(upbeat music)
(knocking on door)
- Hey. - [Interviewer] Hey.
How are you? - Come on in. Back up, girl.
- [Interviewer] Oh, hey, hey, kitty,
- This is Toffee, say hey, say meow.
Welcome to my humble abode.
- [Interviewer] It's nice, comfortable.
- Thanks, yeah. Very cozy.
You know I like to be cozy at all times.
- [Interviewer] Cozy girl status.
- As you can see. (laughs)
- [Interviewer] What's your go-to breakfast?
- My go-to is an omelet always,
I do an egg white omelet, I'll add mushrooms.
Most times I add spinach but I have kale right now.
So that's what we're doing.
And my fav of all time is sun dried tomatoes.
I will put shit this in anything.
I'm always trying to push boundaries but also push myself.
So when it comes to making music,
that's kind of how I approach it, how I attack it.
I almost look at all of my music and my albums or EPs
or mix tapes, whatever you wanna call them,
as school projects in a way.
So they all have a rubric for me
in my head that I kinda like to follow,
which is why a lot of times I do thematic projects
or just really heavily themed projects.
'Cause it just makes the whole thing more fun for me.
Yeah, girl, you hungry too?
- [Interviewer] When you get up in the morning,
what's the first thing you do?
Do you grab your phone? Who do you text?
- I'm always checking Twitter, Instagram,
see what's the new tea.
What done happened in the night while I was sleep?
It's usually nothing, but (laughs) yeah.
I like to stay up on current events.
- [Interviewer] Are you in any group chats,
group threads with friends and family?
- The most group chats that I'm in are
with my manager and people we're working with.
I have a project coming out very soon
so we've just been in group chats
about the project basically.
I don't really have that many other group chats,
I'm not in, I don't know, fantasy football group chats
and stuff, I don't know what what these kids do these days.
(chuckles)
- [Interviewer] Talk about the grind.
Talk about the amount of work it takes to get
into the position you are
and maintain the position that you're in now.
- Man, it's not easy, I'll tell you that.
But it's always,
I would say it's always gratifying to know that,
"Oh, wow, I actually had to put in this work."
Or seeing the fruits of your labor kind of follow through.
Oh my gosh, sorry, hold on.
I have to flip this omelet
and this is always the worst part.
(shrieks) Boom, bow, bow.
- [Interviewer] Talk about that relationship with Issa Rae,
how did that come about? How surprised were you?
- It's extremely inspiring
and it makes me just look at my own life
in a similar way and look at her like,
wow, this is an example of something
that I can do for other people
because she's not just an actress.
She's an actress, she's a business woman, she's a CEO.
She's doing a lot of different things and as a black woman,
especially a brown skin black woman,
it's extremely inspiring and heartwarming
and just, I love to see her doing that
and I love to even be a part of what her legacy is
now with Raedio,
I feel extremely honored and blessed honestly.
- [Interviewer] Do you have any favorite TV shows?
What are your favorite shows?
- My favorite shows, shoot.
Right now, I'm binging "One on one",
that used to be one of my favorite shows
growing up as a kid.
I would watch it all the time after school.
What else? I don't really watch TV that much.
I love "Insecure". Girl, what?
"Love Island".
I really like that show except for the apparent racism.
(chuckles) There's never more than one black girl
on the show.
- [Interviewer] How do you feel about that?
How do you feel about representation in the media today?
- It sucks, it's getting better though,
it is getting better, which I love,
but I feel like it's so sad that it's taken this long.
(Toffee meows)
Toffee, what's going on? She just be screaming.
It's definitely taking a while
but I think that people are starting to realize
and understand that the people are sick and tired, okay?
We're tired of being underrepresented,
we're tired of being misrepresented.
A lot of times when we see black people represented
on television shows that were made, not by black people,
it's the wrong representation of us.
- [Interviewer] Your music is fine and trappy
but there's still mixes of female empowerment.
How do you mix that into your writing
and some of the song decisions you make?
- I think that self-confidence is extremely important.
So I like to write my music from that point of view
because it not only helps whoever's listening
but it helps me.
When I'm writing these things, whether it be about myself
or be about an idea of a person,
I like to instill self-confidence into people
and into myself because I think that
once you start to love yourself and appreciate yourself
and big up yourself,
everything around you changes but it starts within.
