Adventures at LadyLand With River Moon and LSDXOXO

River Moon: Let’s keep it PG. We're in PAPER magazine.

LSDXOXO: Do you have to be PG for PAPER? I didn't realize that.

River Moon: Well, [PAPER social media editor] Alaska works there. So I don't think it's that PG anymore.

LSDXOXO: But she's a Disney princess though, so I don't know about that.

River Moon: This is our first podcast episode. Sponsored by PAPER magazine and Alaska Riley Inc.

LSDXOXO: PAPER gives you wings.

River Moon: I thought they were gonna send us dirty questions [to ask each other], like goofy questions, but this is really professional.

LSDXOXO: Good.

River Moon: I was about to turn PAPER magazine into Toilet PAPER Magazine. [Reading question:] “As friends, what inspires you about the other person's creativity?” The deepest question out the gate!

LSDXOXO: I think your pen inspires me. Also you are really good at beat selection. I guess as a producer and DJ, that's something I pay attention to from other artists, when they're tactful with choosing their beats, because it's so important. If you want a dookie beat then nobody wants to hear your music.

River Moon: I could do something hot on a dookie beat.

LSDXOXO: I'm going to ask you not to.

River Moon: I just got a dookie beat in my email last night.

LSDXOXO: Okay Ice Spice with your skat fetish.

River Moon: Woah! I told you this is not toilet PAPER Magazine. What inspires me about your creativity is your ear for samples. You would hear something from a movie, like a line from Kill Bill, and you will take that one part and turn it into a whole song. I'm talking about from back in the day, the Tumblr mix days. I've been listening to you since I was a child. You would take the wildest sample. I think my favorite one was “CODENAME COTTONMOUTH.” No one else does that. Yeah, producers take things from other songs and that's cool, but I think your references with film and other media other than music is kind of unmatched. The girls are playing catch up.

LSDXOXO: Why, thank you. I feel like that was bred from necessity because I was not a vocalist back in the day. So I had to create the vocal from somewhere in order to provide a narrative. I didn't want to be one of the producers that was just dropping beats which is fine, but that just wasn't what I wanted to do.

River Moon: I also feel like you have ADHD.

LSDXOXO: Clocked! Not a soul can clock!

River Moon: You also told me about the Baltimore club mixtape CDs that you would have. And the Philly club CDs that you would have. I feel like we both pulled from the same cloud, because I had a lot of those DJ K swift mixes that I downloaded from Limewire.

LSDXOXO: Not Limewire! Not Kazaa!

River Moon: What was the other thing called? Napster?

LSDXOXO: I never used Napster. That was for the bros.

River Moon: Okay, I was one of them. We had to make do. I grew up with a bunch of boys in the house and it was Napster. Girl, what's the next question?

LSDXOXO: When it comes to performing live, which song, track or a moment, gets the fans most excited?

River Moon: I don't have many live performances. Without having my recording artists music out, I don't have that much material to perform. But the one that always gets everyone up, like the straight bros, the gays, the girls and the dolls, is “HOT” with Manny Dee.

LSDXOXO: Absolutely. If you didn't say it, I was gonna say it.

River Moon: Yes, I performed it live for the first time opening for Coucou Chloe here in Berlin. I put it right at the end. The way the club went up for that one. Even when I just play it in a DJ set, people are like, “What’s that track? What’s that track?”

LSDXOXO: The pen was on.

River Moon: The pen was not on! That was completely freestyle.

LSDXOXO: That was freestyle? Then, it was the medulla. The medulla was on. But I think for me, it's probably, I mean “THE SATISFACTION OF BEING A SICK BITCH”. Whenever I perform that, even if it is just like a stereo mix and it's not super clean, it just wakes the girls up. It just does something to the people.

River Moon: The crunch!

LSDXOXO: I think it's the combination of the crunch and the sleaze with the lowbrow techno. It gives the girls what they need. And I think that you and I might have to be performing her for the first time at LadyLand.

