In Conversation with: Ramengvrl, the ever-evolving Hip-hop artist who wants to make the world feel like a ‘bad bitch’

Ramengvrl calls in from the late evening in Jakarta, from a café below her flat. She’s recently moved in so doesn’t have internet set up yet. Making the best of the situation she sits at a table with two sets of headphones (in case one fails) and some chique, boxy sunglasses. She is bubbly and light hearted, not afraid to be flippant with herself. Barristers in black masks and pressed white shirts wander around in the background whist we talk.

Peter:

Okay. Let’s get this rocking, uh, rocking and rolling. Well, my first question is very apt is where are you right now?

Ramengvrl:

I am in Jakarta, Indonesia but specifically in South Jakarta, which, uh, a lot of people used to think that it’s the coolest hypest part or area in Jakarta, but honestly, I think it’s overrated. <laughs>

Peter:

Got it. It’s not as cool and people should be looking at other cities Right. <laughs>. So, you’ve mentioned on Twitter that you’ve been taking a break over Christmas. Have you been enjoying that?

Ramengvrl:

I said that, oh, I mostly forget about what I tweet. Um, but yes, I did enjoy it. And actually it was a pretty dope two weeks actually until New Year’s Eve, because New Year’s Eve we did a show in Bali It was pretty fucking lit. I mean I kinda forgot most of it, but yeah, that just goes to show how lit it was <laughs>

Peter:

So, has this been one of the first times you’ve performed in the past two years? Your album released 2020, didn’t it?

Ramengvrl:

Yeah, it was actually the second, the first one was like in October, November something and it was also in Bali, so yeah, in Bali they were mostly a little bit more chill than here. So <laugh>

Peter:

So are there many performing spaces in Jakarta? Are there as many music venues?

Ramengvrl:

There’s actually a lot in Jakarta and Bali. But I think because of the, you know, the pandemic, the lockdown and everything in Jakarta, and because it’s the capital there hasn’t been much going on. Because you know, when you wanna do parties and all that, it’s not doable or it might be doable if you kinda do it in secret, but you know, it’s probably not possible to do that in the capital of Indonesia. <laughs>

That’s why people have kind of like moved to Bali, especially for musicians because I think for them they kinda feel that it’s much more of like a conducive environment. But for me you know I’m pretty much good here. I’m just waiting for like boarders to open, so we continue on our international tour that we actually started in 2020 February. We did Singapore, Malaysia, then we were about to do China, but it was locked down.

Peter:

Ah, yeah. China became a no go zone very quickly.

Ramengvrl:

<laughs> yeah.

Peter:

So to talk of your music. With your last project, ‘Can’t speak English’. Reading around it and also listening to the lyrics. You are you are very, very, strong in yourself and your own personality and it feels like you are pushing back against other forces. What on the way to being Ramengvrl, what do you think sort of stood in your way, or try to stop you from being the musician singer songwriter that you are?

Ramengvrl:

I mean, I can give you a pretty much real-life example of that because before I did all this music thing, I actually did some five, five to nine, nine to five jobs. <laugh> five, like my job…

Peter:

Now that’s a serious commitment. I can understand why you quit. That was a ridiculous job.

Ramengvrl:

It was three and a half years or something. You know how people in the office can be pretty much conservative and if you try to do something a little bit more different, a little bit more challenging, a little bit more expressive in any kinda way, like the way you dress having tattoos or whatever, they’re gonna talk about you, and you know, when people talk about you, you have this thinking in your head, that’s like, oh, what is so wrong about the thing that I’m doing? Does it look bad? Is it not good? You know, do I like sound whack or something?

And actually, during the last year that I was at the office, I always kept like the whole demo that I put on SoundCloud secret. Like I never, tell people that ‘I do this music thing’ you know, I never, I never did that cause I was so embarrassed. Um, and apparently there’s a few cliques in the office that found that SoundCloud for some reason, not sure how. Then they found it and then they laughed at it. And then they’re like, what the fuck is she you doing? You know? But when I gained some traction, like I was on the media or whatever. And then I resigned finally, they all became nice, really, really nice towards me. And I’m just like, bro.

Peter:

<laughs> They were nice to you on your last day. And then suddenly, oh no, you become a very successful musician.