So, for me, that's my duty here basically,
is to be self-confident
so that other people can see that through me
and do it as well.
My room, it's so cute in here or at least I think so.
- [Interviewer] How much time do you spend in here?
How important is your bedroom to you?
- Oh, a lot.
I spend pretty much all of my time in here
or in my studio.
I'm rarely in the living room besides when I eat breakfast,
I'm in the kitchen a bit but this is my spot right here.
Yeah, I just love it, super cute, like me. (laughs)
- [Interviewer] Can you talk about this player bed
you got right here?
- Yeah, you know, you know,
it's giving the girls a little futuristic vibe.
- [Interviewer] Is that red leather?
- It is, it is red leather,
Red leather, yellow leather. (chuckles)
I'm sorry, that's an acting joke.
But yeah, you gotta have the little silk sheets,
you know what I'm saying?
So your hair can stay nice.
I got the soup pillow cases, all types of colors,
you know what I'm saying?
Real player shit, you know how a player do.
She loves to come in here,
even though she knows she's not supposed to.
- [Interviewer] What would you say your style is?
- Shoot, I would say it's like cute, girly
but unique, bold.
I like cheetah prints and stuff like that.
Super bold, I love pink,
pink is my favorite color as you may be able to tell
from my shoes, why do I own this many pink pairs of shoes?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
These count to 11.
I'm sure there's more pink shoes somewhere in here.
Pink's my favorite color so when I say girly, cute,
it's pretty self-explanatory here but yeah.
- [Interviewer] Give us your best date night outfit.
- Date night, we definitely gonna slip
on a nice little dress.
I like to do this one sometimes, it's very tight fitted,
but it's still giving the girls color.
This is a little scandalous, as you can see,
it's got a lot of looksies through there.
- [Interviewer] Looksies? - A lot of looksies. (laughs)
Pretty basic setup right now because as I said,
this is not the final destination.
So I didn't wanna put all the bells and whistles in here,
but simple little MacBook, bow, bow, bow.
Speakers, ooh, ooh.
I also paint in here, repainting a few paintings right now.
Gotta get some new paints 'cause running low.
(chuckles)
- [Interviewer] You're an all-around artist.
You make music, you paint.
- I paint, I do a little sewing sometimes.
I gotta get back into that but yeah.
I just love to express myself pretty much in any way.
- [Interviewer] I see that Grammy nomination at the back.
Let's talk about that. - Woo woo!
- [Interviewer] Where were you and what was that like?
- Oh, man. (sighs)
Where was I when we found that out?
I don't even remember where I was.
'Cause really,
2020 has been just the biggest blur of life.
So everything before that is like, did that even happen?
(laughs) But I remember just being
so excited because number one,
I didn't even think I was gonna make it on the project
because at the sessions there were just so many artists,
so many songs were made, I think like maybe a 100,
at least 126 songs were made within that time.
So, as a person who this was my first song writing things,
it was one of my first sessions like this.
I was like, well, child,
I don't even know if I'm gonna make it on the project.
And then boss told me that not only did my verse stay
on the song, but the is staying on the project.
Then they said that the project was number one
on Billboard when it came out
and then it got nominated for a Grammy.
And I'm just like, you're kidding me.
What? What?
- [Interviewer] So, you're a popping musician.
What was the last job you had
before you started music full-time?
- The last job I had,
I was working at this place on Edgewood called Hungry Ghost
and I hated it for multiple reasons.
But people started to recognize me,
which was half cool and half like, oh my gosh, anxiety.
And then my manager was just being super lame
about a lot of things.
So, this one time he brought me my last check,
which was late, and I took it and I said,
"I gotta go and I don't think I'm coming back."
And I just left, yeah.
So, speaking of that, that leads me to my next point.
I actually do have to go-
- [Interviewer] Oh, okay.
- And do something
So, it's been fun and I'll leave you with this.
♪ I have to say it's been a really good day ♪
♪ But now I gotta say the opposite of hey ♪
♪ And that's good bye ♪
Bye, see you later.
- [Interviewer] So, if I had two more questions.
- No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- [Interviewer] Okay. - Good bye.
- See you later, have a good one.
- All right. (Tate chuckles)