LASSAI

Interview by Steven Logan | Photos by Shea Petersen

Lassai grew up in Chicago and spent years honing their musical niche, culminating in the release of 2022’s vampire concept EP Immortal. Now based in New York City, they’ve immersed themself in new sounds and a new world of experiences that are inspiring a follow-up project titled Abyss.

What was influencing you sonically when you were starting to think about this new project?
I settled on Abyss because it perfectly explains the world I’ve built, a world of darkness, sin, deviance, lust, discovery and acting on your deepest darkest desires with no judgment. And then everyone around you consenting to explore those desires with you. It’s a space for the vampires, the witches, the fags, the trannies….everyone that’s been listed as an abomination. Outcasts, black sheep, the folks who have been abused and trained to oppress themselves.

They can find safety and refuge in the abyss. And it connects to Immortal because you’re seeing me find myself in the transition I’ve made. In Immortal, you saw me fall in love with a vampire and deal with the complexities of the human-vampire relationship. And by the end you see me turned into one. And Abyss is the journey I’ve taken to leave my home behind and find myself in this new skin, as this new being, this new beast, and finding community and a new home.

On your song “Obstacles” - the first release from this new project, right - you’re framing the song around this vocal sample that asks “What is an obstacle?” What was the idea behind framing the song that way?
I love the question, I love my girl, Sukihana - Suki with the good coochie - and she had an interview I was obsessed with. The interviewer asked her, “What are your obstacles?” And her answer was very much like, “What is an obstacle?” Like, I don't even know what that is. 

And I am very much in the spirit of like, I'm going to be so delusional. Because so many people - mostly my family growing up - have placed so many fears and obstacles on me. So you just have to live in that delusion because if you choose to see all obstacles ahead, it can stunt you and leave you stagnant. 

So the point of the song is just asking that question of “What really is an obstacle? Are you really going to let that stop you for real?” Because I can also look at all the good things in my life. I’m blessed and highly favored, like, I don’t see the obstacles. I’m blind to the obstacles, Imma live in that delusion. 

Because when you start looking for them, you can find them everywhere.
Absolutely, and it’ll freak you out and paralyze you. Analysis paralysis.

So when I’m looking at songs you’ve put out so far, it seems like one of the throughlines I see is a sense of somebody trying to make sense of their new life in a new place. 
Absolutely. It’s definitely a fair reading. I mean, it’s totally autobiographical. This project has been cathartic for me, because my experience of moving to New York has been such a culture shock. And this project has been the place for me to pour in whatever feeling I was feeling of being in this big ass, crazy ass city, processing my experiences with new people and going out to these crazy ass fucking sex dungeon raves, or doing drugs and just transforming into a new person for real.

Are you being inspired in a way that feels different from being in Chicago? How do you feel about the difference between the two cities when it comes to your art and how it affects your creative process?
I think just being in close quarters with people and in constant contact with people, you know, definitely going out more and just interacting with New Yorkers. And it's so many different energies and cultures. It has totally influenced my art on a different level, I think, just because I am amongst other creatives who are just as hungry, if not hungrier, than I am. I really can tap into this on a more intense, deeper level if I just allow myself to do so. You know what I mean?

Whereas I think Chicago, I was more comfortable and more protected and sheltered in Chicago. So I think that like the way that I created was more in a leisurely manner, where here it's a lot more structured, intentional, and kind of like, I need to do this to survive.

I have noticed that these new songs, especially parts of “Obstacles” and “Stigmata” have a more urgent, energetic feel to them - do you think your new lifestyle in New York has affected the sound of your new music?
Absolutely. I'm just more attracted to faster tempos now because, you know, I really want these songs to be in a rave or in the club. I really want to be intentional about hitting the girls that like to be in the club and stunt and dance and release and just fucking shake their fucking hair. 

And my last project Immortal was super informative for me, because I found that the standout tracks were the dancey,club tracks. People really, really loved “Purr Pt 2” which was like the super hyper-pop fast remix, and also loved “On Me” with the uptempo house vibes and the footwork samples. Immortal definitely showed me that, you know, the club girls really want to be fed. 

And I feel like I have a unique voice for that sound, and it’s something that really moves me. I’ve been listening to a hell of a lot of like, club EDM, Kelela, Tama Gucci, these beautiful mixes of drum-and-bass with R&B.

I’ve been kind of shocked to find out how en vogue that sound has become because it’s all I consume.

Especially Kelela, she’s mother, you know? I also feel like she’s underappreciated. The girls gotta wake up because Kelela has been doing it. I went to see her three times in 2023, I could not get enough.  

So is it safe to say that she's a big influence on your music right now? You've been really on your Kelela mindset.
Baby…me and Kelela are gonna work together.

I would love to hear that. I think that would sound incredible. 
We are going to write together, like baby, let me do some backgrounds, let me write some hooks. Can you write me a hook? Can you executive produce my projects? Trust and believe, like we're putting that in the universe. 

And I mean, her remix album with all those features, all the incredible producers, like it's just giving fingers are on the pulse.

She knows the other sickening queer black artists out here who are shifting culture and just making really, really good music. 

So it's just like, I'm trying to be a part of that number. Amen.

So with the rest of these songs coming out throughout the rest of the year and even on the album, is there anything else you want to tease or that you’re excited for people to hear? 
Yes, I'm really excited about a collaboration that I have with this producer artist named Terabyte. She's based in LA, super sick producer, songwriter, vocalist, DJ. It's just been this really beautiful producer-artist relationship that I've honestly been manifesting since I first started doing music back in 2017. 

I’m super excited for our collaboration. And it's giving,honestly, some shit that I don't think has ever, I don't know…I haven't heard anything like it. It really gags me. That one’s out in June. It's very much giving experimental, club, fast tempo. I would say May, June, July, August is going to give very high BPMs, very up-tempo vibes. And then fall we’re gonna start to slow down a little bit. 

