Rapper K.Flay gets her breakthrough
Kristine Flaherty graduated from Stanford University with dual degrees in psychology and sociology — perfect for a life as an audacious indie hip-hop star who goes by the name K.Flay. After a decade of playing clubs, paying dues and dealing with industry red tape, the 32-year-old Illinois-born rapper is finally relishing her breakthrough moment. She’s the first signee to Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds’ Interscopedistributed Night Street Records, and her second full-length album, “Every Where Is Some Where,” features the hit single “Blood in the Cut,” which has spent most of the year hovering near the top of Billboard’s alternative charts. K.Flay makes a triumphant return to the Bay Area to perform at this year’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival.
Q: Having watched you come up through the Bay Area scene with all your setbacks, I love a happy ending. Well, it’s not an ending, but a happy middle. A: I totally agree. It’s interesting looking back on everything because it makes its own internal sense the way things pan out. I feel kind of lucky with how it’s all unfolded just because I think I needed a lot of those years of experience and spending time on the road and learning how to record and use my voice — all these sorts of things to make sense of this past year and this record. Q: It took you getting incredibly personal to break through with “Blood in the Cut.” Why do you think so many people connected with that song? A: That song was just a very urgent expression and not planned in any way. I think that urgency is palpable. That’s a song that on some level wasn’t necessarily on the sonic palette of what I was doing. But I started it with a riff and I kind of decided early on with this record that I would follow the lead of the song — so if I began it in a rock spirit, I would pursue that and not worry that it didn’t make sense genre-wise. Q: While your recorded music leans toward hip-hop, the live show feels like a full rock spectacle. Where does that come from? A: I really enjoy that wild energy of being onstage and having the ability to move. I guess it’s probably just a release of energy because I have a lot of pent-up energy. I’ve always been a wild, hyper person. Q: You’re coming back to Outside Lands. Last time I saw you there, you played inside one of those corporate tents and I think there were maybe 12 people and 14 cars. It must feel good to come back and be on the big stage. A: It’s really cool. For me, the Bay Area is a special place in many ways. From a career standpoint, there are so many benchmarks that have happened there. It’s the place where I started making music and cutting my teeth performing. I can reminisce about every different stage of my career. I’m really looking forward to it. Q: Has having a hit song put a level of expectation around what you do that wasn’t there before? A: The good thing, for me, is I do find a lot of true joy in the act of writing songs and making music. ... For me, I think instead of feeling like it’s a challenge or something that could psych me out, it really feels more like an affirmation. For me, it’s actually felt quite inspiring. Part of my conversation about touring, I’m supposed to do something called radical acceptance. That’s supposed to be my new thing, where I approach the world with my palms up instead of my palms down, trying to control things. So I’m remaining palms up and accepting it all.
Aidin Vaziri is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop music critic. E-mail: avaziri@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MusicSF