Kat Says: “These Are My Top Stories Of The Year!”
I interviewed Flume and Swedish House Mafia, wrote love letters to EDM, and more.
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Hey Friends,
It’s the end of another year, and I truly hope you’re taking some time to reflect and review what 2022 meant to you.
For me, it was a year of incredible transitions. I started 2022 in Berkeley, CA; three years deep in a long-term relationship, processing the fact that my paternal grandma just stopped talking to me because her dementia made her believe I was trying to steal her money.
Today, I’m totally settled into my own apartment in Fort Lauderdale, FL; I’ve been single for four months, and I’ve been back in touch with my grandmother for the last two, spending every Sunday I can with her watching the Dolphins.
I moved across the country and stepped up to the plate in ways that I can truly say I’m proud to achieve, and while a lot of what makes me proud are the personal challenges I’ve overcome, I’m also immensely proud of the work I was able to create while navigating all this other shit.
Music is meaningful to us because it soundtracks those moments of our lives that come to define ourselves and our story. It’s my absolute honor and pleasure to share the stories of the musicians who touch so many of us, to give context to their own work via their own narratives.
More often than not, I feel parallels between my life and the lives of my interview subjects as I tell their tales. It’s bizarre how much the writing of an artist’s journey can start to become your own journey while writing.
Maybe it’s just part of getting in the subject’s head. Maybe it’s just a testament to the universality of these experiences, which therein explains why these songs connect with us so deeply on such a personal yet macroscopic level.
Whatever the case, I want to take a moment to reflect upon, celebrate and share with you my favorite interviews and essays from 2022. It’s a slightly self-indulgent exercise, but it’s one I hope you can find a piece of yourself in too, because one or more or all of these stories might reflect your own journey in 2022.
Here’s to hoping we all create an incredible 2023 together. Thank you for being part of my journey. It means the world <3
Busy P Remembers His Friend DJ Mehdi, Releases First New Track Since Producer’s Death
(Billboard Dance, January 2022)
What a way to start a year! Busy P is one of my all-time favorite folk in the music industry—nay, the cultural fabric of the universe. He straddles multiple era of impact and influence, has helped shape at least half of the music that has made my life worth living, and he’s also just a really fun and friendly dude who is nice to me every time I see him, wow. In this interview, I had the distinct honor of chatting about his late friend DJ Mehdi, an incredibly influential and prolific producer who I was so lucky to have seen DJ in 2008, but who tragically passed away following a freak accident in 2011. His legacy endures, and his catalog still absolutely slaps. Please go listen to it, but also read this touching and inspiring interview from Mr. P(edro). It meant a lot to me to help share Mehdi’s story.
Excerpt:
“Those losses are terrible in a more personal way, but as a friend, an artist and relationship, they are also giving us strength and energy,” Winter tells Billboard. “Now, I have to live double or triple time. You have to live for them.”
Kat Says: “It’s Still Dre Day”
(Kat Scrawls, February 2022)
When I watched the Super Bowl Halftime Show with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J Blige and Kendrick Lamar, I was immediately fired up and inspired. I felt like everyone around me was just talking about how these old rappers were on stage, but they were missing the essential point that kids from the city of Compton were the central element of the biggest cultural moments in the United States calendar. That’s a fucking huge win for black America, and it’s nuanced, and I just wanted to share some thoughts. It was the first essay that I think really broke me out of my mold with this newsletter, and I’m proud of it, even if there’s still so much more nuance to be said about this moment that I can’t completely say I understand or am the one to share.
Excerpt:
One in three.
Those were the odds a black American man born in 2001 would end up incarcerated during his lifetime. Those statistics are built on the beaten back of decades of racism; and in Compton, Los Angeles—a neighborhood known around the world for its countless cultural contributions despite its urban-war torn history—it reflects a story that starts with a pair of Colt .45s in 1953 and leads, against all odds, to a triumphant Super Bowl stage.
Swedish House Mafia Confronter Their Demons And Found Themselves
(Spin, March 2022)
What an absolute honor it was to interview Swedish House Mafia for Spin’s March cover story. I mean, holy shit. Spin is the reason I’m a music journalist, having read it obsessively every year I was in high school. Swedish House Mafia, on the other hand, aren’t a band I can say I was completely loyal to through the EDM golden era. I, like many others, pointed at SHM as a scapegoat for the over-commercialization of a moment that I loved. During this interview, though, I can say with 100 percent assurance that Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello have every ounce of their musical hearts in the right place. I feel like we’re actually coming to electronic music from the same fucking angle, and I’m a fan for life now. Kudos to their comeback. One of the best concerts of the year!