Ramengvrl:

That’s revenge right there.

Peter:

That is the perfect revenge. They laugh at your music, become a successful musician. I find it odd that you would keep something like that secret, because nowadays you’re all over TikTok. You’re on Twitter. You are streaming on Twitch. Do you feel like you’re a music artist who also streams or is it kind of, it’s a necessity for a lot of music artists like T-Pains streaming all the time and Snoop dog muted himself for three days and didn’t notice and stuff like this. Do you feel obligated to sort of be everywhere on the internet?

Ramengvrl:

I do think so. I do think so. I mean, of course it can feel like a pressure. Sometimes it feels like a job, a lot of times and I mean. I’m an artist, so whatever things become to be like a job, I would just, I would bounce <laugh>. I would bounce and then I just prefer to sleep all day.

But honestly, I do think that that’s one of the ways that you can kind of connect your fans, especially during these times and you know, times change, like people don’t really like just listen to music and then stop at that. Like they need to engage the music in a way that’s never happened before. Like for example, making a remix of that, making a dance on that on TikTok or making a cover of that on YouTube or whatever.

So, um, yeah, for sure. That’s an, I feel like that’s an obligation, especially for musicians and at these times cause to me it’s, I mean, anybody can argue me on this, but to me during these times, like if you only do music and you want people to listen to your music, but you are not willing to put in the work, to like market it in a way that the kids today understand, they’re not putting the word out, you know, you’re not putting word out. But that’s not me saying that music is not the most important thing.

Music is the most important thing. Like you need to start with your music first. But I find it funny when people are like… Sometimes there was a few musicians that actually came up to me, just weird, they actually came up to me so like confused about why people don’t listen to their music or whatever. And I’m just like, have you tried to market it, have you tried to do some different stuff?

Peter:

Have you told people about it on social?

Ramengvrl:

Have you told people about it? But yeah, usually they just wanna be like these very cool musicians. I always give an example like Kanye once did backpack rap. He didn’t become Kanye, the Kanye that married Kim Kardashian and now divorced <laughs>, just like that, you know, he did some backpack first.

Peter:

Yeah. If you are too underground, people won’t actually see that you exist.

Just to move onto fashion and street style, you’ve mentioned in other interviews that you took a lot of inspiration from Japanese street style. You’re also a big anime fan? So, does that also influence your look as well?

Ramengvrl:

<laughs> Actually, yes, my goals is – I mean, other than like, moving to Japan and retiring there – is to become or to look like an anime character of some sort. I’m not sure which anime character we’re talking about, cause you know, there’s a lot…

Peter:

More than one, <laughs>

Ramengvrl:

More than one, but there’s a few options, but I dunno, I just like to do different looks and that’s why I like to wear wigs now. Before I liked to change my hair colour until I noticed that it’s not the best option for my hair health. So yeah, I took a lot of inspiration from like manga, Anime but also <laugh> Pinterest. So, thank you, Pinterest.

Peter:

The third anime <laughs> the big three Naruto, Bleach and Pinterest <laughs> on that. Might be a bit of a shot in the dark. I gather you’re a big fan of Final Fantasy Seven.

Ramengvrl:

Not final fantasy seven. Actually, final fantasy X, uh, 10.

Peter:

10. Oh, OK. So, if you could style yourself off one character from Final Fantasy 10 for a year, who would it be?

Ramengvrl:

Obviously Rikku. I mean, I dunno if you play Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 10 to be exact, but there’s this character called Rikku and she always wears this <gestures for a bikini strap>. I mean arguably that’s because the creator was a straight dude and he like kinda sexualizes his characters, but you know, she looks fucking hot, so she always wears these like bikini type of clothes. And I was like, yo that’s pretty lit. I want that body <laugh>

Peter:

I want that pixel perfect body. And then just to make it work.

Ramengvrl:

Literally, yeah.

Peter:

Just to go back to your music and Can’t Speak English. Especially on the titular track, Can’t Speak English, you do sort of put Indonesia on blast a little bit. I remember you say that, 90% of Indonesians don’t know what ‘Q’ stands for when referring to LGBTQ. Do you see your music as like for outsiders or is it for Indonesia? Or is it sort of like, are, are you trying to put Indonesia on the world map as it were, cause you do go in quite heavy on them?

