Lexa Gates: “I am this manifestation of fine art”

Lexa Gates has one of those personalities you can tell is larger than life once you get to know her. But equally, she’s really hard to crack — much like the glass box she locked herself in for a stunt following the release of her debut album Elite Vessel. Last fall, in a claim for some well-deserved TikTok fame, Gates spent ten hours inside a glass box, in the heart of Times Square, deprived of everything but her own music. Most of us would probably go crazy, and make no mistake, she went a little crazy too. “I still think back to it, seeing my own reflection, going crazy,” the singer says. “Saw my own skeleton too. For real. But I’m already weird like that.” But being a true artist, in every sense of the all-encompassing word, Gates is already looking forward to her next stunt as she promotes her upcoming album. 

It’ll be the product of a lifetime love for music. Gates discovered music at a rough point during her childhood, and when she found a keyboard randomly in her mom’s apartment, played it to fill the silence. When she played it, she tells me, she started “seeing shapes” (perhaps in the same trance that helped her get through ten hours in a glass box), and realised music would become the thing that took her from one day to the next. “I started playing and I’d go into this state that was… unconventional,” she says. “Really, it felt good to hear what’s in your mind become a physical product.”

Music, combined with the fact that she’s a total badass from Queens, means she moved past that tricky time. Fast forward and Gates is now in the era of her second album. Her new single, which dropped today, is about exactly that: moving ‘Past It.’ The first release from her upcoming album (the title is yet to be announced), the track is old-school-flavoured rap with a cheeky edge — a lyrical diss track about moving on before you burn out. And although what Gates must move past has changed over the years, ‘Past It’ is about her moving through life as the truest “artistic manifestation of [her]self”.

Camille Bavera: Is it fair to say the album is about you?

Lexa Gates: Every album is that though, right?  But this one was me trying to be that elegant, fly old lady again. [Lexa had her hair coloured silver as a teenager after a bleach job gone wrong.] I am this manifestation of fine art. When I started working with these sweater-vest-wearing producers that had these crazy, interior design-oriented, bougie spaces — people who work like Lana, Clairo, Amy Winehouse — I just got into that world.

CB: So it’s a fine art manifestation of yourself in the same way your producers see themselves?

LG: Exactly. And now stepping back from it, now that the album’s done, I’m like, that’s not even me. I don’t even know what the fuck that was, but it was really cool for the moment. I was obsessed with this older man while I was working on the album. After I met him, I started accidentally writing everything about him, and changing everything about myself. I had to be more put together, all in designer. I had to not be something that would be embarrassing if he was to pursue me, you know?

CB: You had to be the version of yourself you thought he’d like best?

LG: Which is, like, a true artist. You know what I mean? But I am that. 

CB: When you were being this other version of yourself, for the album, did you think you might lose yourself?

LG: I thought that was me! I thought I was perfect. Either way, it was fire for the project. Now, I’m going back to my roots. I’m a girl from New York, not some old person who’s super fly and old money. Because he didn’t want me and was like, Nah you’re too young, I don’t have to wear a fucking sweater vest and bifocals! I’m figuring out what I’m going to do now.

CB: Talk to me about the first single off the album, ‘Past It.’

LG: It’s about coming full circle. Everything that I wanted came to fruition. But I’m also talking about that old man. Did you like it? It’s fire. 

CB: I liked the sample bit a lot.

LG: Yeah, I’m talking about him [when I’m saying], “Congratulations on your eternal vacation, bet you feel so good”. But at the same time, I know it doesn’t feel good when you get everything you want, because it’s not everything you thought it would be. It’s all about that and how the future seems so far until you’re past it. Everything you’re dreaming to do — it’s done. You’re past it.

CB: How many singles are you going to put out ahead of the album’s release in October?

LG: Three. But this is the best one, which is tough, because I want it to do well. And I have to do lots of short form TikTok content for it now.

CB: Do you like all that social media stuff?

LG: I just want to do it in a way that feels artistic and out of the box, you know? I don’t want to just lip-sync a video with lyrics in the bottom. If I have to do it, I want it to be intricate and fire, and make you say, WTF. But that’s a lot of pressure, because it means I have to come up with something genius that’s not just a trend. What can I do that I haven’t seen before — something that can catch people’s attention without being too corny or getting me cancelled? Am I an artist or a content creator?

CB: I think they’re not mutually exclusive anymore. Do you have an idea of your next stunt? The glass box was pretty sick.

LG: Thank you, thank you. Yeah I have some things lined up… But even the glass box, like, Tyler the Creator did something right after me called ‘Don’t Tap the Glass’. No one’s copying necessarily — it’s just we all have the same stream of collective consciousness; we get our ideas from the same source. But you can also invert it because both things are true at the same time. If everyone is doing the exact same shit, and it’s all corny, then there’s more of a chance for you to do something different to stand out. It’s a constant battle between doing both. But also, [social media] is super great because we have this capability to instantly be the biggest thing just off one idea or something by accident. To me, the greatest artists of our time were great because they did something different.