Lorde
Lorde
Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, better known by her stage name Lorde, is a New Zealand singer-songwriter. Born in Takapuna and raised in Devonport, Auckland, she became interested in performing as a child. In her early teens, she signed with Universal Music Group and was later paired with the songwriter and record producer Joel Little, who has co-written and produced most of Lorde's works. Her first major release, The Love Club EP, was commercially released in March 2013. The EP reached...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth7 November 1996
CityAuckland, New Zealand
I find a lot of feminist reading quite confusing and that often there's a set of rules, and people will be like, 'Oh, this person isn't a true feminist because they don't embody this one thing,' and I don't know, often it can be a gray area, and it can be a hard thing to navigate.
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.
When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.
There are lesbians, God knows... if you came up through lesbian circles in the forties and fifties in New York... who were not feminist and would not call themselves feminists.
I am a Black Lesbian Feminist Warrior Poet Mother, stronger for all my identities, and I am indivisible.
I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable.
But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.
I tend to start with a full set of lyrics, and then my producer, Joel Little, and I work on the music collaboratively.
I get paralyzingly nervous a lot of times, so I tried bravado. The way I dress and carry myself, a lot of people find it intimidating. I think my whole career can be boiled down to the one word I always say in meetings: 'strength.'
If I'm going to dress up, I like things that are quite long and classic. I like feeling dressed up and like a lady.
I am really into how words sound out loud, so I was always the kid who would, like, read the page of the book to herself in her room over and over and over. And Raymond Carver is great for that. Tobias Wolff is an author who is really good for that as well.
When I was trying to come up with a stage name, I thought 'Lord' was super rad, but really masculine - ever since I was a little kid, I have been really into royals and aristocracy. So to make Lord more feminine, I just put an 'e' on the end! Some people think it's religious, but it's not.
Coming from New Zealand, all the music I listen to is not made by New Zealanders. People never come to New Zealand to play a show because it's in the middle of nowhere.