Miller decided he was going to do that. That hurts me… And I know, I’m like the same kind of thing, and that’s hypocritical of me. But I feel like it ruins boys when I try to hear them try to rap. That’s Mac Miller’s fault.

And I also really hate the thing where we have to talk about rape and killing people… I’m all for rape and killing people, but I just feel it’s really boring now. (Laughs) It’s really boring now! Since it got started, now it’s just about making feminists mad. Okay, we did it, we made the feminists mad. Let’s… We’re done.

NJ: Aside from alcohol being involved, how exactly did Jokers In Trousers come to fruition?

Kitty: It was when I first got my Macbook. I was redownloading all of my music, and I accidentally downloaded everything Nicki Minaj has ever done. And so, we figured out Garageband works… So “Roger Dat” came on, and my boyfriend had just broken up with me so I was going through… lots of little feelings. And so I was just rapping over Nicki Minaj’s words about how gay my boyfriend was. We recorded it and “Oh, that was funny, let’s keep doing it all night.”. So we did about four songs, and then I posted it on my tumblr. It got 20 notes, which was a lot for me, and I was like “HOLY SHIT!” And I decided to keep doing it to get attention, but now I have too much attention…

NJ: So far, you’ve only done previously used instrumentals. How long until you use a personal instrumental?

Kitty: I did actually “Thanks Kathryn Obvious” is by Ramsey. And he’s an asshole… People randomly send beats, and they all suck. Even though I don’t have any room to be particular.
NJ: If you could have any producer to blow up your e-mail, who would it be?

Kitty: Kanye West?… I don’t want to name-drop someone. I don’t want to make anyone else feel good about themselves. Who the hell does that!?

NJ: You have your own solo mixtape, and Jokers have theirs. Are any of the other girls going to drop their own individual mixtapes any time soon?

Kitty: No, because one of the girls is a dumb bitch, and so we don’t talk to her anymore. She moved away, and I hate her so… I hope she doesn’t do anything again. The only people who rapped in Jokers were me and Hannah. And Cristina and Annie, but those two never ever affiliated themselves with Jokers In Trousers at all. They didn’t want to be in the picture but no. And I always try to tell Hannah to rap, because I think she’s good at it. But I think she’s afraid people will think that she’s retarded like they think I am. And Sam… Sam never really did anything, except stand around and look pretty. And to appeal to the more ‘hipster’ crowd.

NJ: So she’s an attractive Jasper?

Kitty: Yeah, but she doesn’t even want to be. None of the other girls have even listened to my songs! I listened to one of my songs for the first time today, and it sucked… I never heard “Let You Go” until today.

NJ: Internet Boyz; what is the story?

Kitty: Well, what happened is… I never really go on Skype, except to talk to Wavriel and Based Pharaoh. But I saw they were all posting the words Internet Boyz, and I thought “This is gay, I need to stop them.” And somehow, I was forced to record an anthem for said boys with Jelz Much. And I don’t regret it, because she’s awesome.

Every time somebody suggests I go into a studio, I feel like “Ugh… No. That’d be awful.” I want to delete my own mixtape. I heard it and I thought “What the hell?”, it was really bad. I don’t even know what I was feeling when I made those songs. Maybe one day I can fulfill my ‘potential’. I just want to play a show in L.A. That’s the only thing I want to do. And, I don’t know, meet Asian boys.

Find Kitty’s music at her bandcamp or somewhere on tumblr.

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