UNLOCKINGSITE

Reneé Rapp is done playing nice — in fact, she’s done playing at all. Unless, of course, it’s on her own terms. But it wasn’t always that way. Rattling off her credentials can leave you breathless. The North Carolina-born star has performed on Broadway and on the big screen, both times as the titular character of Regina George in Mean Girls, her sharp delivery, charisma and singular vocals making her a perfect fit for the role. There was also her breakout role on a spicy HBO series, an EP and debut album and all the touring pomp and circumstance that comes with being an it-girl with unparalleled personality that seems — at least at first glance — happy to sit in the scorching glare of the limelight. But in the midst of touring her debut album Snow Angel, Rapp decided to take a pause, or more so a screeching halt, taking the wheel of her career and putting the car in park.

“I was getting really annoyed,” she tells PAPER. “I was going through this festival run after having gone through an album cycle and a tour and a movie and a press run for that. I was really burnt out. I stopped loving what I was doing. It made me really sad, because I was having this crazy dissociative experience.”

Due to the pressure of saying yes to opportunities to fortify her growing pop and acting career, she’d started saying no to herself. Wise words from her girlfriend and fellow musician Towa Bird helped her move in a different direction. “[She told me], ‘Don’t forget your free will… you like to appease people. You talk your shit, why are you not following what you would tell other people to do?’” So Rapp decided to heed her own advice.

“It was a reckoning in my own life,” she tells us. “I was like, ‘Okay, I am leaving this TV show.’ I had also just filmed two episodes of that amidst all of this fucking chaos. I was like, ‘I am done with this album cycle. I’m done with this press tour.’ I was like, ‘I need to shed everything that is hurting me off of my body immediately.’”

That decision not only led her to remember the “unbridled joy” that made her want to make music in the first place but also to her second album BITE ME (out August 1) — a collection of tracks that embody the “fuck off” energy she embraced during an exhausting and necessary purge of things that didn’t serve her following the release of her first album. The first taste of BITE ME, lead single “Leave Me Alone,” is reflective of the LP’s attitude: a petulant desire to have fun, with quips about her past lives, wanting to be left alone and even lining her lips to match nipples. The song itself was an exercise for Rapp, who had a hard time leaning into her god-given personality — one that’s been at the center of media banter and social commentary, as she deadpans many of the song’s lyrics. “I was like, ‘No, People hate when I talk!’ I had just come off of this press run of everybody being like, ‘Oh my God, she’s so funny. And quirky and not media trained!’ I’d never been perceived like this in my life.”

With her guard down and self-trust up, her latest album is a testament to her new way of creating. BITE ME is an unabashed ride through Rapp’s psyche and no emotion is off the table. “We’re so complex,” she says. “We’re such complex people and we make ferocious mistakes. We have really redeemable qualities at the same time. Everything can coexist. You have to feel emotions in order to go through things.”

Below, Rapp talks to PAPER about BITE ME, the power of “no” without explanation and embracing ‘“fuck off” energy.

Let’s get right into “Leave Me Alone.” So good. So fun. How did it come to be? It feels like what we all need right now, energetically, this energy of —

Fuck off.

Yes. The fuck off energy. What made you want to release this to start this new era?

Basically, it started because I was getting really frustrated a little bit over a year ago. I was getting really annoyed. I was going through this festival run after having gone through an album cycle and a tour and a movie and a press run for that. I was really burnt out. I stopped loving what I was doing. It made me really sad, because I was having this crazy dissociative experience. Every festival I would play and every show that I would go to — I’m seeing the people in the audience who I love and do this for, and I feel so disconnected behind my eyes. Not only does it feel like a disservice to everyone watching, even though they don’t know it … more importantly, it felt like such a disservice to myself. I was like, “Why am I here?”

I also felt like nobody wanted me to be there. I was just so depressed and miserable, because I had just been run to the ground, and I lost love for everything I used to really care about. I couldn’t appreciate these moments that I grinded my ass off for. That’s even more frustrating, because then I feel ungrateful and I’m not getting to experience the things I’ve worked really hard for. It was a reckoning in my own life. I was like, “Okay, I am leaving this TV show.” I had also just filmed two episodes of that amidst all of this fucking chaos. I was like, “I am done with this album cycle. I’m done with this press tour.” I was like, “I need to shed everything that is hurting me off of my body immediately.”

That’s not an easy decision.

