
Miss Bashful by Linux: A Match in Brooklyn
Story by Linux / Photography by Diego Urbina
Jan 17, 2025
Walk into any pregame east of the FDR, you’ll hear Miss Bashful playing on the four roommates’ shared Alexa (left by the previous fifth one). Share an Uber after 4 AM with a set of strangers to any illegal warehouse rave in Bushwick, Miss Bashful will be playing on that car ride (unless the driver pretends he forgot how Bluetooth works in a vehicle he’s driven for half a decade). Scam your way into the green room at Basement and don’t know how to win over the army of unfriendly techno hotties staring back at you? Just lie and say you ghost produce for Miss Bashful, and watch in milliseconds as they drop to their knees on that sin-covered cobblestone floor and beg you to make them a beat, pro bono of course. C’mon, it’s for their never-to-be-released upcoming EP, out after retrograde.
Last summer alone, I hit up raves in Berlin, Barcelona and LA just for Miss Bashful herself, in her signature Y2K stripper two-piece, large sunglasses and signature ponytails to be lifted onto the DJ booth come 5 AM and perform an hour of her bitchy-slutty-techno hits. Plugging into the CDJS behind is Miss Bashful’s is-he-gay-or-just-fab right hand, DBBD, who’s there to look hot and (presumably?) mix her tracks for her.
So yeah, Miss Bashful is the hottest thing in music right now for any cool junkie raver with sickening style. That, and I’m just a huge fan. If she has one fan or a million, what matters is I’m the only cool junkie raver with sickening style who shows up to work on Monday to write about what’s happening in the culture, so if I say she’s the second coming, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Bump, and so it is.
And what happens when the it-girl of the music moment [Miss Bashful] comes back to the land where the tastemakers who decided she was cool reside [Brooklyn] to put on a one-night-only show? History is made, that’s what happens.
Last weekend, Miss Bashful sold out the iconic venue Elsewhere alongside a slew of heavy-hitters in the rave scene that played sets throughout the club’s many rooms, all night long. But before she walked into her hungry mob of fans, all dressed in identical Miss Bashful head-to-toe looks, I asked myself (as any sociopathic narcissist would), “How can I make this about me?” So I reached out to the Queen B, making sure to exploit my role at PAPER and sat down with her backstage to get all the tea, assess the vibes and find out if she really is that bitch we all worship her to be. So line those lips of yours (both sets), shuffle her new album XOXO FM and you be the judge. (Spoiler alert: she is that bitch and so much more.)
Linux: I hate to start this conversation talking about the weather, but can we just talk about how you landed in New York and got to experience a fresh New York snow the other night? That is a rarity in today’s age. Did you go outside and see it?
Miss Bashful: It was beautiful, reminded me of the Berlin toilets.
Linux: And my pinky nail. I actually need to just know your thoughts on New York in general.
Miss Bashful: Hot people everywhere
Linux: Girl, and that’s exactly why we’re all ran through. Have we properly met yet? Like before right now? I feel like we’ve only really texted until now at this point. And I love the way you text, I can hear your voice over the texts: “Saw you last night from afar you looked iconic”; “Just landed in New York mawmaa”; “Sounds good mawmaa.” When I asked if I should make a group chat with you, me and Justin Moran, our editor-in-chief, you were like, “Yes group it babyyy.” I feel like that’s a Miss Bashful song all on its own.
Miss Bashful: I saw you at my release party in Berlin and I was like, “Who is this goddess? What the fuck.” Then my friend who makes sexy latex in Berlin, Lupae, told me about you and showed me your IG.
Linux: I’m so happy I finally nailed you down for a one-on-one moment. Like obviously you’ve been interviewed before, but the world needed this one. It’s giving two hot bitches just vibing and telling each other exactly. Also, I just had to exploit my place at PAPER to become friends with you.
Miss Bashful: Bitch, the Berlin and NYC it-girls meeting... iconic.
Linux: Back when I was in Berlin in August I practically hunted you down to get a chance to sit down with you. After your show, which was fab by the way, the New York networking gene in me was hitting and had me running around and trying to find you, but so were the Berlin drugs. So I kept thinking it was you dancing around after your set, but it always ended up being little mini you’s instead. You have so many mini Miss Bashful’s running around at your shows.
Miss Bashful: I love being a mother. I love my mini me’s. l love my children, my babies.
Linux: Like your look was copy and pasted onto so many girls, it was so cunt. Publicists say when making yourself famous it helps to create a general look and brand that could be made and recognized if they were to make you on The Simpsons. I can definitely picture how your Simpsons character would look in a heartbeat. And I know you can too cause in your song, “Copycat,” you literally break down the Miss B look: “high heels ponytails mini skirts big hoops sparkly mics stripper moves.”
