talking fairy rap and black girls next door: meet gertrude
Written by Jamilla Philson
Image courtesy of @kyla.rain
Born in San Diego and based in LA, Gertrude is a California native, talented artist and bisexual superstar. While Gertrude usually describes her music as being a feminine take on styles revolutionized by Tyler the Creator, Steve Lacy & Frank Ocean, this alternative hip-hop r&b musician and producer has a style all her own, of which she calls fairy rap.Here is Dreamworldgirl Zine’s interview with the ever incredible: Gertrude.
Q1: Could you tell me the story or inspiration behind your artist name?
A: Gertrude is actually my grandma's name. My government name is Sasha Courtney. When I first started making music and before I released anything, I was performing original songs at local gigs with my government name. I knew I was going to change it because it didn’t feel like it fit me, creatively or artistically. I put off picking a name until the very last second. When I moved to LA for college, everyone was like“ Where’s your music?” and I didn’t have anything out, so my first mission was to record and get [something] out on platforms. I just finished recording my very first single at the very end of 2019. My friends were saying “ We got to put it up on different platforms, what name are you going to freaking choose?” I liked the name Gertrude and the story behind how my grandma got her name. My grandma is an only child, but my great-grandma had a hard time conceiving, and then, before my grandma was born she had a prophetic dream that an angel told her she was going to have one daughter and she had to name her Gertrude. I always loved that story and the fact that the name“ Gertrude” is so ambiguous [as a stage name]. I like that you don't know what you're going to get, especially because I'm a black female rapper and everybody judges something by its cover or by the name. I don't want people to know what they're going to get.
Q2: Tell me about yourself as to where you grew up and how that influenced your sound and your taste in music?
A: I'm originally from San Diego, California, born and raised, and I came out to LA when I was 17 for college. The punk, indie, and alternative rock scene is huge there, so I grew up going to a lot of house shows and listening to bands like Blink-182. It wasn't until college that I actually discovered my love for rap. Growing up, I went to a predominantly white high school, so most of my discovery of hip hop and the black music was at home. I had young parents who introduced me to 80s pop and even 90s hip hop R&B. Coming from an African family, there was also tons of African music at home, specifically Zimbabwean music. I felt like in my teen years, because I was dealing with a lot of racism and bullying at school, not embracing hip hop was a way for me to not feel like a stereotype in any way, hence ultra-identifying with rock.
Image courtesy of @evie.therockstar
At the very end of high school is when I discovered Tyler, The Creator who is my main inspiration for everything that I do now, because he made quirky, queer black boy music, and that resonated with me as a theater kid who was bullied. I resonated with his feelings about being an underdog. I also discovered alternative hip hop there, but it wasn’t until college that I really discovered my love for rap.
In college I went on a strange Tinder date with this guy, who was a producer, and he told me to bring my guitar and we basically ended up having a whole jam session at his house. So, the irony of that was while I was listening to him write after making the beat, he said“ why don't you write something?” I recorded the song we made and that pretty much sparked my desire to become a rapper.
Q3: What inspired you to pursue music?
A: I didn't know what I wanted to do as a kid at all. I tried so many things. I played every single sport under the sun; I played soccer, I figure skated, I swam, and I golfed. Nothing stuck and my parents were really frustrated with me, but the thing is I just hadn't figured out what I liked to do yet.
At the end of middle school, around seventh eighth grade, is when I picked up a guitar. I started getting really good at it as I was getting into high school. I did theater through high school and I even ended up going to a performing arts high school that was really competitive. My major issue was am I going to do theater, more specifically acting, or am I going to do music? I think what inspired me specifically to do music was genuinely my love for singing. If it wasn't for theater I wouldn't have figured out that I love to perform.
Q4: What do you want to say with your music?
A: I want my music to talk about the things that people don't want to talk about, and specifically to address the black female experience in a way that people haven't heard yet and are uncomfortable hearing.
