CAKES DA KILLA

A luminary figure in underground hip-hop, Cakes da Killa has spent the last decade prefiguring the musical zeitgeist. Long before Beyoncé ever made a lurch into the glittering realm of the ballroom, Cakes had been laying the foundation for ball culture's place within the mainstream rap conversation, breaking out with his furious, M.I.A.-sampling 2013 single 'I Run this Club'. 2022's Harlem Renaissance-inspired Svengali, an album of subdued jazz beats and heartbroken voice notes, was something of a heel-turn away from his rowdier impulses, a simmering meditation on queer love in the city. Released just 18 months later, his follow-up Black Sheep is his most consistent album yet, a merger of his mellower impulses with the four-to-the-floor chaos of his acclaimed Muvaland mixtapes. It is the sound of an artist basking in the fruits of his labour, while suggesting that the best is yet to come.

Listen to Cakes’ TANK Mix below, and read our interview, where he discusses legacy, drag queen fatigue and the definition of nerve.

TANK You released ‘I Run this Club’ a decade ago. Could you describe what your life was like at that point?
CDK I had just graduated from college and was new to New York. It was my first taste of adulthood. I was living for drink tickets, doing shows and my only job was making music, so I was hustling without really knowing I was hustling.

TANK Do you have fond memories of that period?
CDK Yes and no. It’s important because that's the moment that got me out here, but I think a lot of those years were wasted on having the same conversations, eclipsing the fact that I was putting out pretty good music. The press being so focused on this whole “queer rap” moniker was an attempt to pigeonhole me. I was able to escape that because I've been working and collaborating with different people outside of that cohort. Working with the group Injury Reserve opened up new conversations.

TANK In the UK there's been an article circulating about the financial difficulties of being an artist and still having to work nine-to-five. You worked in a supermarket during COVID. How was that experience, having come from ten years of hustling?
CDK It never was that dire financially for me to think, oh, maybe I should work at a supermarket until I couldn't tour anymore. That's when I was like, okay, I need to get a job. It made me realise how expensive living in New York is. When you're doing gigs getting thousands of dollars for an hour’s set versus working a nine-to-five and you're only making a couple hundred, you're like, wait a minute, something about this is not matching correctly. It put my finances in a different perspective. Any meeting that has anything to do with me I'm in, regardless of how mundane it may sound. You have to always know what's going on with your business, not to be micromanaging but I constantly want to learn. I want to be cc-ed in the emails because I want to see how the lawyers interact, in case I have to do it by myself. It's a constant process.

TANK How has the landscape of New York changed since you’ve been there? 
CDK New York is a city that will always be young. lt's not like Berlin for instance, where you can go out to a club and see a varied age group. There's always a new litter of kittens just ready to lick up the milk. I'm always like, who's this DJ? Who's this party promoter? It's a constantly shifting new roster of characters, but that's what makes the city interesting. I think at this point, with there always being a new slew of DJs, it fucks up the fees a lot of the time because there’s always someone willing to work for less. It could be cute, but it needs to be more regulated. No more DJs! No more drag queens! It's too saturated. I think everyone can be an artist, but when you're flooding a market, that's never good, and that rings true for any business model. 

TANK Especially considering being a DJ is not inherently difficult, it's a skill that a lot of people can learn. 
CDK I think that’s what's getting lost a lot of the time. To be a great DJ is a skill, you have to be having a very unique conversation with an audience while you're playing music. A lot of those skill sets are being lost because the technology is so accessible. If everyone was forced to spin vinyl I think there would be way fewer DJs! Everyone could do what they want – it's America – but I still think it needs to be regulated.

TANK You recently participated in a BBC documentary in which you spoke to Peter Rosenberg again. [In 2014, Cakes was interviewed by Peter Rosenberg and Ebro Darden for their show HOT 97. The interview's line of questioning, which focused on Cakes’ sexuality, has received criticism in the ensuing years.] How was that experience?
CDK It was fine. For me, the only pressure I felt was like, wow, I'm probably the first openly gay person to do an interview here. I did feel a lot of pressure, but I'm not easily intimidated and having those kinds of conversations is needed and necessary. A lot of people looking at it, especially now, feel like it was a very uncomfortable interview. I don't think people realise that having those uncomfortable interviews and conversations is what makes the current climate better. To see Peter again it was like, oh great, but I guess a lot of people wanted it to be more of “How could you talk to me like that.”

TANK Do you think that's a common thread in your career: people wanting certain responses or reactions from you? 
CDK I think a lot of times people want me to be more victimised, in a way, and I'm not saying that the life that I chose doesn't come with its upsets. But I don't have any stories about dealing with homophobia in hip-hop, which is one of the biggest questions I'm asked time and time again. It's like, no, Snoop Dogg did not deny me entry to the BET party! Or 50 Cent did not gay bash me on Twitter! I'm not saying that homophobia does not exist in the realm of hip-hop, but homophobia exists in the music industry, just like fatphobia, just like ageism. I don't have those kinds of stories and I think people sometimes want me to have those. I want to talk about the internalised homophobia between other queer people, I think that those are way more interesting conversations to have and way more beneficial conversations than with this make-believe villain you think I've been dealing with for the past ten years. Let it go, we have bigger fish to fry.

TANK You once said in an interview: “To be a faggot it was the tension of it it was another bit if I get on the l train now and everyone's wearing a skirt that's not nerve.” Where is nerve for you now? 
CDK I think the protests right now are nerve, but I’m also on the fence about that because protesting now is such an aesthetic thing that has been kind of like social media-fied. It gets the work done though, I’d rather someone do it than not. Drag queens are not nerve, they really can't be nerve anymore now. It’s the same as being a DJ. At one point being a DJ, people would say, “That’s what you do for a living?” That's what gave it the edge. I think tension is what makes things great, having the nerve to do something. I sound like such a hater. Everybody can do anything, I'm just like, where's the sauce? Where's the flavour, you know? 

TANK Your last album Svengali felt quite vulnerable in places, and Black Sheep has a kind of observational quality. How do you relate to being alone?
CDK Typically I'm alone for the majority of the time. I’m one of those people who spends 60 or 70% of the time alone, and when I'm not alone I'm around a lot of people. I like the balance. I probably like being out more than any of my friends or anybody that I know but then I also like not being out. Touring and doing all these things could be glamorous when you think about it, but travelling through China for three weeks is not it.
TANK Do you have any wild stories?
CDK Of course I do but I can’t talk about China! I’ll save those for the memoir. ◉

Black Sheep is out now. Photo by Ebru Yildiz