It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When I quit my job at the animal control center in my small hometown in Ohio to move to LA, I had dreams of stardom. Ever since a teen model recruiter at my local mall yelled to me and my mom that I had “the look” from his kiosk, I’ve wondered if there was more for me than sedating rabid dogs. I got headshots taken, recorded a demo of original R&B songs, and traded in the large rubber gloves I’d wear to extract snakes from gutters for a mesh tank top. I found a charming two-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood and moved in with eleven roommates. Bathed in sunlight and hope, I felt optimistic that I would never have to touch a dead raccoon again.
Soon enough, I got my big break: a meeting with executives at ‘Hot Hot Hot! Records,’ the fastest growing label in the industry (they almost signed Calvin Harris.) When I arrived at their headquarters, I was escorted into a dim room where two men named Big Money and Hella Cash were sitting on top of the desk in casual yet contrived positions.
“We’ve been waiting for someone like you,” they told me. “We’re going to make you the most recognizable female voice in the world.”
“Bigger than Rihanna? Bigger than…Cher?” I asked, eyes-wide.
“Yeah, sure,” one of them said, handing me a contract. I told them that I needed to have my lawyer-uncle look over the papers, but then the door opened. In stepped a bald man with headphones around his neck, two leather jackets, an amulet in the shape of a wolverine, and checkered Vans. My heart skipped a beat as he approached me. I offered my hand to shake and he knelt down to kiss it.
“You’re the one,” he said, and I believed him. In my daze, I signed the contract.
The man introduced himself as DJ Wolf-Howlz, my first collaborator. My first weeks in the studio with DJ Wolf-Howlz were a whirlwind of unpredictability. Some days he wouldn’t show up because he claimed his Uber driver had accidentally driven him to Nevada, but some days he would bring me gifts, like half-used bottles of perfumes and hotel shampoo. Something about him was magnetic, but when I hear his name now, I’m repulsed.
Our first track–“Tonight We Gettin’ (Real Krunk)”–rose to the number three spot on the EDM charts. Every Forever 21 in America was playing it. My vocals were “perfectly generic,” according to Pitchfork. I was elated, but something felt wrong.
“Why aren’t I listed as a featured artist on the track?” I asked DJ Wolf-Howlz one day while we sat on the bear skin rug in his loft.
“Babe, you are listed,” he said. “See–it says, featuring ‘A Lady Singer.’”
I felt defeated, but I continued to record with Wolf-Howlz and we continued to produce hits: “Real Eyes Realize (Real Lies),” “You Make Me (Wanna Juul),” and “Closer-er.” My disillusionment grew, so much so that I couldn’t go to the club anymore because I didn’t want to hear my voice over Wolf-Howlz’s beats. The only music I could bear to listen to were the solo albums of Stevie Nicks. Even the inoffensive beeps and boops of electronic devices reminded me of the lie I was living. I decided I had to confront Wolf-Howlz at his most vulnerable: the day of Coachella, which he’d been banned from for life after he almost lit Calvin Harris on fire.
“This isn’t right!” I told him. “You’re exploiting my art and my labor. This unethical practice contributes to and is enabled by an industry where men like you hoard power and wealth. I’m going to expose you for who you are: a schlub who steals from artists who lack the capital to protect themselves and their work. Also, you always smell like boneless chicken wings, your back tattoo is really dumb, and as a former animal control officer, I feel obligated to tell you that you should not keep a white tiger as a pet!”
DJ Wolf-Howlz didn’t take my condemnation seriously because he didn’t know that I had united every female artist at ‘Hot Hot Hot! Records’ to launch a multi-million dollar lawsuit to sue the label for their illegal practices and breaches of contract.
I think I’ll start my own record label for femme musicians with the money I win from the suit. I will harness the powers of Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morissette, and Solange and I will never sing about a vape again. My voice will no longer be heralded as “indistinct and innocuous” by music reviewers who only care about things like “disco fizz” and “the aural texture of the high intensity arrangement.”
I once sang that “tonight is the night, tonight tonight, it’s tonight, tonight is now” and it’s true. Tonight is the night. The bass has finally dropped…and it’s mine.
Image via Sarah Clapp.