Check out Lady Gaga!
Mother Monster covers the latest issue of Billboard Magazine and makes for an arresting sight.
Beyond blazing in the Djeneba Aduayom lensed shoot, the feature saw the superstar open up about changing the roll-out strategy of chart-topping album ‘Chromatica’ due to the pandemic, upcoming single ‘911,’ Black Lives Matter, and a whole lot more.
Join us below for pics and quotes:
On making art during a pandemic: “When I see people struggling like they are right now, my brain goes, ‘Put on your superhero suit. Let’s go.’ ”
On her upcoming “911” video: “Freedom for me is when I can go to the darkest part of my heart, visit things that are hard and then leave them behind. Give them to the world, and spin all the pain into a puddle of gold.”
On the depression she experienced during the making of Chromatica: “I used to wake up every day and remember I was Lady Gaga — and then I would get depressed … I was peeling all the layers of the onion in therapy, so as you dig deeper, you get closer to the core, and the core of the onion stinks.”
On slowly feeling like herself again: “[Every time I’d write a song] I would cry and go, ‘There it is — hi! How’s it going? Why do you got to hide?’ …If there’s one glimmer inside you, celebrate it. When you find another one, celebrate it. One more? Call a friend: ‘I did this today. I’m winning.’”
On honoring the Black pioneers of dance music and other genres: “All music is Black music. That’s just a fact.”
On this year’s protests against police brutality and systemic racism: “When you’re born in this country, we all drink the poison that is white supremacy. I am in the process of learning and unlearning things I’ve been taught my whole life … Social justice is not just a literacy, it’s a lifestyle. What do I think about [posting] a black square? I think everybody has a different feeling about a black square. Do I think there’s such a thing as performative activism? Yes. Do I think there’s been true activism that’s been very important and needed? Yes. Do I believe Black lives matter? Yes. Do I believe this is going to get louder? Yes. Do I believe it should? Yes.”
On quarantining with members of her team: “Somebody’d go grocery shopping, the rest of us would clean the vegetables, then somebody would cook…I run my team like a family, I don’t run it like a staff.”
Excerpt on Gaga’s manager Bobby Campbell having to pivot promotion because of the pandemic:
This was something else. [Campbell] had spent about 18 months putting together a campaign that Interscope Records chairman/CEO John Janick calls “one of the best rollouts planned for an album ever”; soon, Campbell remembers, “all these things were just evaporating before our eyes.” There would be no iHeartRadio Music Awards performance, no surprise Coachella set. Plans to shoot more music videos had to wait, and some brand campaigns were postponed. The team converted billboard space meant to advertise the album into thank-you messages for essential workers. “It was going to feel like a blockbuster movie coming out,” says Campbell.
On self-awareness: “I have no idea what people think or don’t think. I really don’t have an actual perfect grasp on how I’m viewed.”
On Instagram vanity: “It’s OK to post selfies — it’s fun, I do it too — but make sure it’s not the whole pie. You got to leave much more of the pizza open for all of that beautiful culture.”