River Moon: I love a surprise special guest moment. Do we need choreography for that?

LSDXOXO: We don't need choreography but you will need a trap door for you to fall through.

River Moon: A trap door? Okay don’t make fall through the thing like Fifth Harmony [at the 2017 VMA’s]. Okay, for those of us making our Pride summer playlist, which tracks should we be adding?

LSDXOXO: I feel like that new “f@k€” by Shygirl ft. Kingdom (VTSS remix) goes so hard. And then there's this track called, “People Are Still Having Sex” by LaTour. It's an oldie, but she's Pride for sure. She's queening out.

River Moon: That’s for the old queens?

LSDXOXO: I don’t know about “old,” but —

River Moon: Seasoned!

LSDXOXO: It’s for the seasoned girls.

River Moon: What’s your last song? It should be one of yours.

LSDXOXO: “Mutant Exotic” in that case. That’s very much my pride song.

River Moon: You were queening out.

LSDXOXO: People like that from all walks of life. Like my mom loves that song. Because it just gives bad bitch energy. It's like an affirmation, you know? What about you?

River Moon: I think I'm gonna go really cliché with my first choice, but it's just the song that brings me so much euphoria.

LSDXOXO: Is it RuPaul?

River Moon: Anyways ... it’s “Free” by Ultra Naté. It was one of the dance tracks that my dad played for me. It just opened my world a lot. So whenever I hear that song, it just reminds me of childhood and asking myself, “What does this music mean?” It’s very like gospel-ey. And it's an affirmation. It makes me actually feel proud about being queer. That makes me feel like we're united, kumbaya, you know? And my second track is my Leo sister, Dua Lipa, “Whatcha Doing.”

LSDXOXO: Right, her disco slay. Her Donna Summers slay.

River Moon: Right like Quincey Jones and Donna Summer, their spirits were in the room that day when she recorded that. Shout out to Tame Impala. Shout out to Danny L. Harle. They tore. And I guess my last track would be “Hard 2.0” by myself and Only Fire.

LSDXOXO: Fuck it up! The next question is: What was it like for you to open the Renaissance tour? And did you learn anything from that experience?

River Moon: That whole day was such a blur for me. We landed in Houston and went to the hotel. We spent about an hour at the hotel, went to the venue, had an hour of soundcheck and then it was showtime. It was the least nervous that I've ever been in my life. I was born to do it. And that was the most people I've ever played in front of. And the thing that I learned was that you can do anything. So to me, I don't remember much of that experience. All I remember is the show. I think because it was so overwhelming that I didn't have time to process it. Like, I still haven't celebrated that. That was the first time that my family saw me work with someone that they know, because I work with the underground girls. They don't know what's going on in our world. But they know Beyoncé. You know that's someone who I grew up on. So it was a thing that my mom and dad can finally be proud of.

LSDXOXO: Yeah, I feel that for sure. It's the same thing for me. It was similar. It was a lot to process. I did two shows so I was in their travel party at some point and it felt very much like a fever dream. Even during sound check, Blue Ivy standing over my shoulder. I don't need to do anything else in life ever again. But it was so fun. And I mean, as far as learning anything from it: I just learned that Beyoncé is a bad bitch and she could do anything. Watching her perform for three hours straight, not a single note missed, right? Like, she was on. It was commendable, a commendable experience.

River Moon: And I just want to know how her hair stays like that?

LSDXOXO: Girl, it must be witchcraft. It's sacred.

River Moon: What does it mean for you to be performing at LadyLand?

LSDXOXO: When I left New York six years ago, I set off to figure out what I was going to be able to get in my career. I had the inkling to create an album, but I wasn’t there yet. I'm just happy to be going and excited to see what it's giving, back in the city with my friends. It's gonna be a very cathartic experience for me because I did just finish an album.

Photography: Jason Thomas Geering, Santiago Felipe