Excerpt:
“All of us three in the band [believe] you have to have some type of melody that you remember after you come home from the rave and did like 14 ecstasy pills and joints,” Ingrosso says. “That's actually how we thought. We were like, ‘We need to make a bass line for when you go to the bathroom and pee, and you only hear the bass. You have to remember the bass line.’”
Together, the three men distilled the energy of their “fuck you” attitude into an electrifying sound, then they projected it from bigger stages than they’d ever graced alone. Their mantra of “us against the world” became a global zeitgeist, and it only worked if all three egos approved.
“Every step of the way we always thought ‘I wish people could see the hard work that's behind this,’” Angello says. “We were always grinding from the first to the last show. We were always expecting to put in 150%. I don't feel like anything's ever been smooth sailing. It was a battle. We are three guys. We have three thoughts and ideas. But when we grind it into this one little piece, that's when it's Swedish House Mafia.”
20 Questions With Flume: On His Vegetable Garden, The End of the World & SOPHIE’s Influence On His New Album
(Billboard Dance, May 2022)
If you’ve seen a picture of Flume lately (or caught his INCREDIBLE Coachella performance on the livestream), you might be asking yourself, “why is Flume dressed like a motocross biker?” Well, as he explained to me in this heart-warming and kind of surreal conversation for Billboard, he and his bestie/visual artist Jonathan Zawada got to thinkin’ during the pandemic and came up with this wild universe where plants can invest in companies that damage human life. It’s a commentary on climate change. GET IT? His mom is a horticulturist, so maybe that’s where he gets his love of green. He also shared with me wild stories about making music for an ad his dad made when he was 13 or 14. We also talked about his album Palaces, and how its made up of existential ideas, personal memories, travel souvenirs and more.
Excerpt:
“The topic kept coming up like, ‘Oh, I wonder what it would be like if nature owned a company and invested in things? What would nature invest in? Probably things that are detrimental to human existence, but also make money.’ So we made this [motorbike] rider figure and he’s sponsored by Vasectamax, which is a vasectomy brand; or this huge arms dealer promoting war, or Greenpeace, or a company that provides euthanasia. Maybe a smoking a brand. We have a Marlboro rip-off on the arm. They’re all rip-offs of brands that do exist. Like, Purdue. There’s a Purdon’t. That was the angle we took for that rider. That’s how that came about.”
Swardy’s New Animated Short Film Is Quirky, Charming & Porter Robinson-Approved
(Billboard Dance, June 2022)
I already shared that Swardy’s Compact Objects EP was my most-listened to bit of music in 2022. Its eight tracks and incredible animated visualizer tell the story of Swardy’s own journey to accept his artistic voice with all its flaws and imperfections; to overcome the fear of sharing himself with those he admires the most—and all of us! I’m proud of say Swardy is a friend, and he shared with me the story behind the making of this EP and its visual companion. It’s very touching! We can all relate!
Excerpt:
The beginning of the pandemic was weird.
“I have this burned-in memory of this woman next to me [at the grocery store], and she was just scooping dried beans into a bag,” says Benjamin Swardlick, a soft-hearted dude in a perpetual beanie known to fans of electronic music as Swardy, formerly one-half of The M Machine.
“She put it down, and then she scooped more dried beans into another bag. She did that like three times, and I looked over and smiled and she was like, ‘I don’t know. I have no idea. I guess this is what I’m going to do.’”
6 Artists on What It Means to Be Queer in Dance Music in 2022
(Output, June 2022)
Shout out my girl Dani Deahl for giving me this honorable assignment. She asked me to put something together for Pride talking to queer-identifying artists, and I knew immediately that I didn’t want it to just be the same sort of lip-service article we see every June across platforms. I also knew that as a cis-het woman, it wasn’t my story to tell, but simply my opportunity to share space with some of the strong voices in our scene that step up by merely existing. I spoke to Baby Weight, QRTR, Pennywild, Wreckno, Moore Kismet and Astronomar. Literally every conversation touched my heart and blew me away. What a fucking honor, for real.
