interview by Michael McCarthy
I first interviewed Rorie Kelly for Love is Pop back in 2016 after their significant other invited me to a house concert they were performing. To this day, that remains the only house concert I’ve ever been to, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I can still picture the living room packed with people and the spread of appetizers from Trader Joe’s that the homeowner put out. It was an intimate introduction to an artist whose music thrives in exactly those kinds of spaces—rooms where the audience is close enough to feel every word.
My last interview with Rorie was in 2020, not long after the world descended into the strange limbo of the COVID pandemic. At the time, I think we both wondered if live music was ever really going to return. Thankfully, it did. These days, Rorie is back performing in the many different rooms where their songs connect most deeply with listeners.
In 2021, they released their most recent studio album, Shadow Work, a record that—at least to my ears—nudges their sound slightly closer to the pop realm while still firmly rooted in the singer-songwriter tradition. The songs feel a bit more whimsical at times, though the emotional honesty that has always defined Rorie’s writing remains front and center.
In our latest conversation, Kelly and I talked about everything from performing in nursing homes, bars and house concerts to the challenge of making a living as an independent artist in the streaming era. We also discussed their new single, the changing music industry, why albums still matter, and how politics and the state of the world continue to shape both their songwriting and their outlook. As always, Kelly was candid, thoughtful and unafraid to speak their mind.
MMC: I was looking at my website and I saw the first interview we did was way back in 2016.
RK: Yeah. Wow, like 10 years ago.
MMC: Exactly. Yeah. It’s hard to believe it’s gone by so fast.
RK: Yes, it is.
MMC: How do you feel about the last 10 years in general? Has your career progressed in a way that you’d hoped that it would?
RK: I feel like I’ve been putting out music that I care about, and that’s the yardstick I let myself have because life gets in the way. But I’m like, if I’m putting out music that I really care about, then I’m creating the legacy that I want to create. So that has become my focus.
MMC: That’s a good way to look at it.
RK: Yeah. I’m more proud of every album than the last, which is, I think, how you have to do it.
MMC: I was listening to your song, “The Courage,” the other day. I really liked that one.
RK: Thank you very much. I think there’s more like that coming because I feel like everything that’s been happening in the world — in the country — is really scary. And I think we need courage and we need to show up for each other and fill up our hope buckets wherever we can.
MMC: Now you mentioned that you have a new single coming out. What can you tell us about that?
RK: It’s called “Stranger Things Have Happened.” And it’s kind of a hopeful romantic song. It’s kind of about coming out and meeting the world a little less with the hopeless romantic energy, because I don’t like the idea of being hopeless. I like the idea of knowing that there’s kindness out there and I have kindness to offer. And so other people must, too. And so that’s kind of the energy of the song. It’s hopeful. It’s a little whimsical. And it’s a little adolescent to be honest, but I think that’s the energy.
MMC: When do you plan to release that?
RK: I’m looking at probably early May for a release. I had an official release date and then we kind of revisited the master a couple of times. So, we’re pushing it back. We’re looking at early May.
MMC: Sure. And will there be a video to accompany it?
RK: Yeah, I got an opportunity to record a video in the studio where I recorded it. Me and my dad are production partners and we do everything together. And we have an opportunity to record with me and him and Zoe, who is the other voice on the track, my friend Zoe Speed. And so the three of us are going to go in there and do a video that is almost like a studio documentary of how the song gets made. We’re really excited about that.
MMC: Have you written many songs during the last year?
RK: Yeah, I can’t stop. It’s a good problem. But it’s also hard to keep up with. Like this single that I’m releasing now, I wrote not this past summer, but the summer before. And I love that I am always writing. It’s how I process the world, you know, but I definitely want to get in there and record more and put more of it out into the world. That’s that’s the progress I want to see in my career — more songs out.
MMC: Do you have plans to make a full length album again at some point or are you more focused on singles now?
RK: Yeah, I do want to make another album and I’m working towards it. I think the industry is really focused on singles now. I see people doing like the drip release and when I put on my marketing hat instead of my artist’s heart hat, I really understand why. Just having one song to talk about every so often is like maybe more easy to market than a big album drop or whatever. But I love albums. I grew up listening to albums. On purpose, start to finish. So I’m definitely working towards it.
MMC: What was it like performing live when we were first coming out of the pandemic? Was it scary at all?