I want to re-train everybody's ears to be able to see black women in hip hop and R&B as something that's more than just the object of the male gaze. When I look at the scape of the female rap space right now, black women are only being rewarded in rap for hypersexuality, and it wasn't always that way. When women started entering into rap and hip hop specifically they were on their activism vibe. But then over time, obviously men weren't listening to women. Not that I think anything is wrong with it, but getting into the 90s and early 2000s people were figuring out that sex sells, which I think there is something quite liberating about that too. I feel like we don't have enough of the everyday black girl next door story, and I think that's [the story] I want to tell.
“I feel like we don't have enough of the everyday black girl next door story, and I think that's [the story] I want to tell.”
Q5: I love the synthy break in your EP with“ Pimi’s theme.” How would you define your genre?
A: I’ve actually thought about this before and I would say fairy rap, for sure.
Image courtesy of @raedents
Q6: What can someone who’s never heard your music expect to hear from you?
A: Just a lot of complaining from an angry, annoyed, and tired black woman. I think you can expect to hear the side of a woman's life in rap that you typically wouldn't hear. In my EP“ RUDE”, I talk a lot about my college coming of age story, the time right before entering [my] early 20s.
A lot of that for me was going to college and realizing what life is right [then]; getting kicked out of home because I wanted to do music, having to get a job, and pay my way through stuff.
Q7: Who is your dream collaboration?
A: Definitely Tyler at the top of the list, but also Smino. I am a huge fan and if I could get a Smino verse I would die. I would love to get in with Billie Eilish and Finneas, I just really respect her as an artist. I'm a huge Flo Milli fan, but also would love to work with Timbaland and Pharrell.
Q8: How do you approach your songwriting?
A: This has changed a lot recently within the last few years because I started seriously producing about 4-5 years ago. But I first got on DAWs back when I was 10 or 12 years old. So I've always been familiar with Logic and Garageband and how those things worked. I knew how to record myself from a really young age. If lyrics were coming to me, I would write them down, and then expand on it and add some chords on it later.
Now, that process has completely changed for me, because I went from being a lyrics first person to being a beats first person, depending on the session. Now that I’m better at producing, sometimes the beat inspo comes first. The beat is the idea, it is the song, and later I will feel ready to put some lyrics on it. That's my workflow as of now where I'm just making a lot of beats and then if I am finally feeling inspired to write something, I will. Rapping has got me writing down a lot of lyrics first and has me improving on my penmanship, vocabulary, and quality of bars.
Q9: What is one of your favorite or underrated songs you’ve written and why?
A: I personally think that it is my song“ Chick.” I released it a couple of years ago, so it just kind of flew under the radar. It's pretty much a lot of people's favorite song that I play live. I wrote it about the experience as a black woman and not being the first choice in dating or romantic options to our non-black counterparts and white women specifically. I think my lyrics are so amazing in the chorus and I really like this one part“ Never been so thankful / Never had to be his girl / I never had to be his world / Look at me with them teeny, tight curls / All he wants is his world and his diamonds and pearls and a little white girl / Wouldn't tell me I'm not your type / But you just kept me hanging on the side like a sidekick / I’m a psychic / Boy, I was your sidechick.”
I'm looking forward to having more of an audience because I know it's one of those songs that people are really going to appreciate and they're like,“ where has this been all my life?” And that's the type of stuff, moving forward, I want to tap into more in my music. The type of stuff that Black women aren't going to talk about. I want to make music that I would have wanted to hear when I was 15.
Q10: What's next for your career in music?
A: I have a lot of singles that are coming out next year, which I'm very excited for. I released my EP back in April and I initially intended to release some more before the end of this year, but it didn't end up working out. I'm glad that it ended up not working out because I got a lot of time to work with amazing producers. I produced all of my EP by myself and that took a year. Because of that, I isolated myself from working with others for a while. So I'm very grateful that I have some really cool collaborations for the first time. It’s the first time I'm working with other producers in a couple years. I think you're going to really hear the elevated quality of the sound. I also have a live band too, so I've been playing a lot of shows and we're going to keep playing shows in the next year.
Q11: What is your niche / favorite music recommendation or album that you've listened to recently?
A: I was just listening to the new Kendrick release and it was crazy. A song that I really love right now is called“ Mine Out” by Audrey Nuna. I am obsessed with it. I have also been really inspired by EDM right now and into the new Tyler album Chromakopia, as well as MF Doom and J Dilla.
