Hawt T-Girl Korra Rain Rawks the Mic
Photograph by Anthony Vanity
I didn’t know it at the time, but my neighborhood is full of talent. Bushwick, Brooklyn in New York is the second most interesting place I’ve ever lived. There’s a large LGBTQ+ community here, and there are probably more creatives in Bushwick than any other part of New York. When I started talking to Korra Rain, I didn’t know she was part of the hood I had just moved to at the time. We met for drinks at my regular hangout spot on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, had a pleasant conversation that night, and, in no time, I was eager to hear more of Korra’s music, and do this interview.
To start off, I’d like to congratulate you on the release of your first album, “Hawt Rawring T-girl”. How are you feeling about that? You must be beside yourself.
I’m beyond thrilled! I had worked on it since April of 2021 when I barely knew anyone besides my best friends Nitrah Neon and luvsikgrl to give me musical insight, now here I am with basically a full row of people I’ve met since getting my feet off the ground and had the pleasure of working with to make my dream passion project become a reality.
It’s really an existential body of work for me, with the album itself being about the different transitions in my life from middle school to now, because every track is in a specific order for a reason. Scene culture honestly awoke my eventual transition years before it actually happened, I remember being barely out of the closet when I still thought I was just a gay boy and went down a rabbit hole of watching hot emo dudes make out on YouTube (laughter) and heard ‘Freaxxx’ by brokeNCYDE playing in the background and thought, “Damn, the music is harder than the guys in the video”
And the rest is history, I still listen to BC13, Millionaires, Dropping A Popped Locket, and Geoffrey Paris to this day, and I really wanted to give full homage and love to the genre that in its own way lead me to where I am now. The whole vibe of the androgynous fashion was drugs to my brain! I had entire albums of pics I collected on my phone of what I wished I could’ve looked like had my parents let me, so it all feels really full circle to be able to say I’ve made my mark now.
Because thanks to the subculture itself I found my best friend, a clique of artists that all ended up being a part of this project almost a decade after we first met in a Facebook group chat, and a path for myself to truly find comfort in that I had never gotten to before. I really couldn’t be more satisfied with the rollout, which is why I’m doing an extension and making a remix album of it very soon!
You’re a long way from Greencastle, Indiana. Did your pursuit of a career in music bring you here to New York?
Yes and no. I knew if I wanted big things for myself I had to go somewhere, and a town in the Midwest with a population of ten-thousand was not it, but also I was going through a lot of personal struggles at home that are slightly touched on in the first verse of my song, ‘Remember the Face’. New York really was the only option for me considering it was the only big city I had been thoroughly exposed to, I had an ex from Union City, New Jersey that despite us being broken up for almost a year, understood my situation and let me stay at his place for a few months until I finally managed to find my first ever apartment in Bushwick back in December of 2020, and now the rest is history!
To the best of my knowledge, your city has had one musical celebrity, Bob Flanigan, who played with The Four Freshmen. I’m almost certain that your music wasn’t influenced by the quartet (laughs), so who or what inspired you to become a musician?
Can’t say they did, but I did grow up with an artist in my family, my Papa (grandpa) is in a bluegrass hippie band called The Jugbusters, he’s the vocals and lead guitar! The one song we bonded over was an old song called, ‘I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger’. I chose it for a solo when I decided to partake in a state choir competition when I really was gaining interest in trying to mold my singing voice, we practiced a few times and to this day he’s asked me about it, I might sing it for him next time I see him, because he was with my mom when we went upstate for the competition, and only recently I found out he could hear me singing when I was alone in the room with the judges and was actually tearing up. He has a barn our family used to have nights out and dance in. I was thinking how I’d love to perform the songs with more singing in them off the album a cappella for him as a thank you for being a support in my path from the start, he even once gave me a whole book to read on navigating the industry, I might need it more than ever at this point, so I’d say maybe it’s time for a full-read.
But what got me invested, really, was just watching artists who were able to blowup off of songs they made on their computer during the MySpace era where things were way more difficult compared to now when we have TikTok at the touch of our fingertips. The Millionaires’ overnight come-up to this day fascinates me with how they made the most simple beats on GarageBand out of pure fun and vibes not expecting anything to happen, and then getting millions of plays overnight, no strategy or plan to it at all, that’s crazy to me and I love it! And really goes to show how just really being 100% with how you go about your music and what you do with it pays off, authenticity really is everything, because I do think nowadays especially people will sooner or later point out a fake persona or image, and for three girls to just be making fun music and working their way into the industry to eventually touring across the country multiple times and even getting themselves and their music on TV, I love it, it’s an underdog story in the most perfect ways. Plus there was a somewhat prevalent crunkcore and emo rap scene back in the day in Indiana, with bands and artists like: Dot Dot Curve, Scene Kidz, Dropping A Popped Locket, Hair Jordan, Crazy Crazy Awesome Awesome, Horrifically Me, and even lil aaron!
Photograph by Justin Belmorodo
Did you record any music while living in Greencastle?
