Rapper finds new beats
and down the West Coast. When she was offered a chance to play a festival in Verona, Italy, that branded itself as Lesbian Woodstock in summer 2014, she jumped at it, even though she would have to pay her own airfare.
“We had it all arranged. I’d fly into Germany, then take the train from Berlin into Italy.” But a month before the planned festival, Lesbian Woodstock was canceled, leaving her with an openended plane ticket. After reaching out to a few club promoters and contacts in Europe, she was opening for the band the Internet in Berlin. From there, she steadily found work in the city, and was able to turn her Berlin popularity into a trip to Australia.
Although she describes her months abroad as a particularly fertile time creatively and professionally, she was troubled by events back in the United States, particularly the epidemic of police shootings. When asked to recall which shooting incident initially raised her consciousness, she struggles to remember.
“And that’s the problem,” she says pointedly. “There’s so many, who can keep track?”
Part of the focus with “Haven” is creating tracks ( there are seven total in the works) that can be performed live, “so people can see inside my process, see I’m really creating original pieces,” she says, and also because she views her performances as her contribution to the protest dialogue.
“As a queer woman, I’ve already endured a lot of harassment for my masculine presentation. I’ve dealt with queer bashing, even in Oakland,” she says. “It’s usually when I’m out with a pretty girl and a guy feels threatened, but knowing that, I’m not going to make myself a target,” by joining the front lines of the anti- police violence protests.
While finishing work on “Haven,” MicahTron is also taking a temporary break from touring, with her next scheduled gig at the Pink Party on Saturday night in the Castro during Pride. She has plans to debut some material from the album at the performance, and once “Haven“is completed, there’s a follow- up set of European engagements in the fall.
Among the tracks MicahTron shared from the album- in- progress is one tentatively titled “Distraction,” which contain the lyrics “Distracted by the money, distracted by the fame, living for more than just my Instagram name,” which she says isn’t just a commentary on the contemporary recording world, but contemporary life in general.
“‘ Haven’ is going to have a lot of factual, real s— in it, so get ready,” she says. “What I’ve been through as a queer person and as a queer artist is going to be a big part of the subject matter. How I’ve been treated as an artist in America versus Australia or Europe. How I haven’t been treated as an artist. A lot of my music has had a clubderivative sound, but I’m ready to step away from that. I’m ready to be me.”