[clicking]
- Hey, I'm Grimes.
And today I'm gonna share some stories
about some big moments in my life.
[soft music]
[clicking]
This is reframed.
[soft music]
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Oh yeah, This is me with Jay-Z at the Roc Nation Brunch.
I think this might have been the first time I met Jay-Z
and I was trying to be cool and I smoked this whole cigar
and then I like vomited for hours.
It was terrible.
Don't smoke a whole cigar
if you've never smoked a cigar before, and don't inhale.
I felt cooler than I look now looking at, looking at it.
But I, I thought just thought I was being really cool
I think.
I just love Jay-Z.
He kind of, Roc Nation, Jay Brown and all of them kind of,
I was in a trick, tricky spot.
I'd got signed some bad contracts
and had some like really bad legal stuff going on.
And like was just in a very bad situation.
And Roc Nation kind of saved me and really helped me ensure
that Grimes could continue to happen and everything.
I feel like people talk shit on Jay-Z a lot
but I just think Jay-Z is like the greatest.
Like he helped me choose the songs for Art Angels and stuff.
He's just like a great guy and Roc Nation is amazing.
And I always wanna shout out Roc Nation
cuz they really helped me out.
[clicking]
This is the Met Gala 2018.
I feel like the coolest thing about this
that no one actually knows is the crown that I have on
we got the Vantablack people.
You're not allowed to use Vantablack.
It's like the blackest black that you can get.
And we convinced the Vantablack people
to send us a sample of it.
And then we like melted it down
and like made this crown out of Vantablack.
But what's so funny is because it's the blackest black
you can't actually see the crown.
And so even though we did this like crime heist
to like make this crazy thing it like disappears
because it's like a extremely black material
which honestly is a beautiful concept.
He has the inverse of Vantablack problem.
Cause it's, his shirt says something cool
but you can't actually see it
because it's so white that it like disappeared.
We learned a lot about fashion design
and this being both of our first fashion design experience.
I thought a glass corset would be a good idea.
It's definitely not a good idea.
It really, really hurts if you have a corset
that is made out of like hard glass.
And actually everyone got mad
saying I'm wearing a Tesla necklace
but I wasn't actually wearing a Tesla necklace.
It was just a sharp point.
But I would wear a Tesla necklace
because I believe in sustainable energy.
[clicking]
Oh yeah, okay.
So this one's funny cuz I always wanted to tell
the story about this one.
Back in the day, like before like the woke era
like I actually got canceled for this, which is so crazy.
Like I was just at a party with my friends.
Someone took this photo and it got leaked to this website
called Hipster Runoff.
And then he like ran this story and this was like
I was trying to be like all integrity and you know,
like start my career.
And it was like Grimes gone wild or something.
And it was just this like super wack, like mean story.
And it was like this meme
that was going all over the internet.
But my friend who worked for
I will not say which video game had access to.
Okay, well I don't wanna get him in trouble, but anyway
we were actually able to DDoS Hipster Runoff
and basically blackmail them.
We were like, like we're not gonna let you run your
put your site back up until you take the story down.
And he did in fact take the story down.
And it was like my coolest hacker moment.
So yeah, that's a story of this photo.
[clicking]
This is my first music video for a song called "Vanessa."
I just thought this is sort of like a funny, funny video
cause we shot it at my friend's studio.
I remember getting like really canceled for this
because back in 2011 in like indie music
it was like not cool to have dancing and stuff.
I remember an op-ed in the Montreal Gazette
about how I had like sold out so much
by making this music video.
And I remember I, I made cookies the night before
to like pay my friends, like in cookies and stuff.
And then my roommate like ate all the cookies
before I could give them to the dancers.
So it was like a somewhat of an ordeal
but got a bunch of alcohol and everyone got really drunk.
I, I feel like a lot, most of the performers
in this music video were completely blacked out.
Everyone was just regular girls that I knew
mostly highly unprofessional, but shout to John Londono
who filmed it and let us use his studio.
It was very nice of him.
Especially cause I think people were like puking
in the studio and stuff.
So it was, you know, we really put him through it,
but yeah, this was my debut.
[clicking]
I don't wanna make a little X too famous so I,
you know, we can move past this quickly,
but that's my very cute little guy doing sort of like
a cyber Madonna photo shoot.
That my friend Simone took this picture.
He's just, as you can see exceptionally cute.
[laughter]
Don't wanna give him too much air time.