Excerpt:
“I’m happy to celebrate Pride now, because I couldn’t 10 years ago,” Astronomar says. “I couldn’t even utter the words, ‘I’m gay.’ Since I’ve come out and people know me as a gay man in music, I get a lot of bi-curious or gay-curious guys confiding in me, telling me like that they’re trying to figure themselves out and that seeing me be so comfortable makes them start to feel like maybe they can, too.”
“It feels good to help people make those kind of realizations,” he continues. “Just love where you are, and when you’re ready to share who you are with the world, make sure you’re in a comfortable place, emotionally, to come out. It’s about self-love and being proud of who you are, regardless of your orientation or your preference or whatever kind of transitions you make in life. Just love yourself.”
Porter Robinson on His New Song For Riot Games’ ‘Star Guardian’: ‘I Put a Lot of Effort Into Making It Something I Want To F–king Belt Out’
(Billboard Dance, July 2022)
I conducted this interview in a random hotel room in Dallas, TX. I was flying back from California after my random trip to see Justice play a party thrown by the guy who started Minecraft (which is one of my favorite pieces, but just click the link there if you wanna read it. It kinda makes me sad now because it was the last good memory with my now ex, but it was well written and one of the wildest nights of my life), and my connecting flight got all fucked and canceled like so many other flights this year. So, bright and early, I got on a call with king sweetheart Porter Robinson, and what were his first words?!
“Yo, is this a Kat Call?”
I pretty much died, as you can imagine, hahahahaha. Proud moment right there, to be recognized by Mr. Worlds and Nurture himself. This chat dives into his tireless dedication in writing the best possible tune for League of Legends’ spinoff game Star Guardian. It’s very, very sweet.
Excerpt:
It was Riot’s idea to have Robinson work on the new launch theme, to be paired with a two-and-a-half minute animation that sets up the latest narrative. He was intrigued, for sure, but first he had to make sure everyone was on the same page.
“Nurture is so different from something like Worlds, my previous album, and that was so different to what I was doing back in the early EDM days,” he says. “I asked, ‘So, if we have attribute points — like in a video game where you can put three points in strength, one point in constitution, two in dexterity and so on — for this song, if you guys have six attribution points to assign, how cute do you would want the song to be, how epic do you want it to be, and how emotional?’ They were like, ‘Oh, we want three points in emotional, two points in epic and one point in cute.’ And I was like, ‘OK, cool. That sounds like exactly the ratio that was in my imagination.'”
Kat Says: “Music Journalism Is Rotting From The Inside”
(Kat Scrawls, July 2022)
Taking my newsletter one deeper, I channeled some professional rage into a super-open personal essay about the shortcomings of music journalism in the modern era. I was nervous to tell this story, but I was fired up as hell, and the response was immediate. I’m far from the only reporter experiencing these things. So much payola and other unethical practices are simply accepted as “part of the industry” these days. It’s fucked, but supporting independent journalists and ethical publications is the best thing we can do to fight against it. Also, support young journalists by paying them please, editors!
Excerpt:
Now, music and entertainment journalism is generally far from important. It’s not (usually) life-saving, geopolitical, socio-economic stuff. We’re talking about Beyonce making house records, and whether well-known producers write their own algorhythm-placating hits or not—but I maintain that there should be some semblance of professionalism here.
Some of the rights inherent in the First Amendment do still apply: Namely that there should be a difference between the person writing about the subject and the subject themselves.
Because if the subject is the one with the power, isn’t it all just mindless marketing drivel at best and cultural propaganda at worst?
Kat Says: “EDM Needs a Comeback, and So Do We”
(Kat Scrawls, August 2022)
Fresh after my move, before I got into this apartment where I’m living now, I got my chance to relive the magic of Swedish House Mafia at the trio’s tour kickoff concert in Miami. I was so fuckin’ hyped after our cover story interview, and while some were doubting that they could make an arena feel like a rave, the guy’s fucking slammed it and proved every hater wrong. There’s nothing more magical than singing “Save The World” with your entire generation after 11 years of pregaming. It inspired me to write this love letter to EDM, because I think it maybe deserves a lot of respect in hindsight.
Excerpt:
Electronic Dance Music. It was supposed to be an umbrella term. It’s so vague, but to me, it means something extremely specific. To me, it means Avicii. It means Calvin Harris. It means Hardwell and Nicky Romero and Swedish House Mafia.