RK: It was scary. At the beginning, I wasn’t doing original gigs — that took longer to come back. But we were doing what we came to call — at least in New York State — incidental music, which meant, like the person in the corner of the bar playing “Wonderwall” while you eat and drink. And that was the first thing to come back. And the places that started having live music back right away, really, I think, didn’t care as much about germs and reducing the spread and stuff like that. As the places that waited a while. And so it’s challenging because, I make my living playing music and I needed to get back to that but not to the point that I wanted to endanger anyone, you know what I mean? And so, gosh, I remember there were so many things that you had to do and think about. And I had all these microphone covers that I would bring everywhere so that I wasn’t like getting my germs on mics. And I had these weird, big plastic sheets that I used to put behind my microphones because singing is like a super spreader thing, you know? And I knew that I was a possible vector, as someone going out there, and I performed a lot in nursing homes at the time as well. And that was something that came back around the same time that the bar gigs came back.
MMC: That’s kind of surprising.
RK: But, of course, you have a fragile population. And so I was singing in a mask at the nursing homes and I had to get tested every week that I was there, which was a good thing. I felt so glad that I had a reason to get tested every week at that time in my life. But, you know, I think I was a lot more freaked out about it than some people were. I’m singing for the elderly. I don’t want to hurry anyone into illness. It was scary.
MMC: So what are the nursing home performances like? Is it like a music therapy type of situation?
RK: You know, it’s mostly a straight up performance, but you play a lot of different music. Certainly different eras of music than I would play like in a bar, you know? And what has been really special, too, is there’s a couple of places where they specialize in dementia care. I used to play at something called the Memory Café. Music from that era has been shown to really improve cognition and improve all these different things in people who have Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and stuff like that. Like I remember watching this one older man come into the café, a little bit elderly and confused. And by the time I got to my fourth or fifth song, he was like a Casanova and he’s like flirting with every woman in the room and he’s inviting ladies up to dance with him. And I’m like, this is it. This is why they have us do this. It really makes such a difference.
MM: I met you when you were performing a concert at someone’s house. Have you done many more house concerts at all?
RK: Yeah. Wow. I remember that. And I really like house concerts. That was one of the last things to come back after the pandemic, for obvious reasons. But I love house concerts. They’re special. They’re always put on by music lovers so it really is always going to be a room full of music lovers. Usually some of them know me and some of them haven’t because they just go to the house concert series once a month and they know whoever is there is going to be good. One of my favorite ones is in Delaware. It’s the Sun Room House Concert Series, and it’s run by a friend of mine, Nancy, who is also a singer-songwriter and it’s in her beautiful sunroom, which looks out on a beautiful cornfield and it’s such a warm, welcoming environment.
MMC: Nice. So what’s what’s the strangest venue or location that you’ve ever had to perform in?
RK: Oh, that’s a good question. I’ve done some weird pop up gigs. I’ve definitely played in the corner of a store. There’s this music festival I play in the Hamptons every year called the Sag Harbor Music Festival, and they will have music throughout the whole village. They have like big stages for up and coming artists. The first couple of years I was playing, they’d just have you throughout the village. So everyone can just walk around and have this constant music experience. So I was playing on the front porch of a clothing store in the Hamptons. I just kind of showed up and ran an extension cord through the window. And I’ve done a couple of those. There was a bookstore I played at once, and I think there’s a video on YouTube of me playing in a Best Buy in the city somewhere. And those gigs are so weird because it’s not where people are expecting to hear live music. But usually it delights people. Oh, I think the weirdest one I ever played is a gas station out in the Hamptons called Gas Hampton. And I’m not kidding you, this guy who runs a gas station is like the first one when you get off the highway. So everyone stops there and he has palm trees and all these like beautiful neon painted things out there. And he has a musician there on Friday nights. Right there, right in front of the pump. People are filling up and it was very weird, but people were delighted. The weirder it is, the happier people are to see you.
MMC: I remember you told me that playing in bars is like babysitting drunk people. What’s the most awkward situation you’ve ever gotten into playing bars?
RK: There was this very, very drunk woman once at a hotel I was playing at. I didn’t know her name. She was three sheets to the wind. She was enthusiastic about the music. She wasn’t really belligerent, but she was so drunk that I could see it getting to be a problem. And they stopped serving her because she was so drunk. And she comes up to the stage, strikes up a conversation with me and tries to pick up my speaker and carry it away — like she’s at the point of pure entitlement now, you know?
MMC: Right.