Miss Bashful: I love when my Bashfulettes dress like me at my shows, but when other artists copy that’s when I’m like, “Ew, no originality,” but it’s a compliment at the end of the day.
Linux: And you’re shady, I knew I liked you. Yeah, you look crazy if you call that out, so I’ve learned the best revenge when someone steals your vibe is to just keep creating new ones, knowing that’s something they could never do.
Miss Bashful: Exactly.
Linux: I feel like you have a good relationship with your fans. Your music is kinda dedicated to making people feel fab, that and I mean they’re not hard to like. Do you even know you’re famous? At least to all the cool people in this world. Like every cool cunty techno fashion person on earth plays you religiously when they get ready, when they are raving, when they are at the after party.
Miss Bashful: My whole life purpose is to make other people feel sexy and confident. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I remember when I would feel down back in the days and listen to a bad bitch song and it would change my whole mood. I was like, “I wanna do this.”
Linux: What is your music-making process? Do you start with a beat first and then add the words? Do the words come first? Are you writing? Is DBBD the genius behind everything and that’s why he’s always around? Or is that just your man? I need to know the tea.
Miss Bashful: The only thing I’m saying about DBBD is that he has the softest hands. Basically I’ll have a concept and he’ll have beats to show me and we decide what works well together. It’s different every time, but always really organic.
Linux: Much respect to DBBD, but today in this interview it’s giving the Miss Bashful show.
Miss Bashful: Shoutout DBBD and LadyKub. #CREAMTEAM.
Linux: Speaking of the Miss Bashful show, you have one tonight in Brooklyn in just a few hours. How are we feeling?
Miss Bashful: New York is wild, I can’t wait.
Linux: Do you get nervous before a show? When you told me you had jet lag, was that code for you’re hiding in some hotel room freaking the hell out about having to be on stage tonight? Or you’re like, “No bitch, I have jet lag.”
Miss Bashful: if I think about it too much I’ll get nervous. I try not to think about it and just throw myself in that hoe. I learned that from my stripping days, just throw myself in it.
Linux: I first saw you last spring at Tunnel in LA. I love your performance style. You don’t seem nervous, it’s so effortlessly cool and cunt. As if we were all just at a cool rave and then some hot bitch took the mic, had her man plug in the usb and just freestyled hot-bitch-isms into a mic. It’s like your sole intention on stage is to hype up every bitch and fire up the party.
Miss Bashful: I love hyping up. I wanna host a cycling or workout class so badly, or make a workout video yelling at people.
Linux: The music is already there and the crowd definitely dances hard enough. The rave and club scene tends to inspire your sound and look. Are you a party girl or do you just like to sound like one?
Miss Bashful: I’m at a club every weekend and it’s my job to party. Does that count?
Linux: Absolutely. The most recent wild night you’ve had out, go.
Miss Bashful: Pornceptual New Years Berlin, baby.
Linux: Are you a Berghain girly?
Miss Bashful: I think I’ve gone to Berghain maybe like four times in the eight years I’ve lived here.
Linux: Good for you. If I lived there I’d be one of the Berghain Zombies that finds myself there every damn weekend. And even those chill art show things they sometimes have on Thursdays. It’d be really bad for me. I also need to know your go-to karaoke song.
Miss Bashful: “Glamorous” by Fergie. I love to sit in economy class while I’m going from city to city and look out the window and be like, “Wow, I made it.” What’s yours?
Linux: “Promiscuous” by Nelly Furtado. The part when Timbaland goes, “Promiscuous girl, you’re teasing me. You know what I got, and I got what you need.” I lose it. We’re getting distracted, now time for some real interview vibes. I feel like I’ve made you such an enigma in my head like, Who is this bitch? She is so cunt. So I guess we should pull things all the way back. I need the Miss Bashful origin story.
Miss Bashful: I was born in Mexico City, and for some reason they used to dress us up in the sluttiest outfits in Pre-K and we would dance on the streets. That fucking made me. I grew up in Texas until I was 18 and I’ve been in Berlin for eight years now.
Linux: A fav line of mine on your new album is, “I have the hottest feed in Berlin.” I have an inside joke with myself that you actually say, “I have the hottest feet in Berlin.”
Miss Bashful: I have the hottest feet and feed, bitch.
Linux: But it’s not just Berlin, now you’re traveling the world. Like every day I wake up and watch your story, it’s like Miss Bashful is somewhere new in that damn bikini and hoops and braids on the mic pumping up another rave or party or festival.
Miss Bashful: Yeah, it’s fucking crazy, I love it. But I have this fantasy of becoming a realtor and having a bunch of babies and becoming a housewife in Miami.