No, I had all the equipment, but had no clue where to start. When I was in high school, my mom did get one of her friends to guide me a little, and we made some basic GarageBand beats, but it didn’t go much beyond that in terms of the studio. Although I did stay writing, the first song I ever wrote was when I was sixteen after a choir trip where we performed at the top of the Empire State Building, it was my very first time ever coming to New York and I felt so inspired on the bus ride back to Indiana, I wrote a whole remix to Fergalicious called, ‘Korralicious’, it was nasty, but I was so proud! Maybe one day she’ll get a proper recording session (laughter).
Photograph by Anthony Vanity
How long after you moved to New York did you begin recording?
I officially moved to Bushwick from New Jersey in December of 2020, after I finally got settled, four months later in April I flew out to LA to have a girl’s trip at my bestie luvsikgrl’s place with my other best friend Nitrah Neon! It was such a cute week and what I needed, and honestly the trip was what fully awoke my transition and made me realize I wasn’t non-binary, a gay dude, none of that. We did my first photoshoot in a black and pink-striped sweater with pink-plaid Tripp pants, I had the blotchy raccoon eyes and I felt like my third eye finally opened and something was unlocked at that point, and afterwards, we recorded the first song I ever made which came to be Ri¢h B!tch Thing$! VZE had just recently made the beat, and it was a remix to, ‘I Like Money’ by the Millionaires, so the flow and energy was easy to master, but no matter how many takes I had to redo, I was so in my element and had it on lock that night, Nitrah was an incredible guide to teaching me the basics of recording vocals too, so it couldn’t have gone more perfectly.
Photograph by Nitrah Neon
Where do you typically record, and do your recordings require a lot of hardware?
It normally is a lot of vocal tuning and vocoding, but the end result is always satisfying for me.
At this point the person who I primarily record with is my friends Bennett Lin and Governor Vomit in both of their individual studios, my friend Groove Temple also played a big part in being the very first person whose home studio was the very first I ever consistently worked in.
Bennett from the start when I met him with my friend Lex (unpolarize) has been professional and can guide a studio session in a way that elevates the track itself. He’s helped me with making note chords sound better than they would’ve initially by giving me vocal guidance, given me some of the cleanest mixes and masters I’ve gotten back on tracks, and most of all stayed consistent and has delivered every single time I needed him to, even when I’ve told him he could take his time he will just ace through it way sooner than most people I’ve worked with. I was even feeling frustrated on the mix of my single Hello Kitty xD not being up to par to what it could’ve been, so I asked to see if he could work with it, and surely enough it sounds ten times better than the single version. Seriously am lucky to have discovered him and his services, otherwise I don’t think I would at all be as satisfied with the album rollout the way I still am now.
Governor Vomit is a wizard to work with in his studio because the ideas we make up are always on the same level and elevate the track to new heights to where I get even more hyped for the track than I already was when we both dig our brains into it. Having him help write the chorus on HRT was a magical moment because we were just turning up and feeling our full fantasy with it together, because that’s truly my brother who thinks on the same wavelength as me. Not to mention he’s always helping me figure out the best characters and roles to get myself into when recording depending on the vibe of the track, I’ve never felt disappointed in anything he’s voiced his ideas in, and they always end up being my favorite parts of the songs! Not to mention the album he just dropped in itself displays the ideas and delivery he has, and it’s only been a week and to this day I’m still binge-listening!
Groove Temple is just a talent in himself with how he comes up with melodies, mixing, and production. The first song we ever recorded together was Hello Kitty xD! But the song I’m the most proud of and this time he took part in mixing and mastering the full track was Before I Break, he even helped me and Lex with melodies and deliveries on it, it was a beautiful session, and I even got to see him after he moved back to Long Island mixing and mastering the track and was such a hypnotic process because he’s so engaged and precise with his work every time, and no matter what everything he touches is gold, especially his own music.
How did your collaborations with other musicians come about? You’ve snagged some great artists.
Every relationship is different, but I always at the end of the day want there to be a chemistry with our ideas and meshing together to create something that really pops. Nitrah Neon has been my best friend ever since 2016 after I found her on YouTube a week after she first started dropping music and our ideas just flow really well considering our music taste is pretty aligned but also has distinctive differences at the same time, we’re in a girl group together called Cokettish and finalizing our debut EP together, songwriting despite being on opposite sides of the country is always easy because we just bounce ideas off of one another and try to bring out the best in what we deliver.
Governor Vomit and I actually met at a ChaseIcon show at Elsewhere, I remember one of our first convos I was feeling myself a little too much and tried bragging that, “My album’s coming out in two weeks :3”… Two years later and here we are (laughs).
We first had sessions in Pirate, I remember my first challenge to his production was asking him to remix one of my favorite songs, ‘Kill Bill’ by Vicious Bunny, now we’re at the point where we’re planning an EP together based on the goddess of rain!