RK: And she asked me some question about a song and then she points behind me and goes, oh, my God, what is that? And I turn behind me and look out the window. And when I turn back around, she has taken my beer. The oldest trick in the book. She was trying to get me to look away so she could steal my beer. And I’m like, is that my beer? And she’s like, no, this is my beer. Then there was a wheelchair user in the in the bar as well. She starts dancing around with the person in the wheelchair, which I assumed wrongly that they were friends. They were not, this poor person. This disabled person couldn’t help the fact that this drunk person was like dancing around with their chair. And this woman took this person in the wheelchair out the door and around the block for a joyride. In retrospect, someone should have called the police. I don’t think any of us realized that we weren’t witnessing something that was consensual, you know? I would say that wins for the weirdest experience.
MMC: Yeah, I would say so. Do you ever get hecklers when you’re performing in bars and stuff?
RK: Sometimes. As someone female presenting, I get creeps. That is kind of the worst thing. I’ve had men come real close to the stage and whisper very inappropriate things to me. And I try my best to put them on the spot and make them realize how uncomfortable they’re being. I’ll say like, hey, could you say that back to me? Could you say that again louder so everyone can hear? And often, depending on where you’re at, the wait staff or the bartenders will be looking out for you, especially if there’s women behind the bar. But yeah, it happens. Not too, too much, but it happens.
MMC: Do you usually just ignore them?
RK: You know, I used to ignore them. And now I really feel — in a big way, about the whole world — like ignoring people who are bullies, which is really what hecklers are, doesn’t make the bullying stop. It actually enables it. It tells them I can do this and there’s no consequence.
MMC: Right. Yeah.
RK: So I try to turn the tables on them. If I can’t come up with a snappy response, I try to just say something like, say that louder. Someone at a bar once told me to take my top off.
MMC: Oh, wow.
RK: And, you know, in those moments, I often just freeze. It’s like, what do you say? And I think what I said was you first. Sometimes just coming back at someone is going to make them realize they’re being horrible and at least it calls attention [to it]. So you’re feeling a little safer, you know?
MMC: When you play out these days, are you doing a lot of covers still or are you mostly doing originals at this point?
RK: I’m trying to do a lot more original gigs. I play bar gigs. I play cover gigs. And those are just a part of my income as a self-employed musician. I think when I first talked to you, I was doing those like five nights a week — and you can burn out on them. Now that it’s more occasional and it’s a mix. I find that it’s a great time when I go to a bar and I’m singing for three hours, everything from REM to “I Want to Dance with Somebody” to like whatever, you know, Pink Pony Club. I just have a wonderful time. I feel like I’m up there just singing my heart out like paid therapy. But I’m trying to do a lot more listening rooms and original music, especially now that a lot of those rooms have come back. That’s that’s where my focus is. That’s where I want to be.
MMC: When you’re doing a show where you’re showcasing your original material, do you still do a couple of covers or do you make those originals exclusively?
RK: I try to make it originals, and if I’m doing a cover, I’m more likely to do something that’s like a deep cut or maybe something that I’m doing just for me because I was excited to learn it. A friend of mine who I used to be in a band with said they stopped adding a cover or two to their set because that would be the only thing people would talk about. She’d get off stage and people would be like, I love the Joni Mitchell song. And she’d be like, did you did you hear any of my songs? So if I’m just doing an original set, I try to really keep it original. And if I’m doing a cover set, I am putting my originals in there. I want those songs to be heard as well.
MMC: Sure. What are some of the easiest and the hardest songs that you’ve had to learn with the covers?
RK: Well, I played a wedding one time where I had to play “Pachelbel’s Canon,” which is a classical piece. And I am not a classical guitarist. And I did I did learn it for the wedding. And I practiced so much because I was so nervous about getting it right. I gave myself tendonitis. And it turned out that the guy, the groom, was a chiropractor. I met with them before the wedding. And I’m like, I kind of hurt my wrist because I’ve been practicing so much. And he’s like, come into the office, I’ll take care of you. So he ended up really helping me with my tendonitis, as well as me playing his wedding. It was kind of beautiful.
MMC: Very cool.
RK: Sometimes I get to do singing telegrams, which is so much fun, and always weird. And I think my favorite one that I ever did was an office. It was like an office party, like a farewell to someone’s boss who was retiring or whatever, something like that. And they had me play “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. And it was just so fun and so cool to get paid to go walk into a corporate office building and Rick roll someone.