And then I’m also excited for the collaboration that I have with Grizzy Mack, too. Grizzy and I worked together with him, you know, rapping on “Purr", but he got into his producer bag and gagged the fuck out of me. Like literally just randomly sent me this beat that he made one day and gagged the fuck out of me. It's literally the title track of the album - “Abyss”.

Tell me about the newest single “Gomorrah”.
“Gomorrah” is leaning even further into the biblical, “sacrilegious” themes, kind of building off my last song “Stigmata” but also takes what I was talking about on “Haterz” to a more specific focus. “Haterz” was a more broad callout of oppression, patriarchy, white supremacy, classism, whatever.

But “Gomorrah” is specifically speaking about DL culture and DL men, and how you can get drawn into this fantasy of being in love and being in communion with this person, but then in reality just kind of not being acknowledged at all.

It's about being completely enthralled and in the trenches of lust with this “forbidden person”. 

Then looking ahead into the summer and the fall, you're doing this release strategy, of one song per month leading up to the album - how did you decide on that strategy?
I really just wanted to see what it looks like to be super intentional and consistent. The album is out in December and by that point it will have been two years between projects.

So are we going to hear every song off of it before it's presented to us as a full project? 

No, you will not. It's gonna be like, close to like twenty tracks. I mean, I'm definitely seeing if I can cut it down. I've been talking to my friends and I think I need to cut some songs, because I'm really not trying to have shit dragging out here. 

But I wrote around a hundred songs in the span of four years, including stuff from Immortal that were still in rotation when I started working on Abyss. And then I recorded maybe thirty songs, and I really, really love around twenty of them. 

So cutting it down to twenty, that would already be cutting it down significantly from what you have. 
Yeah, because it's just like, these are the songs I’m not tired of. Everytime I listen, I’m not tired of them. 

But I’m also conflicted about whether or not that's just too much for people to consume. At the end of the day, I am making this for myself, but of course I also want people to not be bored. You know what I mean? I don't want to just put too much out there and - I don't wanna say waste space - but I don't want to just throw it out there and then it's just floating. 

I know you submitted Immortal to a bunch of festivals, and the exhibition in New York - what was that side of the process like, trying to push your project in front of the right people and what did you learn?
Well, that's the hardest part, to be honest. Just the marketing, thinking about PR…it's kind of like my brain is literally switching. I can't remember. Is it left brain is more artistic and right brain is more analytical? Or is it the opposite? 

Either way, I know what you mean. 
Yeah, so just having to shift into a different side of my brain and think of my material objectively and intellectualize it can be super difficult. Because sometimes the reality is, I'm just going into it, just like, making sounds and don't really know what it means in the moment. 

And then after it's completed, sometimes even way later, I will listen to something and it will click, like, “Oh, that was the meaning”. Because I really do feel like artists are just a vessel sometimes. Like you're just so in the flow of creating the art that you really don't know what the message is yet. 

So the PR side of it is always just hard, but Immortal did really well. It was featured on OTV's platform, still streaming on there, and then the exhibition at SOMAD NYC - I think it was twelve artists they chose out of hundreds of submissions. But it just really just taught me like, no matter what, just put your shit out there.

And also that, you know, there's always a story and a narrative that could be crafted around the work. And I think that experience has totally strengthened how I'm going about pushing this project, pushing Abyss, and just kind of built more confidence because I have more experience promoting my art now.

That's interesting when you talk about being put in a place where you have to describe what your song is “about” when you’re not necessarily in that mindset when creating.
Right. It's just like, I could tell you how I feel, I could tell you more about the feeling that I have singing it, and maybe who I'm singing it to. But even doing that is hard to verbalize. And it can have so many different meanings. Somebody else can totally listen to the song and maybe conjure a different meaning of what it's about to them. 

And that's totally fine and valid because I want my art to be consumed and interpreted in many different ways. You know what I mean? 

If you had no budget limits and unlimited resources, what would be your dream project to put out? If you even have an answer to that question. What’s your wildest dream for your art?
Listen…

I’m just wondering! What’s your wildest dream for your art?
Wow, asking a Pisces what their wildest dream is…

From Pisces to Pisces.
Come on now, exactly. Twins.

First of all, I'm gonna get five million for my budget. But honestly, wildest dream is giving we're gonna drop the visual album, there's gonna be a full movie. I would love to just intersperse music videos with maybe documentary footage of just interviewing the people in my community, the people in the abyss, all kinds of folks that our society likes to demonize or whatever for being left of center or just not “normal” or whatever the fuck that is. 

And I would definitely have a full-length album that's you produced by all my faves like fucking Machinedrum, Timbaland, maybe get some writing from Frank Ocean, maybe some executive production from him as well, of course, Kelela, Tamaguchi, Serpentwithfeet.

And I would even create some sort of musical or opera. I really, I mean, I'm still a huge fucking theater geek, thespian, of course. And I always say that I would love to just hear Broadway come to the indie underground side. Like, why can't we have a Broadway show with a fucking DJ in the pit and club music, house music, drum-and-bass? 

What song of yours do you think you would fit best on a Broadway stage?
I mean, I think the title song, “Abyss”, is really just super poetic and would translate on stage. And there’s another one from the project called “Games” that’s just very free-flowing with a beautiful, moody intro, and that would be great in a musical theater format. But it’s hard to say because I do think the sound is just so different and unheard of on Broadway today.

That is a dream of mine, though, for the project to hit all mediums. Like go to Sundance, but then also have a Broadway run and then also have a stadium concert run. 

Big dreams, big dreams, but it's good to have big dreams because you can make steps towards it. So I'm a huge fan of dreaming super big.