K.Flay
| K.Flay | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Kristine Meredith Flaherty |
| Born | June 30, 1985 |
| Origin | Wilmette, Illinois, United States |
| Genres | |
| Instruments | |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Labels |
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| Website |
Official website SoundCloud |
Kristine Meredith Flaherty (born June 30, 1985), known by her stage name K.Flay, is an American musician. Flay was inspired by artists M.I.A. and Missy Elliott to pursue a career in Rap music.
Her first success came from the album Life as a Dog in 2014. She has performed with Snoop Dogg, Passion Pit, and on the Vans Warped Tour 2014. She thought of Warped Tour as a great learning experience and "was almost like an exercise in becoming a better performer".
She has twice recorded with Audiotree in Chicago, in 2013 and 2015. In 2016, Flay signed with Interscope Records. She was the first artist signed to Dan Reynolds' Night Street Records Imprint.
K.Flay was raised in a suburb north of Chicago, Illinois. Her father was a guitarist and loved all music genres. Her parents divorced when she was seven, and each re-married soon after, bringing an extended step-family. Flay described herself as a tomboy in her youth, preferring baggier clothing and rejecting "all things girly". She attended New Trier Township High School at 14. Her father died her freshman year. Many of K.Flay's songs are a tribute to him.
In 2003, she entered Stanford University in California, pursuing a double major in psychology and sociology. She claims many people there would influence her musical style.
In 2003, she believed that most hip-hop hits on the radio were simplistic, misogynistic, and formulaic, and bragged to a friend that even she could do a song like that. That night she wrote a song called "Blingity Blang Blang" which she described as "a low-budget rap parody that contained far too many obscenities." Realizing she enjoyed creating music, she wrote two more songs before the end of the year.
The following summer, she experimented and continued to write songs, performing and recording them on her laptop computer. In the following few years, she released a mixtape, Suburban Rap Queen, produced on her laptop, and began performing in the local scene.
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