MMC: Yeah, that’s funny. How do you get hired to do singing telegrams?
RK: There’s a company that does them that I work with sometimes. They found me on a music website. Once I did one with them, they were like, can we send you more work in the area? And I’m like, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, it’s not like a service that I advertise or anything. But I get a text from them every so often. It’s like, are you free for a singing telegram in this town at 6:30? They want you to sing, “Simply the Best” or whatever. And sometimes they want you to dress up, which depending on the situation, can be pretty fun.
MMC: Have any of the singing telegrams involved wedding proposals?
RK: Um, not yet. Although I did play at a proposal once. You do see people look for musicians for that. And usually they find someone themselves. But I played a proposal once and it was like, on the beach out in Montauk. And it was like very old timey. This guy wanted Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, that kind of music. He hired me and he hired a photographer to capture the moment. I understand why but he didn’t tell his fiance he was going to be proposing that day and have a camera person there. So she shows up in like a sweatshirt with her hair up in a messy bun. And she was like, you could have just told me to dress nice.
MM: Wow. That’s funny.
RK: Yeah. But it was really, really sweet. It was such a nice moment.
MMC: Have you ever thought about doing a tribute show where you perform songs by one artist only? For example, I used to be very anti-tribute shows, but I did see a great ABBA tribute about a year ago. And then there was a singer named Hugo who sang in some bands that I liked. And he does a Journey tribute show. And I went to that recently and it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. So now I’m not as against them. So I was just curious if there’s an artist that you love so much that you might do a whole show that’s like a Joni Mitchell tribute or something?
RK: If I was going to do a one artist tribute project, it would be Alanis. I am such an Alanis fan. And I already know a lot of her catalog. I have thought about that and that’s just a lot of work, as you probably have gathered, like going to see those very high caliber tribute shows. It’s very by the book, getting it just like the recording. There’s often costuming involved. There’s so much that goes into it. But I’m actually now singing and playing in sort of a tribute act called Women of Rock. It’s not my band. My friend Gina put it together. Gina B’s Women of Rock. The tribute is celebrating women in rock and roll music throughout the generations. So we do Heart, we do Alanis, we do P!nk. It’s all the way back to the sixties and all the way into today. It’s really fun. We do some Stevie Nicks stuff. It is very high caliber and it’s like a nine piece band. And it’s wonderful playing with that many people on stage who are all really good and really into getting it right.
MMC: Do you have any shows coming up with that?
RK: Not until this summer. That band does more big theaters, that type of thing. And it’s the kind of stuff that gets booked well in advance. So currently, August 29th, we’ll be playing here on Long Island at the Bolton Center. We did a show there last summer and it was incredibly cool. So I know it’s going to be really good. And I know there will be more. They’re just not solidified yet.
MMC: Sure. You used to do something called Monday Night Muses. Are you still doing that?
RK: Yeah, I am. Every Monday night on Twitch. Everyone else stopped streaming when venues opened back up again, but I fell in love with it. So I’m live streaming every Monday night. It’s https://www.twitch.tv/roriekelly. And it’s a great hangout. We do it from seven thirty to nine Eastern time. And I have a song list and people can request anything they like. People can request for me to make up a song. It’s a lot of fun. It’s silly. And it’s like definitely a mental health break.
MMC: Oh, I’ll have to check it out.
RK: I would love that. Sure.
MMC: And, are you still on Patreon at all?
RK: I am. I’m not as actively promoting it as much as I used to, but I’m still doing the thing every month. I do a streaming concert. That’s all requests. It’s just for my patrons and I let them request whatever they want. And I usually share behind the scenes, like this is what I’m working on. This is the latest mix of something I’m doing. And I try to give them just as much as I can. I’ll always have something recording at every original gig and be like, here’s this set from this bar on this day, you guys get the full show. Whatever I can do, I just want to share with them.
MMC: Yeah. That’s cool. Has your approach to songwriting changed at all during the last decade? Did you prioritize writing the music first and now you do lyrics first or change anything else in terms of the mechanics of how you write?