Linux: Selling Slutset. It’s so funny we do all of this to escape to normal lives we grew up in, only to want it all back once we’ve started to achieve it all. Where’s your fav city you’ve performed at so far? Personally, I love the scene in Barcelona.
Miss Bashful: Hard question, but Berlin always pops the fuck off. They just get it.
Linux: Do you have hoes in different areas codes?
Miss Bashful: Yes actually, I’m making a song about it called, “Hoes Around the World,” with DBBD.
Linux: I need to know what Miss Bashful’s vibe is at an airport. Like, what are you giving?
Miss Bashful: Sometimes I’m hella ratchet, but I’ve been into dressing up lately. It’s such a vibe.
Linux: I’m like ultimate comfort cunt in disguise mode: don’t look at me, hood up, matching Juicy suit tucked into fur boots, giant sunglasses, huge tacky monogrammed backpack. And I still wear a mask on the plane cause I always snore and my mouth opens and I don’t want anyone to see me looking crazy.
Miss Bashful: I’m screaming.
Linux: It makes sense your traveling so much because we are still on the success of the recent release of your album, XOXO FM. Baby let’s pull up the track list, it’s giving speed round of a few of my favs. “Fuckboy Free,” this helped me get over my ex-situationship down. Reminded me who the fuck I am. And I know it does that for other people too. Did something inspire this? The lines are so specific. The “jealous of my Twitter” part was so real.
Miss Bashful: It got to a point where I’ve been with too many idiots that I had to make a song about it, and I love bad bitch break up songs. To have people in the clubs every weekend screaming, “Fuck my ex,” is everything. “Basic Bitch Catwalk.”
Linux: I’m sorry, but I love all the things you listed. I love espresso martinis, Sunday brunch. I’m on a diet. Looking fab. Am I correct in thinking you just love all those things too? You’re honoring the importance of those things? “Sex and the city, I wanna move to New York City.”
Miss Bashful: I love basic bitches, ugh. “Short king Spring.”
Linux: “He’s my little donut.” Explain this, please.
Miss Bashful: You know what this means. “Groupiez.”
Linux: So you don’t fuck fans? Have you learned from experience? Also, damn bitch you love anal.
Miss Bashful: They can eat my ass and worship my feet. “Slut Slide.”
Linux: As a trans woman there’s something so cunt about you saying, “Titty swang and dick swang,” in the same line. Also, thank you for bringing back the word, “Cooch.” That was crazy.
Miss Bashful: Everything I do is for my dolls, gays and girls, baby. “Copycat.”
Linux: This is your Simpsons moment. Are you mad at them? At least the ones that have bad intentions?
Miss Bashful: You just gotta keep evolving that these copycats get stuck in your old eras. “Trophy Wife.”
Linux: Love you reclaiming the tiny titty committee as something to be proud of. It made me so proud of my little hormone B cups. I also like when you say, “Don’t put me fucking down, bitch. I’m always looking pretty.” Like yes, I get the song is somewhat comical. It’s also true. Being hot and confident and a bad bitch is a rarity. Why should we be expected to do anything else?
Miss Bashful: I will represent the A cup gang till I die, and even though I’m such an independent bitch it would still be nice to have someone spoil me so I can save my money on the side.
Linux: When I went into this interview I was still not sure if you are truly the girl you are in your music or if it’s a performance art schtick. Are you her or would you say your entities are separate? Am I crazy to think you are truly that girl?
Miss Bashful: I am that bitch, but I also have such a chill side.
Linux: Not being creepy when I ask this, it’s only because it’s the number one topic you talk about in your music. I need to know your relationship with sex. That and being hot. Are you having a lot of it or are you all talk? What is the tea?
Miss Bashful: I’m actually sort of celibate at the moment. I feel like no one is good enough for me and men scare me.
Linux: Also, I need to know all about the stripper money being leeched.
Miss Bashful: Men in my past making me pay for shit and asking me to dance and weird shit just cause I was a stripper.
Linux: Can I just say, you are so doll coded. You definitely get the doll card.
Miss Bashful: I love you bitch.
Linux: I can’t help but feel you also have some sort of affinity for gay men, as well. I mean, in everything you do I feel like you’re surrounded by them and sexualizing them constantly. In a good way. We love the gays, right?
Miss Bashful: I literally fall in love with every gay man. Why are gay men the hottest? I have a sexy gay in every city though. Life couldn’t get any better
Linux: I feel like I’m carrying and we could be here for hours, but you do have a sound check soon. So I wanna know what’s next for you. Where is Miss B heading next year? The next five?
Miss Bashful: I'm working on my Spanish era this year. Next five, I hope to be pregnant and back in the USA hopefully with a sexy man by my side, or two.
My whole life purpose is to make other people feel sexy and confident.
Photography: Diego Urbina
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