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MichaelSmithNC
Melissa Anne CainEastern Carolina Style Interviews: Whitney Peyton
“If artists like Machine Gun Kelly, Eminem, and Missy Elliott had a pale love child she would be just like Whitney Peyton.” www.whitneypeyton.com
MAS – In my research for this interview I went onto SoundCloud and DatPiff to find some of your stuff to get familiar with you. As I was listening I found myself bobbing my head and really getting into it. I then went your website and saw your picture and I was like, “What the hell?” The picture I saw was not at all what I expected.
WP – Wait? So you heard my music before you saw me? That is usually not the case. I kinda like that! Usually people look and then they get some kind of idea of what it is going to sound like before they listen. It is kinda cool that you were able to listen before you looked.
MAS – I was showing one of my office friends one of your videos and they were like, “When did Avril Lavigne learn to rap?”
WP – Yeah, I’ve been called that before. It’s kind of funny, that is the second time this week someone has said that I look like Avril Lavigne. That’s cool, I’m just doing by stuff, being Whitney Peyton from the suburbs of Philly. I’m just rapping mad, it’s the easiest way. I’m just being me, so people can either take it or leave it.
MAS – Who is Whitney Peyton? Introduce yourself to North Carolina.
WP – I’m what would happen if Machine Gun Kelly, Missy Elliott and Eminem had a love child. I am excited to play North Carolina, I think I did once before but it was so long ago. I don’t really count it, because back in 2008, when I was real fresh, just started, I played this car show. The DJ that they hooked up with was wasted, he was playing by backing tracks and he was scratching during my songs. It was really messing me up. He was putting me at different places in the song, jumping me around as I am trying to rap. It was all kinds of crazy. It was in front of a lot of people. It was like, “Whoa this guy has too many drinks, and he doesn’t need to be playing my backing tracks right now.” So, I am ready to come back to North Carolina for the re-do. Let’s get it crackin!
MAS – How did you get in to Hip hop? Philly is a bit of a hotbed for Hip Hop so I can see that part.
WP – I’m from the outskirts of Philly so I had to go into the city when I started record or perform or anything. There is not really a venue out in the suburbs near me.
I was doing spoken word, just rapping a Capella. I didn’t know any producers and I didn’t know how to get any beats at that time. I was just writing. I was like, I am really into poetry but I also really love hip hop. So, I kind of want to transform this into not just spoken word but I want to rap too. They can sound the same but they are totally different. When you are rapping on beat it is way more rhythmic, a capella doesn’t have as many rules, you can be all over the place. On beat, you have got to be more in the pocket. It took a while to get the hang of it; I was so used to spitting a capella.
I started going into Philly and knocking on everyone’s door, like any producer. I was like, “I really want to record” and a lot of them just laughed. It took a while for someone to say yes they would record me. It started picking up from there.
At that time, there were definitely girls in the industry but it was still really scarce. Now there is more and more of us popping up which is a cool thing, but when I started recording there wasn’t really that many of us. It was hard to get people to take it seriously.
MAS – How long have you been in this game?
WP – I have been writing for a long time, so it is really hard to say. They didn’t let me in the clubs to perform until I was 18. So do you count when I was actually allowed to perform or do you count all of the stuff I have been writing in my notebook in math class. It’s kind of hard to gauge that, I have been writing since middle school. I think my first mixtape or EP came out in like 2008. I have got way better since then.
Artists go back and are like, “I hate my old stuff” because they feel like they have progressed so much. It’s been a few years that I have been heavily involved.
MAS – If you think you old stuff is something you hate or are ashamed of, we are in trouble with any new stuff.
WP – <Laughing> I’m not ashamed of it. You listen back and you compare it. Any artist, probably, listens to their newer stuff and compares it to their old stuff and is like, “wow, it’s a massive change.” Even people who are not artists, if they look at their style of anything, dress or how they acted, years ago they are like, “what was I thinking?”
My first song that I ever released as a single, Crazy, remains one of my most popular songs. For me, I’m like wow that was my first real track so I feel like I can rap way better since then, but it remains a fan favorite. I can’t really say that I regret any of it, it has all made me better. But, I for sure rap way better now.
MAS – Your flow is one of your biggest assets, but also the way you rap. Your roots in spoken word are very evident. As you are spitting those rapid fire lyrics, you can still clearly hear every syllable.
WP – Cool. That is something I think about when I listen to other rappers, I want to hear what they are saying. That’s the biggest part. As a rapper, obviously you are a lyricist first and foremost. That’s the whole point.
MAS – Where do you draw from for your lyrics?
WP – Because I am not a normal rapper, I don’t rap about the normal things. I don’t have that hood life that a lot of rappers are able to talk about. I just talk about things that I have been through; struggles with anxiety, struggles with relationships, stuff like that. I think that is relatable to the average person no matter where they are from. I feel like that is why I have been able to be versatile and have a wide demographic. No matter where you are from; the suburbs, the hood, the middle of the country somewhere it’s a relatable thing.
MAS – You are very motivated by what goes on your community.
WP – There is such a negative reputation that goes with rap music. We always think of rappers with violence, drugs, living the lifestyle where they are showing off the material items. That is what it always seems to be about. I just want to show that there is positivity to it as well. With my career I can also help charities and donate my time to those things on the side so that I feel like I did accomplish something positive. It’s not all about negative things.
MAS – How did you get hooked up with this tour? The artists don’t seem to have a lot in common.
WP – I was on tour with RA The Rugged Man and before that I was on tour with Twiztid. People are always like, you are mismatched all the time. If you think about it, it’s hard to find a demographic that is for me because I am so different from a lot of other artists. It’s like, who can you pair me up with? I like the fact that we are different because it makes for a more interesting show. If you are going to a show and there are four artists and they are all similar to each other, I think that would get old after a while. The fact that each of us, on the tour, has our own style makes it interesting when you go. I won’t be monotonous.
But to answer the question, I got hooked up with it while I was on the RA The Rugged Man tour. There was someone in the audience that was a booking agent. He was putting together this tour with Da Mafia 6 and he saw my performance and he approached me about it. He was like, “hey you put on an energetic performance and I think you’d be good on this tour.” I didn’t think… People tell you things and you take it with a grain of salt. In the music industry, of all things that you are approached a very low percentage actually gets followed through on and actually happens. So I took like, “yeah that would be cool” but I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket. But its real and I leave Friday to go meet up with Three 6 in Tennessee. We have about 60 tour dates or so that are back to back, it’s going to be wild.
Eastern Carolina Style 