RK: Well, a little bit. When I left my day job in 2018, I started working with a looper. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but a looper is basically just a piece of gear that lets you record yourself and then layer over that recording. I started doing that the summer when I left my day job. I was playing every single night, taking every gig, playing the same few hundred songs. And I reached a point where I was like, something’s got to keep this creative and exciting. And I pulled my looper out and started using it every night just to see what I could do. If I layer some beatboxing on this song, I could solo over this. Or I could do a vocal arrangement. And that was so fun and creative and it kept me engaged, which meant the shows were better. And then I really started writing to it because I realized here’s this opportunity to almost do some of the things that a DJ can do where you drop in and layer things and then you pull everything out and you can just come down to a small groove at a special moment in the song. And so I started writing for that, not exactly on purpose, but it was the creative. I think of it almost like a new instrument, you know? So it definitely changed my creative process a little. Cause I think about it now.
MMC: I know you used to produce your own music. Do you still produce yourself?
RK: So my dad and I are really production partners. I remember the last time I talked to you, it was 2016 and I was coming out with an album that I kind of was producing with a few different producers that I was working with. And it was important to me to do that. It was important to me to learn who I was on my own. You know what I mean? As an artist, working with different studios and engineers and musicians. And I feel really proud of that album. Now, my dad and I do everything together in the studio, especially during the pandemic. I came out with an album called Shadow Work that was really just the two of us, and I was so proud of what we could do together. And so I’m not hung up on producer credit or whatever anymore. I’m just like, I love that I get to do this with my dad. You know, how lucky is that?
MMC: Now, does that ever make it awkward at all, though? For example, do you ever write a song that maybe is slightly sexual in nature or something, and then you’re like, Oh, I can’t work on this with dad.
RK: It is awkward sometimes. My dad kind of has the blessed ability to tune out a lyric that’s uncomfortable because I don’t want to like censor myself. I’m not writing wildly, you know, sexual songs that are going to get an explicit label anyway, but you know, I don’t want to censor myself.
MMC: Sure.
RK: But my dad went to Catholic school. He was an altar boy. There’s a song that I have called, um, “Up From Here,” but everyone calls it “the fucker song” because the hook and the chorus is “you can’t keep this fucker down.” And my dad was like, you really say that word a lot in that song. It made him a little uncomfortable. And I’m like, dad, I promise you people really love this song. Just how it is.
MMC: That’s funny. So what websites can people buy your music from?
RK: Thank you for asking. Well, my website, roriekelly.com, will take you to my shop. You can also buy my music on Bandcamp and Bandcamp is always a great way to support artists because they really, really give artists as much as they can. They’re a really good company to buy music from. And, if you’re streaming, I’m on all the streaming platforms, Spotify, Apple Music. I actually have a song that’s out now that is a Dolby Atmos mix, which you can really only get on like Apple Music or Tidal. That’s like a special surround sound experience that only a couple of places support.
MMC: So was that hard to make?
RK: It was such an adventure. It’s really just a dumb luck thing that my dad got really excited about mixing for Atmos and I got to learn. He put this whole system together in his studio. He’s one of the only people really mixing for it. And it’s called 7.1.4. And what it means is there are seven speakers around you in a room, one subwoofer and four more speakers on the ceiling. So it really gives you this immersive thing.
MMC: Wow, sounds intriguing.
RK: And there’s a few venues that are doing it, like as an immersive experience. He’s the only studio I know locally that is mixing in Atmos. And so he was just excited. And he’s like, I’m going to do an Atmos mix of “Crystal Waters.” I’m like, great. But it was so, so special, sitting in that room with all of those speakers pointed at you, like 360 degrees of a mix. Like, I can’t not cry. It doesn’t matter what song it is. I can’t not cry.
MMC: I actually have seen that some people have posted Atmos rips of different things on different websites but I don’t have a system to play them properly. So to me, they just sounded like bad quality MP3s or something. Cause I don’t have the right speakers or anything.
RK: There’s a couple of headphones and sound bars that are built to give you a good Atmos like experience, even if you only have a stereo thing. The Bose sound bars and Bose headphones will give you — they call it the binaural mix — but it is basically an Atmos mix. It’s just, you know, for headphones. If you are looking to have that experience, it’s pretty cool. And it really does feel more special than a stereo mix, you know? Much more immersive. And there’s like an algorithm that calculates when you’re mixing. [It can say] the piano is going to be right in front of you and you’re going to hear it left to right. And then, this tambourine is actually going to be three feet away from you towards the right. There’s actually an algorithm that calculates that distance and gives you these microseconds of delay. Sorry, I can geek out about this cause I think it’s really cool.
MMC: I really like regular surround sound, so I’m sure I would love it.
RK: Yeah. It really is like the next generation of surround sound, you know?