Ramengvrl:

I mean I never really thought of the demography, whenever I made music, I just make music to like express myself. That’s the main reason why I did all this. I obviously want music to be, you know, like relatable to every single person. I mean, rather than demography, I would say, I would love for – especially cuz I came from this background right – for all the nine to five workers, so like whenever they blast my song on motorbikes and cars, or Uber or whatever, basically like I want them to be like a bad bitch, you know, <laugh> even though their days suck, probably suck because you know in the office 90% of your days would probably suck but we love experience.

I want this for every single person on earth, especially my demography. So they feel like a bad bitch every time they blast my song. But when it comes to every time I kinda insert Indonesia in my track or like an Indonesia slang or whatever it just feels kind of natural to me. Because like a lot of the people here, we suffer from like xenophilia, it’s like the opposite of xenophobia. It’s just basically we always think that everything that comes from outside is always better. They won’t admit it but we do think that way.

Even though we don’t speak English, like we’re not Singapore, we’re not Malaysia, we don’t really see ourselves like that. We like to insert these English terminologies, like, literally, actually, honestly, without any real goals, like what the fuck are you trying to do with that? You can say that word in Indo, but you know, they prefer to do that in English. Just to go back to that question, I dunno, it just feels natural to me cause that’s literally my real life experience, the things that I observe, the things that I experience, what all my music is based on.

Peter:

To talk in the future. You produced an album which had a number of different styles, I mean ‘Emo Song’ halfway through the album is quite the change of pace. It is not just one sound that you are producing? What is next for your next project? Are you working on it? Have you been working on it or is it just notes and jots?

Ramengvrl:

I am always working on a new project. It’s always like every time I release something like my mind is already in like the next five songs. If I gotta say what’s next, especially this year, it’s definitely more experimenting. Cause again like I, I grew up with more pop music to be honest rather than rap. When I write songs, like I tend to think about how catchy it would be, how melodic it would be. And so this year, expect some more melodic tunes and probably some that are like a little bit more….a change of pace, compared to like my previous works. I mean hopefully people like it, cuz it’s much more melodic. It’s much more poppy. Hopefully I can, uh, be the Brittany Spears that I want. <laugh>

Ramengvrl:

Brittany Spears now.

Peter:

Yeah. Brittany Spears post conservatorship.

Ramengvrl:

Free Brittany love that.

Peter:

Absolutely. You and also through your music, you’re always about like breaking boundaries. You’ve broken the boundary being a female Asian hip-hop star and now, what do you think is next for you? I mean, you say you’re gonna be breaking into pop. Can’t wait to listen to that by the way, if it’s good as your last projects. So what is the next step for you as well?

Ramengvrl:

This is like one of those questions where I struggle to answer ’cause like we humans, we can never really comprehend what’s gonna happen even in the next five seconds.

Peter:

It’s a bit of a Christmas party question from an aunt that you haven’t met in ages. <laugh>, I’ll admit.

Ramengvrl:

It’s like one of those confession cards or something.

Ramengvrl:

But I would say cause this is something that’s not been an issue. There’s something that has been on top of my head. Cause I mentioned the tour. I just really, really love performing. I would just wish that the borders are open, finally open again this year so that we can continue the tour. But I mean, other than that, I’m just like, there’s no specific thing to be exact, but I would just love to put a pin on like different markets than Indo my God. That’s business suit, business talk right there. <laughs> I’m talking like my manager. Um <laughs> oh no. You could ask my manager. <laughs>

Peter:

Him sitting at the corner with your Spotify playlist going, no, this is really good.

Ramengvrl:

Yeah. Him typing the answer to me in my whatsapp but no, uh, I mean, cause right now I feel like in Indo, like not saying I’m like super famous or anything like that. I feel like in Indo it’s like it’s already done. I feel like, I mean nothing’s ever really a hundred percent done, but I feel like I wanna achieve more outside Indo and not just become like ‘this female Indo artist’. I wanna be like just artist, not even female <laughs>

Peter:

In your new single you speak to people from your past who doubt you but as this marks your venture worldwide, how would you describe yourself to those who know you now?