It was a mass exodus of everything that felt like I had tiny little guns pointed at every little place in my body that mattered. I was like, “This has to go away.” I was like, “All right, I’m going off birth control. I’m gonna wean myself off medication because I don’t think I need that right now. I’m gonna do crazy kinds of therapy.” I went through months of ketamine therapy. I basically did a purge of everything bad out of my body. It was so terrible and it was so exhausting and we were writing this [song] and I genuinely said in the room… this sounds so heady and artisty, but I was just like “I want everybody to leave me the fuck alone and stop talking to me and stop asking me when I’m gonna put new music out.”

I just did it. I needed a break. I was like, “I’ve been doing everything for everybody else, and I hate y’all. I’m done. Nobody ask me when I’m putting out music. I don’t want any pressure from my team. I’m so over it.” And they were like, “Oh, well this kind of follows this bass line, like ‘Leave me alone bitch, I wanna have fun.’” I was like, “You guys are smoking. That’s terrible.” They’re like, “You listen to artists that are very poetic and thoughtful and write double meanings and that’s amazing but sometimes in pop music it’s okay to say exactly what the thing is.”

I was like, “I don’t know. That makes me feel really scared and uneasy.” And they’re like, “You gotta trust us.” I thought, Oh my God, this is so bad. We just kept going and they said “We think you should just kind of talk.” I was like, “No.” People hate when I talk. I had also just come off of this press run of everybody being like, “Oh my God, she’s so funny. And quirky and not media trained!” I’d never been perceived like this in my life because I’m not thinking.

You’re not thinking and everyone’s analyzing it.

No! I’m not doing anything special or an act or anything funny or exciting. I’m being recorded talking. So I was like, there’s no way I can do this, it’s not gonna work — people don’t like this from me. And they’re like, “No, people actually do like this from you, you’re just really insecure about it.” So we just made the song, and I was like, This is so bad. And then I was like, Is this actually kind of amazing? Also, my favorite rap songs are dis tracks. It’s hard to make a good dis track, it can get corny. Then as we kept making the whole album, it just felt like such a perfect introduction to the world. In my opinion, this is certainly not the best song on the album. I wouldn’t even put it in the top five probably, but it is the best attitude introduction to the new world that we wanted to build.

I love that it’s fun while still embodying the hard internal work of having to let go of expectations. Was it just the exhaustion, or was there something else that allowed you to tell everybody how you were feeling and put everything down and walk away?

I have such a distinct memory of being in the car with my girlfriend. I had just been told that my team was expecting me to put out a song in September [of last year]. This was probably April— and my girlfriend was like, “Why would you do that?” And I was like, “Well that’s what they told me, so that’s what I’m gonna do. Those are the expectations.” And she was like, “You don’t have to do that.”

I remember just being like, Wait. I was frustrated. I was defensive. In that moment I was like, Oh, no one will ever look out for my best interest like I will. No one is ever gonna care about me like I care about me. And I was like, I don’t have to do that.

This is a business, I’m not blind. I don’t think everyone is really pawing at my artistic integrity on my team. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure we all care, but everyone wants to make money and everyone wants to be successful. I sure do. So I just basically had to get up the courage to be like, everybody literally get out of my face. I had just been in one too many jobs and situations where I was so forced to compromise what I believed in and my integrity and had been hit over the head with insults. And I was like, I’m not doing it. Y’all can have that. I actually am capable of enjoying my life. So why would I overwork myself?

Right. And your brain and your talent are the commodity that the business is selling, and if that closes down, the whole thing has to stop.

Yep. It was intense. And the other part about it, which was really frustrating, was I had already committed to so many festivals. I just remember that conversation with my girlfriend and she was like “Don’t forget your free will. You like to appease people. You talk your shit, why are you not following what you would tell other people to do?”

So with that as that backdrop, what were some of the biggest differences in the creation of BITE ME and Snow Angel? How have those changes seeped into this album?

I am still not really sure of the right answer, other than that I’ve made a body of work that I’m so insanely proud of and didn’t compromise anything on. That doesn’t mean that there were songs that I didn’t have to be convinced of — but this [album] is its own world. This is exactly what I live and breathe. This is me at this point in my life, an album and a world that is really easy to step into. With Snow Angel it was like, Can I make an album? I know more now and I also care more. I also trust people less this album cycle. That’s made a really big difference. I used to be like, Well, I don’t know everything, so you guys are probably right. I love learning from other people, but it’s my name and it’s my career and it all falls on me. I go through everything with a fine-tooth comb. I have a really high expectations for everyone in my life, and I have really high expectations for myself. BITE ME is exactly as it sounds.