MMC: I didn’t notice if all of the videos of you on YouTube were all posted by you or if fans have posted some. How do you feel about people recording your performances with their phones and posting them on YouTube themselves?
RK: I love it. I’m all about it. I’m thankful, especially if people want to tag me or whatever, because I’m an independent artist. I don’t have a label promoting me. If someone’s out there sharing my music, I’m thankful. And that means maybe a few new ears will get it. And it keeps me on my toes. Like, oh man, this might get recorded, so I better be good tonight.
MMC: People have been telling me for over 10 years that Spotify doesn’t pay artists fairly. And I’ve heard similar things about other streaming services. Has it gotten any better at all, or is it still as bad as it was 10 years ago?
RK: It’s gotten better and it’s gotten worse. There has been some legislation to kind of establish minimums on streaming that did improve things for a little bit. But, you get a thousand people streaming your song and you’re still not necessarily going to be able to buy a cup of coffee from that. But they did improve the per stream rate a little bit. But Spotify has been really trying to not pay small artists in particular. Like some person with a ledger got the idea that there are a lot of artists on Spotify who have fewer than whatever it is, a hundred thousand streams. And if we just didn’t pay them, we could save this much every year. It’s the little guys that are like we’re just over here making music. And we care a lot more about each stream than, say, like a Taylor Swift or something who can afford to pull her songs from Spotify. And, actually, when Taylor Swift did that, it did change the game. It like helped raise payments to artists and stuff like that. So Spotify is now really trying to target independent artists and find any reason to take their music down or not pay them. And one of the things that happens a lot on Spotify is you get these bot playlists. They’re just playlists that are aggregated by random bots that just put something together. And Spotify has tried to blame the artists for this happening. So if your song gets picked up by one of these playlists, it’s considered an artificial play because the bots will play them or whatever. And Spotify is like, you’re trying to game the system and they will take your music down. And most times an artist doesn’t even know this has happened. We find out when Spotify yanks our music. And this did happen to me with first a song and then an album and I had to go resubmit it. It’s just one more way that Spotify really wants to go after smaller artists and basically create an atmosphere where we don’t expect to be paid.
MMC: Yeah. The other thing I don’t like is that not only do they just generally not pay enough, but their whole pay structure seems to be some kind of secret. I don’t see how that’s legal. I don’t see how you can just say, well, we’re going to pay what we’re going to pay and we’re going to figure it out with an algorithm and no, you can’t study that. It just seems like it should be illegal somehow.
RK: You’re hitting the exact right thing because Spotify in particular has been at the forefront of lobbying different international governments to treat digital music differently than radio airplay or television airplay. Spotify is the reason that streaming payments aren’t the same as the royalties that you get when someone plays you on the radio. Because they went and lobbied a lot of governments and said, this isn’t the same, digital streaming is different. We shouldn’t have to pay artists for this. And they hired enough lawyers to set that up for themselves, you know? And unfortunately, as a result, they’ve kind of led the way the industry has gone.
MMC: I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but there’s a docuseries about the creation of Spotify in the early days called The Playlist on Netflix.
RK: Oh, interesting. No, I haven’t.
MMC: Yeah. I forget what country the guy that founded Spotify is from, but it was made in that country. So it’s in a foreign language, but you can watch it with subtitles and it’s really interesting. It shows you kind of how this guy did not care about laws at all. He thought his competition was with the torrent sites that people were downloading music from illegally and his goal was to be able to give people all the music in the world immediately so that people wouldn’t even feel the need to download anything because you’re giving it to them all for a subscription fee. It seemed like he did a lot of shady stuff.
RK: I believe it.
MMC: Now, how do the other streaming services pay? Are any of them fair?
RK: They’re all very similar. Tidal is the one that’s at the top of what gets paid per stream and it was also started by artists and for artists. If you really wanted to support artists, Tidal would be the one to sign up for. They also tend to be more on the cutting edge of like different technology and different things the industry is doing. So they were an early adopter of Atmos, and different things like that. Like 24 bit files and giving listeners a full range of experiences. And Apple Music’s pretty okay. I’ll just say pretty okay. I’m an Apple Music subscriber, as a human being, not an artist. It’s actually because I used to be on Spotify and I just saw them really being harmful to artists like me. And now they’re running recruitment ads for ICE and stuff like that. And I was like, I’ve got to take my money away from this corporation. You know, it doesn’t make a difference if I take my music off their platform, it only hurts me, but I cannot pay them every month.
