Red Stick Sounds: My Boyfriend’s back

New Orleans rapper Boyfriend talks her new EP and life on the road 

On a rare day off from touring, Boyfriend is running a few errands around Georgia. She’s having her first drink of the night, and she sounds a little tired, but she’s aware that this is the life she chose.

“I’ve been living out of the suitcase—the travel life, you know?” she says, mentioning that the last time she spoke to 225 she was a full-time educator and music was more of an extracurricular hobby. “Now, I’m a full-time rapper. I made the plunge. It was necessary. I was literally having nightmares about coming into class and having students chanting [her website url] ‘Boyfriend69.com.’ I knew it was coming.”

The big change came in the summer. The former director of an after-school program for children in New Orleans decided to dive headfirst into rap music exclusively. With that commitment came more explicit, aggressive and sexual lyrics. Her video for the single “Jealousy” premiered on Uproxx, full of strippers to go along with its dark-lit mood. She just released a new EP, titled Love Your Boyfriend, which has a stomping lead-off track “Attention,” begging the listeners to “look at me now.”

“This is the first time I’ve delved into love topics or conversations about relationships,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to talk about that and the way those topics are talked about. I chose to do it aggressively. It’s about taking this message of love, putting it in a sonically aggressive atmosphere so the listener joins in the conversation. It’s about questioning the way you listen to the love song. I don’t want them to passively consume these messages about love.”

Listening to Love Your Boyfriend, one thing is for sure—this is no longer the cute, cuddly, ironic Boyfriend you once knew. Sure, there’s a bit of humor here and there, but there’s also a bit of sexually taut napalm thrown on the fire of Southern rap.

“It was never my goal to be a comedienne,” she says. “As a writer, it’s fun to write in little tricks, to have references and puns. It’s even more fun when somebody gets them. For the new material, if it feels less that way, then good. The topics are a bit more serious. It’s about cleverness more than humor. I want to challenge the listener to engage with the music they listen to. These are love songs repackaged and twisted in a way that’s supposed to be a little off-course with what you’re used to here. I wanted to provide that undercurrent of tension.”

So here we are, about one year later from our first interview, and Boyfriend is peeling back another page in her diary, letting everyone into her proverbial closet. She’s equally vulnerable and proud, unmistakably proven by the risque cover of her latest release. But one thing remains, she’s still got the hustle.

“I knew that, going into this, I have chosen a completely [expletive] career,” she says. “There are extremely high highs and low lows. I know that I’m stepping into a world that’s unrewarding financially, but I also get to go on stage and share with whoever’s in the room this song I wrote. It’s a fair trade off.”

Boyfriend performs Saturday, Nov. 22, at The Spanish Moon with The Madd Wikkid, AF the Naysayer, Queen Michael and Violet. Doors open at 9 p.m. Cover is $10. RSVP and get more information.