[clicking]
This is my first live TV performance I think.
I also have difficulty level extensions in there
as I do now.
I feel like whole time period was like sort a blur.
But I remember this was when I was still live looping
using like a SP404 and stuff.
That's a super dangerous way of performing live.
I wouldn't recommend it.
I used to get so nervous before performances like this.
So I feel like I like don't recall them or something.
It's like you have to be a lot more civilized on television.
So like usually in my show it's like, get the win,
get the strobes, like throw your body around
and scream and stuff.
But it doesn't like translate on live TV in the same way.
[clicking]
Okay. This is from my NFT drop.
Which was one of the first NFT drops.
Very sick NFT drop, life changing experience for me.
I know people have differing thoughts about NFTs
but well, I think there are a lot of issues
with NFTs at the moment, including power usage and stuff.
I actually do think it's a great vehicle
for art and artists.
Like I think all art should be free to everybody.
Like I sort of believe the patronage model
is like a better system, but yeah, I
I did this with my brother Mac and my brother
like my brother just kept saying, he's like, we've gotta
you've gotta get into NFTs.
Like we, no one had really like done anything
really with them yet.
And I was like, man, like you, I don't know what this is.
This seems crazy.
But like, sure let's do like an NFT drop.
Yeah, so I have to shout out to my brother
cuz he was, he like just pushed this so hard.
And everyone was like, ugh
really this, do we have time for this?
And it ended up being like a massively huge success.
I'm a very pro NFT person. I'm a very pro blockchain person.
[clicking]
This has got to be just like a random show.
I think that might be Tonsstartsbandht
who are a pretty good band, in the background.
I thought it was like a inverse of having girl dancers
to have unprofessional random dudes in the background.
It's a, it's a vibe.
I feel like the 2012 era was like pure chaos.
Like I just had no idea what I was doing.
I, I feel like one of the things about my career is
that like basically the first music I made went viral.
And so I really had to kind of like learn how to make music
in real time.
Like, while, my like career was sort of happening.
Like I was like, I can't read music.
I can't play any instruments.
And then so, when people were like,
now you have to play live.
I was like, I've literally have sang like three songs
in my entire life.
I, I think this is around the time
like designers started giving me stuff.
So I feel like this is all clothes
like that people randomly gave me.
I remember we got robbed twice in Manchester.
We got robbed the night after the show
and then we got robbed again the next day,
which was so funny.
It was a, an experience.
Highly unprofessional, but you know.
[clicking]
This is the "Genesis" music video.
I feel like this is probably kind of like my breakout-y
kind of thing.
I directed this music video.
I met all these people at a party like the week before.
This is like one of those, you know,
best days of your life kind of vibes.
And I don't think we even really had a plan.
We would, it was just sort of like let's be anime
and whatever park this is.
The snake was like a large majority of the budget probably.
The sword was pretty cool.
My brother figured out that you can like burn
some kind of gel, like hand sanitizer or something.
I forget what it is and it'll just burn.
So we just got a sword and like put whatever
that substance was and lit it on fire.
And it was like falling onto my arm
and lighting my glove on fire and stuff,
which made me realize,
cuz they're super crazy about when you shoot any,
when you do any kind of pyro,
they're super crazy in LA about
the fire marshal being there.
And after doing that
I did understand why the fire marshal needs to be there.
[clicking]
Oh sick.
So this is another failed project
but one that we tried really hard at.
But I think it's cool cuz this is like
before everyone was like into avatars and stuff.
Me and my brother, and my manager and stuff
were like, and our friend Ryder Ripps made this.
The Warnymph who's our avatar.
I mean the main thing that's cool about this
is like we did it.
I think we did it kind of early.
I don't think we did a great job.
Like we couldn't even render hair.
So we just had to make her bald
because we like couldn't get good hair.
Although it's, it's kind of a look.
I mean, I do like the idea of digital pop stars.
I, I'd like to control some digital pop stars eventually.
And I have some better plans
to make better digital pop stars than this.
Oh, I was also like pregnant here and trying to hide it,
which is funny.
But this is my like Steve jobs image,
like pretending that I'm subpar masterminding
the, this digital avatar.
[clicking]
Cool that was great. Thank you so much guys.
Glad one of these still exists. Vintage projector thing.
Okay I'm gonna go.
[laughter]
Oh no, that wasn't the best exit sorry.
[laughter]