With Governor Vomit
While I’m sure you’re proud of Hawt Rawring T-girl in its entirety, I’d like to ask you to list some of your favorite songs off of the album, and why they’re your faves.
Before I Break is a standout, and not just because so far it’s the most popular song on the album, but because the day I recorded it, before I went over to Groove Temple’s studio, I by chance went to the Marsha P. Johnson Park in Williamsburg. I have history there, it was where I met an old friend of mine named Cassie back in 2019 for the first time, the week I met her I was going through one of the darkest times of my life, but she stood out to me as one of the few things on that trip that was positive, and I could find comfort being around in all the chaos I found myself wrapped in, and we stayed in contact for the next year. She’s no longer with us now, and when I wrote ‘Before I Break’ I dedicated the first verse and chorus to her. I had a complicated relationship with drugs, I was doing sex work at a couple of points when I had no job, and was so miserable with what I had to do and how I felt about myself coke and ketamine became what I used to numb everything. When you have someone in your life who has passed away due to drugs, their drugs being laced specifically, there’s something that looms over you when you make the decision to start doing them yourself. It’s this feeling of guilt that hangs over you wondering if you’re letting them down or hurting their heart with that thought in the back of your mind you could very much end up in the same situation they had lost themselves to, and you need to escape before you really find yourself going beyond over the edge. I had never fully processed losing Cassie, but that day I was supposed to meet up with Groove Temple when I found the Marsha P. Johnson Park after forgetting where it was and the name of it for so long, I scoured every inch of that park for the specific spot me, Cassie, and a few other friends sat at the day we met. In the park by the water, there’s a bench on the rocks, we sat on it for what felt like an hour staring off into the sunset, baked, with a view of the sun reflecting off the water as it disappeared behind the buildings in the city, it was beautiful, and finding that exact spot healed me in a way, but what really made a difference was finally recording the track itself. After I heard the demo that just had the first verse and chorus, I bawled my eyes out, after what had accumulated over the entire day I finally had gotten through the final stage of grief, and making this song helped me get there and heal. Not to mention, the last verse I did on it was dedicated to a friend of mine who’s still alive, but at the time had relapsed back into heavy addiction, so I dedicated it to him as a sense of possibly giving a perspective for him. I eventually showed him, and after we reconnected a month ago, he told me the song got him through that really ugly period in his life, and now he’s on the path to finally being sober after dropping everything he was doing. This song made a difference in me, and it made a difference to my friend who I thought I would have to start preparing for the worst for, I could never get tired of Before I Break, absolutely getting performed at every show.
With unpolarize, photograph by HauntHer2000
What does it feel like when you put the finishing touches on a song, and you put the “baby” to bed?
I’m always the friend who has to make it super sentimental with whoever is helping me finish it, but it genuinely feels like I’m getting a Pokémon gym badge! This album was the Kanto Leage, onto Johto!
How have your shows been received since you started? What was it like being up on stage performing for an audience for the first time?
The first time I performed was when I got into contact with Charlie Yates through our mutual friend Quinn, she booked me at her college Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts alongside the Frost Children! We took the Grand Central train all the way upstate, where she picked us up and drove us to the college. It was super cute and a lot more trans people than I was expecting were present, but I had fun, plus I even got paid $850 for a thirty-minute set, I mention it in my track ‘HRT’! I didn’t have enough songs that filled that time slot, so I ended up just finding random obscure tracks that sounded similar to what I did and played it off like they were mine. It was chill, I was nervous as Hell when we were waiting for everything to start, meanwhile Lulu & Angel were watching YouTube Poops. Charlie started with a DJ set, then I finally came out and performed outside in the dark in an open field, plus Angel & Lulu killed it with their set and got everyone hype! Not to mention I even made out with a cute douchebag after my set (laughs). I also got to meet Ham Cockett, who ended up shooting my very first music video for my song 1 N Only!
Overall, I’m not much of a dancer, but people like my stage presence and how I interact with the crowd. You just gotta be able to be part of my routine with me, have a lemon drop, mosh and epically face plant, and get your titties signed! What else could you want from a show?
Now that you’ve released your first album, what are your plans for the near future, and what do you have planned for the remainder of 2024?
Right now, I want to focus on the side projects I’ve been planning with Nitrah Neon and Governor Vomit, both very different from one another. But I also want to prioritize making a visual experience out of the album, my goal is to have a music video for every song shot by a different videographer. I’m also in the process of doing a remix album for Hawt Rawring T-girl that should be out this summer! Besides that, I have begun the first steps to my second album, it’s very much leaning to be my pop girl era, much more polished and more singing with a darker story compared to Hawt Rawring T-girl. Where Hawt Rawring T-girl is about rising up and truly finding your peak, this next album is about what happens when you’re struck after feeling like you’ve shed yourself of all the grief you’ve been chained to, and the path to picking yourself back up. I can’t give out the name yet, but I will give the initials!
UTS
I’ll let y’all decipher (winks).
With Nitrah Neon (l)
Stream Korra Rain on Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud, follow her social media on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