MMC: You mentioned ICE. And I know you follow politics and current events like I do. What are you the most passionate about right now in terms of world events or issues?
RK: it’s a hard question to answer. There’s been so much happening in the last year and change. ICE is one of them. You know, people getting kidnapped off of the street without arrest warrants. Like often we’re seeing people who have said things politically that the administration doesn’t like getting kidnapped with really no reason, you know? And, of course, now we’re seeing the equivalent of police brutality at the hands of ICE. We’re seeing people get murdered. I’m also very fearful for the trans community. There are watch groups right now that are saying that we are facing the early stages of genocide. I’m watching it play out with some trepidation because I’m non-binary. I have like some passing privilege, but the way that it feels right now to be a queer person in America is that it’s not safe. You know, it’s not necessarily safe. There are states that are more safe than others, but nothing is completely safe. And there’s an increase in hate crimes. There’s an increase in suicide. It’s very frightening. And in Kansas, they just invalidated the licenses of every trans person in the state. And this comes at a time where a lot of states are starting to require an ID to vote. So now you no longer have a license and you can’t drive to the DMV to go get a license because then you’re driving without a license and now you also can’t vote because you don’t have an ID anymore. So there’s a lot of slow, bit by bit legislation. That’s very frightening.
MMC: Yeah, I agree. And they’re doing a lot of stuff because they don’t want certain people to vote. They want people to have to get a voter ID and they’re saying to get the voter ID, your ID has to match your birth certificate. But woman who are married will usually have a driver’s license with a new name that doesn’t match. So they’re trying to just disenfranchise millions of married women.
RK: Absolutely true. And this is also going to disenfranchise immigrants because you don’t have a birth certificate from the United States if you weren’t born here. Now your documentation may not be enough to get that ID. Even if you are a citizen. So we have these problems as well and it becomes also, of course, a financial barrier. It’s a poll tax. It’s pretty discriminatory and they’re really trying very aggressively to pass that.
MMC: I think that come November, we’re going to see a lot of ICE stationed at polling places because they know, like, even if a guy is originally from Africa and he’s now a US citizen, if he knows ICE is just picking up black and brown people off the street without even bothering to check ID and they could detain you for two days or longer, people who aren’t white might think twice about voting because if some ICE guy doesn’t like them and wants to say he thinks they’re here illegally, then they can be detained, which is scary.
RK: Very. Yeah. You know, you’re a hundred percent right. And I think we’re already seeing it. You know, here on Long Island, there’s a lot of people whose kids have not been in schools because ICE is at the school and it really is quite discriminatory. It’s, as you said, black and brown people. But, you know, Long Island’s pretty segregated, unfortunately, and in neighborhoods that are really Latino, you’re just seeing people not be out in public because you could get kidnapped. You’re seeing kids not getting an education, including children who were born here and who are citizens, children whose parents were born here and who are citizens, but they’re not white. Because the directive is to go after people of color, like they’re not even necessarily asking for ID. They’re just detaining people sometimes.
MMC: Yeah, exactly. And I mean, these people barely get any training. I think I read that their trainings come to a total of 37 hours. So they have like a week’s worth of training and that’s it.
RK: Right. And they have these weapons, a variety of weapons now, as protesters are showing up. They’re getting crowd control weapons. And there’s a lot of heavy recruitment going on for ICE. There’s a sign on bonus and who is likely to sign up for a job like that? You know, it’s either people who really need the money or it is people who really want to kidnap black and brown people off the street. It’s very, very scary.
MMC: It is. Are there, are there any politicians right now who you do like?
RK: Yeah, I love New York city’s new mayor. I’m really happy to see Mamdani in office and the things that he’s been doing since he’s come to office have felt very promising to me. And I see him making inroads as well with our governor and even, you know, with the presidential office, I see him making visits and being able to make things happen. Being able to get people out of detainment who were being detained and stuff like that. You know, I see him really going to bat for New Yorkers and that’s exciting. I still feel very moved by AOC, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and she has really, really good things to say and doesn’t back down. And I hope that we get an ongoing generation of politicians like that.
MMC: I think the one that I like the most right now, it’s probably Governor Newsom from California. I like that he’s not afraid to speak out harshly when, you know, the White House does really bad things. And he has a sense of humor too, which I find refreshing because most politicians don’t.
RK: You know, his social media team does. What many of us in the queer community struggle with is that he is not supportive of the trans community.
MMC: Oh.