You mentioned that “Leave Me Alone” is not the best song on the album. Do you have thoughts on what the best song is?

There are different contenders. I think “Mad” is the best pop song on the album. It’s one of the best songs I’ve ever made. Then there’s another song that comes out with the album that I think is so timeless.

Is it “Why Is She Still Here?”

No, but I love “Why Is She Still Here,” too. I love all of them. There are also songs we took off of the album that are some of my favorites to put out later.

How was it performing “Leave Me Alone” for the first time at the American Music Awards?

It was really fun. I enjoyed myself during the performance. It was really stressful because we just didn’t have our shit together and I was really frustrated and had a lot going on. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I don’t usually come off stage being like, That was so fun. It just feels good.

Do you feel like you have that excitement back again?

I had that excitement back the last seven months of making the album. It was unbridled joy. I am so proud of myself and impressed with the work we’ve done. This is exactly why I fell in love with this in the first place. Now as we’re getting into it actually coming out, the anxiety and nervousness and deep-rooted fear are coming up more. I hope it continues to feel fun but I also think I’m very scared from doing all those festivals and being really depressed last year. I’m honestly afraid to keep performing at this moment. I don’t want to feel that again. I’m running away from that.

You talked about what you’ve let go. Are there practices you’ve put into place so that when you get back to touring and you’re back on these stages, you don’t get back into that headspace where you felt like other people were puppet-mastering the project?

Even two weeks into starting this cycle, we started to fall back into old habits, and old habits die hard. A big thing that I did was just to be like “Nope. Watch it. Because I’m gonna act out.” I am expecting more from myself, therefore I want more from everyone. We all have to collectively step up and level up together, or else it doesn’t work. I’m much more direct. I trust people less, which might sound offensive, but I mean it in a business sense.

It sounds like you trust yourself more.

I trust myself more than I trust the word of anyone else. Again, I know that only I am gonna look out for me the way that I need to be looked out for, point blank, period. Like, this is a business. This is my business and it’s also my art.

And your life.

And my life, dude. Yeah. I just realized y’all don’t suffer the same way I do. So why am I out here putting my life on the line, being miserable constantly when y’all are good? Nobody gets to control me. I’m not doing it. I understand. I’m a cog in the machine. I understand that, ultimately, yes, it’s music, but it’s still one of the most massive corporations on planet Earth.

It’s powerful. The “no” without the justification.

Exactly. And I don’t wanna hear an explanation behind it. I don’t wanna hear your reasoning. I don’t wanna hear why it happened. I don’t care. It will not get to that point. No. Period. Not doing it.

Obviously this energy seeps into the lead single but are there moments on BITE ME that are softer or that speak more to past versions of yourself?

There are definitely softer moments on the album but they still have the same energy, which is just: I’m gonna look out for myself. Even in the soft moments. There are two songs on the album that are really heartbreaking and honest and quite sad. But they still have the same attitude.

When everyone gets to hear BITE ME in its entirety, what energy or message do you want them to walk away with?

My biggest hope is that people walk away with a certain sense of comfort in the range of their emotions. I have often been deemed too aggressive, too mean or too nice or disingenuous. You’ll get labeled with whatever, which is totally fine. It’s the nature of the job.

But I think that the whole energy of BITE ME is respectfully get the fuck outta my face. And that’s fine. I am fine getting mad. I’m fine with anger. I’m fine with aggression. I’m fine with frustration. I’m fine with crying. I’m fine with loving. I’m fine with anything. Any emotion is on the table. You can only be a full human being if you allow yourself to experience all of those emotions. I hope people love it as much as I do. And honestly, if they don’t, that’s cool, because I am obsessed with it. So that also feels really good to be like, regardless, this is spectacular for me.

Photography: Yasmine Diba
Styling: Valeria Semushina
Makeup: Loren Canby
Hair: Marissa Marino
Nails: Anna Wesolowska
Set design: Kelly Infield

Photo assistant: Zaira Galindo
Styling assistant: Lili Mushkudiani
Set assistant: Will Cragoe
Production assistant: Ricardo Diaz

Managing editor: Matthew Wille
Executive creative producer: Angelina Cantú
Story: Erica Campbell
Graphic design: Jewel Baek
Publisher: Brian Calle