W: JOAO VASCONCELOS. I: SARA BARROW. PA:LIZZIE BUSH. S: ROISIN O' HARE. AS: YASAR TORUNOGLU & PAREACE LARANZA. MA: ARSNEY IVANOV

ASBO caught up with US rapper Cakes Da Killa in the middle of his European tour closing the hedonism era & his chapter as Cakes Da Killa

“Do you mind if I eat?” asks Cakes Da Killa as we sit down to interview. After a four hour fashion shoot and a quick stop to get his hair cut, who am I to come between a man and his food? Cakes is in the middle of a packed European tour, entitled Lush Diaries, and was due to perform at Camden’s Jazz Café later that night. Having only just released the video to album track “Gon Blow” a few weeks earlier, I asked if this was bringing to close the Hedonism era for him. “Yes,” he laughs. “You are a smart cookie - it definitely is, it’s definitely the close of a lot of things.” He pauses. “I’m re-branding.

I’m changing my name as an artist.”

The tour coincided with the launch of double single, Shots Fired x Thirst Trap, the cover art of which
positioned Cakes supposedly launching a double feature music video. On this artwork, he says, “I
love it. I wanted it to look like a Quentin Tarantino movie, y’know? Everyone is, like, blowing me up like, ‘Yo, you really made a movie?’ Bitch, you’ve just seen me. When did you think the time came from that I just shot a movie in a weekend somewhere? I definitely have to do it. Something very RuPaul, Star Booty.” While the singles sound like a continuation of Hedonism, it’s a taster of what’s to come from his new album, with Shots Fired x Thirst Trap being the clearest nudge towards a new direction. “That’s basically what the new album is - bitches have sent for me, so now I’m coming. It’s an old song but the new material is definitely in the same realm of that.”

“I’m just in a different space. I’m not the 21-year-old kid in a dorm room that wants to, like, rap about giving blowjobs anymore. Not to say I don’t do that anymore, but maybe I don’t want to talk about that for an entire project. But, yeah, I definitely feel like I’m closing off that chapter. I just dropped two new singles that were supposed to go on [Hedonism], but I’m just trying to get all of that shit out of my system. I’m just purging all of this shit.”

At the time of the interview, Cakes was on the verge of turning 27 and the feeling he describes is one that resonates with many young people. “I’m, like, older now, so I’m like, fuck boys – I want real estate, I want money. Before everything was so campy - this is so fun, la-la-la-la. And now I’m like, ‘Bitch, the fun is coming to an end, you must get your shit together!” he laughs. “I’m so becoming one of these jaded, “You damn young kids you don’t know shit,” and it’s so weird because I was just a young kid, like, two days ago.” Where Cakes named Hedonism as a reference point to where he was at that time in his life, I ask him to word what he’s feeling now. “Malicious,” he intones. “Oh, I’m about to write that down.”

As a musician, Cakes has incorporated genres and inspirations from many different areas of the industry, which helped open up doors and collaborations with artists like Peaches. “I met Peaches a very long time
ago doing a show together, and we just started having a work relationship. She wanted me to do a song for one of her projects and that got delayed. But I was like, well, if that love is there, and I have respect for you, you need to be on my fucking project - no shade. That will gag everybody and she was like, ‘I’m down,’ and from that we did a little tour together and yeah, that’s my bitch.”

The end result came on Hedonism album track “Up Out Of My Face”, where a pulsating club beat and the artist’s distinctive rapping succeed in delivering the sound that he wanted to achieve with the album.

For Cakes, collaborating with some of his closest friends on the project also brought some of his fondest memories, citing working with photographer Eric Johnson on the album cover and again, for the video
of “Gon Blow”. “[Eric] throws parties called Upstairs at Eric’s, and I wanted to give people an intimate look at what it’s like partying with me. The inspiration for the video was just taking cues from a lot of dance
culture, which is definitely a big part of my music in general. There’s a lot of African dancing and basic club dances. I feel like not a lot of people, especially rappers, are not really into dance culture anymore. It used to be very hand-in-hand.”

This year marks six years into Rashard Bradshaw’s life as Cakes Da Killa. His talent and intellect have both shone through, and have helped to make him into the star that he is today. Importantly, he has also kept his tongue and lyrics sharp. Although he claims that he is not an artist that “feigns over their work” or is “so meticulous”, everything that has come off from Hedonism reads like a micro-statement, whether he’s meant it too or not. “I just think I don’t give a fuck, and it just comes across as me trying to do something when I’m just trying to be myself. I think it’s great that me being myself is able to help other people. But there’s no real method to it. I’m just out here.”

His visibility as a gay hip-hop artist is a focus that has surrounded a lot of his career. “As a gay artist, I am able to do things that if I wasn’t openly gay, I wouldn’t be able to do. But it’s also making me not be able to do certain things. It’s definitely a double-edged sword. At the end of the day, I felt like I didn’t have a choice. There’s nothing really straight-passing about me anyway, so to be going through trying to be quiet or complacent - it wouldn’t have worked,” says Cakes.

“If you foresee something, you can actually create it. When I was growing up there was no Cakes, no Mykki Blanco, no Le1f - there was none of this shit… And to be someone who just didn’t give a fuck, just leapt and flew… I think that’s the one thing that I think if anyone did take from [Hedonism] - bitch, just jump”.

Speaking further on the attention he’s gained from gay media, I ask him if he feels there’s been an equal playing field when having his success compared to other gay artists who are white. “No, based on so many things. It’s like gay media: black and white, that’s a very divided thing. I don’t think it’s level, but I don’t complain because I’m appreciative of that platform. I just wish that sometimes it were handled more
delicately. Granted, being gay is such a big part of my life, but I feel like it makes everything one noted, as if all gay people are the same. And I think all of our experiences as gay people are just way more diverse than that.”

As the interview draws to a close, we go back to his earlier comment of rebranding and changing his name. After joking about Kelly Priceless (who featured on the double single cover) being a contender for a new name, I ask what he would want people to take away from the era of Hedonism. “If you foresee something, you can actually create it. When I was growing up there was no Cakes, no Mykki Blanco, no Le1f - there was none of this shit. And to be someone who just didn’t give a fuck just leapt and flew. I think that’s the one thing that I think if anyone did take from it - bitch, just jump.”