RK: And right now, we’re facing the early stages of a genocide and there are some people on the left who are, I don’t want to say that they’re actively trying to be harmful, but they feel that that’s a divisive issue and they’re not going to touch it. And that means that more of us die and I don’t mean to be so dramatic, but it really does. I’d like to see someone who really goes to bat for the most at risk minorities rather than looks at that as being divisive.
MMC: Sure. That makes sense.
RK: But I do also like seeing his social media moments. The White House is powerful, you know, and it is helping.
MMC: So, not to be too much of a downer, but we live in a country where abortion is illegal on something like half the States now. How do you feel about that?
RK: As a person who can get pregnant, I feel terrified. Yeah. I feel grateful to be in New York where our state is really likely to continue to go to bat for our autonomy and our rights for a long time. But that’s easy. In a way, that’s privilege. And all these rights are getting chipped away at and it’s frightening. It’s scary to think of pregnant people are already dying because they’re not getting the care they need if they miscarry and things like that. Doctors are frightened to give people care that would possibly fall under the legal heading of abortion and lose their license or get sued or whatever. As a result, there are people who are dying. So, that’s already happening and it is frightening and I’d like to see us turn the tides on that, you know?
MMC: I know certain states like Texas have really, really disturbing laws about abortion, like at one point they had passed something in Texas where if you knew a certain person had an abortion and you found that offensive, you could sue them for $1,000 or something. And things like that, that are just trying to start a witch hunt, basically.
RK: They’re trying. They’re trying to give people a financial incentive to report people and spy on their neighbors. They are. And that bill was used as a framework for other bills that have passed. It’s now not the only state where citizens can sue, you know, whomever for having an abortion. There’s also now a bill that has just been passed — I forget what state it’s in — but citizens can sue transgender people for using what they feel is the wrong bathroom.
MMC: Wow. That’s crazy.
RK: And those bills that are making the citizens do the thing, just make the landscape more unsafe. They make it more unsafe for people who can get pregnant. They make it more unsafe for anyone who is not very, very gender conforming. It doesn’t just hurt trans people, right? You know, it hurts women with short hair. It hurts anyone who might choose to dress in a way that the person doesn’t feel is appropriate. And, as you said, it creates like a witch hunt culture that enforces itself. Now people are scared.
MMC: Yeah, it’s very unfortunate. Now this is a vague question, but do you think that this country will ever recover from the current regime?
RK: Gosh, I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. I know there are people who are wondering if this country will continue to be a country at some point, if we’ll see it divide into like some different regions or whatever. To be truthful, I don’t even know what I’m rooting for. You know what I mean? I’m rooting for my safety and everyone’s safety. And I don’t know if America will continue to be America [or] if it has been irretrievably brought to this very frightening place. You know? I feel a greater pull than patriotism, which is a big value in this country. But the value to me is to like my fellow human beings in this country. What do you think?
MMC: You know, the thing that disturbs me is that it’s not just the president anymore. All of these people that he’s got running all of the different departments of the government, they all seem to be subscribing to that same MAGA agenda. And so now I feel like even if Trump is not the next president — even if he does leave office willingly and we get a new president — are we really going to have anything change? Because you’ve still got thousands of people in the government now who want that MAGA agenda still. That is going to be very, very hard to undo.
RK: You’re right. You know, it’s really concerning. I do think I see people waking up. I see people resisting. I see people who previously did not consider themselves political standing up and saying this isn’t okay.
MMC: Well, you know what, to end things on a positive note, what have you been doing for enjoyment lately?
RK: Um, hanging out with my cat. I’m a cat person.
MMC: Me, too.
RK: And watching Star Trek. I’ve been watching the new Starfleet Academy. I’ve been really, really enjoying it. I don’t know if you’re a Star Trek person.
MMC: Not really. I like Star Wars, but I’ve never gotten into Star Trek.
RK: Fair. And it’s funny because I consider myself to be a Star Trek nerd but there’s so much. There are so many series. There’s so many movies. There’s so much content that I feel like I haven’t even gotten through the bulk of it, but I’m enjoying it so much, you know? Starfleet Academy is really funny and it’s kind of a low stakes. It’s about a school. It’s focusing on younger people and it’s not like super high stakes and yet it’s taken an opportunity to have a very diverse cast and talk about issues that are really, really topical and that’s what I love about sci-fi, you know? So it’s been making me feel a lot of joy. I see Starfleet Academy and I’m like, the world’s going to be okay.
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