Ashnikko Fought Her 'It Girl' For This World Tour

This is PAPER Diaries, an unfiltered look into the thoughts and lives of creative people making it happen for themselves — in the real world, on the internet and in our wildest fantasies. This week, we caught up with global it girl Ashnikko, currently touring in support of her latest album Smoochies.

Ashnikko, frequent PAPER star, once told this magazine: "At the core of my songwriting is playfulness. have to work hard to maintain that and preserve it, like a little flame I have to keep stoking.” In his review of the album, writer Ivan Guzman wrote "That flame burns all over the record — in its cotton-candy sweetness, its filth, its flirtation with chaos."

From the looks of it, Ashnikko's tour is no different, featuring outrageous stylings and a brief spat with a doppelgänger onstage. Backstage, there's all the trappings of a global pop phenom: Diet Cokes, loose wigs, gluten free crackers and more hairspray than could reasonably fill the atmosphere.

In her recent chat with PAPER, Ashnikko told us: "I feel like there’s an ebb and flow to having a music career. You can become disillusioned by it all, and then you have to work to find the core of why you make music again. It’s a constant practice: finding it, losing it, finding it again. I think on my last album, I maybe lost it a little bit."

Smoochies, she said, "really reminded me that I can approach music from a joyful place." From the looks of it, that joy has followed our it girl on tour. Read the full diary below!