It means skyrocketing, anxiety-inducing builds and big, big cannon blast drops. It means songs that were meant to be played to no less than 5,000 to 20,000 people at a time; bottle service clubs with sparkler-capped champagne brought by women in fishnet and thongs; a downright devilish peak of absolute excess that only came to life between the years of 2010 and 2015, and anything else is just, well, something else.
Kat Says: “Congratulations Laura, You Made The Top 5”
(Kat Scrawls, September 2022)
This was the most personal thing I’ve ever published to date. It was really cathartic and scary to write, because I was pouring my truth onto the page, as gross and incriminating as it can be, but I was also just worried that like, y’all didn’t wanna read this shit. I was incredibly touched that you did, and that so many of you reached out and told me how it helped you reflect on your own heartbreaks. This is still painful to talk about. Last night, I was plagued with nightmares of reliving my breakup all over again. Honestly, this shit sucks, but I’m gonna be okay and I am okay, and I hope you can still find something cute in this story.
Excerpt:
At its core, High Fidelity is a movie about growing up and learning to recognize your own faulty patterns. It’s also a movie about music and the people who love it to a point that’s a bit unhealthy and definitely distractive. That blend of self-destructive obsession and deep personal reflection makes it my kind of movie, even if it is centered around one pos cis-het white dude. I don’t personally hold that against it.
In the spirit of unpacking my own personal baggage and moving through my latest sour affair, I’m choosing to do something overly-personal, writing and reflecting on my own Top 5 Breakups, representing each ex-lover with their own song. I’m not naming any names, but if someone happens to, like, know who I’m talking about, well, that’s just part of life. I mean, these dudes decided to date a writer. It’s not my bad.
Kat Says: “I Was Flogged! A Very-Special Rave Report From Portola 2022.”
(Kat Scrawls, September 2022)
Lollerskates. Immediately after being dumped, I went to San Francisco to try my hand at making a festival review vlog for the first time, and I also said “fuck it” and got my body whipped in the street in front of anyone who wanted to look. It was fucking freeing, and it reminded me that there are parts of myself that haven’t seen the light of day in a while that are fair game. Also, my vlog came out fuckin’ tight, and I realized how much I can achieve if I focus my mind and get serious about my goals. A lot of really cool things are coming from my little studio in 2023. I can’t wait to show you, but for now, here’s an essay on why being a freak is essential to dance music culture’s spirit.
Excerpt:
It’s so beautiful and so magical to be reminded that we humans are here. We really exist and only for a short time, and we can live the life we dream of, dancing and hugging—and yes, sometimes fucking and flogging—together, under one sky, and no amount of corporate greed or social injustice or institutionalized racism and sexism and queer-phobia can strip us of our power to just be ourselves.
Not if we really, really fight for it, and the way we fight for it is with love.
Dillon Francis Wants to Sing All Night Long
(Miami New Times, October 2022)
Mr. “IDGAFOS” is one of the longest-reigning kings of the EDM era, and I’ve been rockin’ with him since before he started producing moombahton, when he released this adorable remix of “Hits Me Like A Rock” by CSS. He’s grown up with me, and when I realized he had turned 35 just a couple weeks before my own 35th birthday, that became the central theme of our conversation. It was incredible to have such a hilarious heart-to-heart with the funniest DJ in the scene. Turns out his story has incredible depth, and I’m so proud that he peeled back some of those layers with me.
Excerpt:
“I was always obsessed with Jim Carrey,” he says. “I never wanted to be the main character. I always wanted to be the second buddy guy that's really stupid. When Instagram and Vine came around, I was like, ‘This is the perfect way for me to be that character online,’ but everyone just thought that was me. Everyone thought, Oh, that guy is really not smart, and somehow he made it. I mean, I'm definitely not smart, that's for sure. I got street smarts, but not normal smarts.”
Thank you so much for reading. I hope you found something that made you laugh, cry, smile, and remember to cherish every fucking moment you have on this Earth.
Never miss a chance to tell someone you love them. Forgive people that hurt you. Move forward from every stumbled step and full-out fall with your head held high and a lesson in your heart.
I appreciate your attention and interaction more than you know. Happy new year! See you in 2023!
Thanks for tuning into my newsletter. Listen to the playlists on Spotify. One is updated weekly with all the songs from each edition. The other is cumulative with all the updates ever!
your Kat Scrawls essays are my faves xxxx