Financial Feminist - 20. The Myth of "Making It" with Qveen Herby

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

Singer, songwriter, and fashion icon, Qveen Herby (formerly frontwoman of the band KARMIN), joins Tori for a candid and at times off the walls discussion about the mysterious record industry, the financial realities of becoming an independent artist, releasing your own content, how astrology helped her get out of her record deal, and of course, the myth of “making it”. A dominatrix of self-care, Qveen’s music screams empowerment and aligning with your higher purpose. Pre-Order “Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love”: https://bit.ly/3PpHvlC Follow Qveen on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@qveenherby  Follow Qveen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qveenherby/ Our HYSA recommendation [affiliate]: http://sofi.com/herfirst100k Check out the show notes for this episode for more resources: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/    Watch Exclusives from Financial Feminist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/HerFirst100K/featured  Follow Financial Feminist on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/financialfeministpodcast/  Follow Her First $100K on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/herfirst100k/ Crush your debt with Debt Defeater, Her First $100K’s newest course offering: https://www.herfirst100k.com/debtdefeatercourse   Looking for more actionable money advice? Take our FREE money personality quiz! https://treasury.app/herfirst100k/money-journey-quiz  Leave Financial Feminist a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/financialfeminist  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, financial feminists. Welcome back to the show. Oh, guys. Oh, my God. Okay. Today's guest is a big deal for me. I literally told her before we recorded about the fact that I was the most devout follower of hers in college. I would sit in front of my mirror in my college dorm room and try to learn her songs. And I never succeeded because this woman raps so fast. But literally have been a fan of hers for a decade. I spent the entire day before this interview blasting her albums. Her music always has me feeling ready to go.

And fun fact, this is actually the first interview we did for Financial Feminist Season 2. So it's a conversation that takes some lovely twists and turns. We talk about a lot of things. We talk about record deals, touring, astrology, cultural appropriation, TikTok, content creation, and this myth around feeling like you've quote unquote made it. I think we all kind of chase this feeling of trying to make it. And if we're lucky to get to a place where we have a significant event in our life where we do feel like we've potentially made it, what does that actually mean for our success? What does that mean for where we go next? And we just had the best time chatting. Today's guest is none other than the incredible Queen Herbie. You might remember her from her YouTube days where her and

her husband Nick, formerly the band Carmen, you can remember them. Don't you leave me brokenhearted tonight. You remember that one? Pop sensation. Summer song of 2011. And they also had one of the most viral moments, like original viral moments with their cover of Look at Me Now. Since then, Queen has performed all over the world, signed a record deal, dumped said record deal, and is now taking on the world as an independent artist. She also has this incredible vegan makeup line called Queen Studio, and it's just an overall total powerhouse. I'm so excited for you to listen in on this thoughtful conversation between Amy, aka Queen Herbie and I. So let's go ahead and get into it. Hi. Hi.

I'm so excited to have you. I adore you, first of all. Rebecca, no, no, stop. I will fully cry. So I'm trying to keep my chill. I literally told my team, I was like, this interview is just going to be me, like, fangirling and rambling for 45 minutes. No, it is. Can you give me a brief breakdown of your kind of musical history from the Look

at Me Now cover all the way to where you are now? Damn. A brief history. It does fly by, I will say that. Because it's been over a decade. It has. And now being under a different moniker. Is that the right word? Sure. Because we have also Money Long, one of my good friends from back in the day. She used to go by Priscilla Renea, and she's now Money Long and blowing up. Her song's like top 20 on Billboard. Wow. From TikTok. Hello, independent artist. I've got a question about that later. Love it. So yes, I used to be Amy from Nebraska, who was so excited to get

out into the big city and find herself. And I went to Berkeley College of Music in Boston. I met my partner, Nick. We started Carmen, which is like, I mean, we wanted it to be like an acoustic hip hop duo, which at the time, you know, that was pretty ambitious. I don't think the world was ready for that, but we blew up on YouTube with a Look At Me Now cover, the Busta Rhymes song. I was just imitating as best as I could my favorite rappers and signed a deal, had some hits, woke up one day like, why are we basically just doing something completely different than what we wanted to do? Finally had some money and started Queen Herbie, but that took another five years to get to today. Was it always, not the plan, but were you thinking the entire time,

like, we'll just do this to get to this? Does that make sense? Of like, we'll get our foot in the door, we'll play by the rules, and then once we're in the door, then we'll do the shit we want to do. It feels like everything, every step we take, every project we drop, we're like fully

believing that this is it. Sure. So was it in the plan for it to roll this way? Did I know that, you know, signing a deal and becoming this and then going away from that and then now when fans are discovering Queen and realizing that it was Carmen before? I'm seeing the TikTok comments, it's hysterical. Did not expect that. Yeah. I think Nick, my partner, would say otherwise. He had a master plan or maybe he just had some foresight. But I'm just always like, every song I drop, I'm like, this is it. Yep. You got to be that way, I feel like, in music. Yep. So I was telling you this before, but I've been with you literally since 2012 on the Hello album. Crazy. And that was, yeah, that was my shit in college.

And like, I know every word to that album and I sat there, yeah. Shout out to all the OGs. I literally sat there. So for those who don't know and you can Google it,

you used to wear your hair pretty much in every performance I feel like. And it's like, for me, it was the most complicated hairstyle I'd ever fucking seen. Because I sat there

in my college dorm room and I was like, how do I make my hair do it? And it's called, what, a suicide roll, right? It's like very, is it 50s, 40s? It is.

Yeah, it is. It's like some post-war look. And it looks so good on you. And I was so fascinated. I was like, how do I do this? And so I've been with you for a really long time. And I remember, I think early in the Carmen days, you were saying that initially like rapping felt weird to you as like a classically trained musician. Can you tell me more about why that felt weird?

Well, growing up in conservative Nebraska household with a pastor for a grandfather and the whole, there is now I'm uncovering a lot of the suppression and sort of the emotional neglect and things that you have growing up. And culturally, it was just way different in America back then. Even six years ago, it was different. You know, two years, a year ago, we're in some of the biggest change we've ever seen in this country. But I would say it was probably weird for me because I didn't think as a little white girl from Nebraska that that was okay to do. I mean, my parents were telling me, no, no cursing, no this, no sex, no drugs. I have a question about that in a second. But like, my parents were telling me, no, no cursing, no this, no sex, no drugs.

I have a question about that in a second, but like, Look At Me Now, your cover of Look At Me Now has no cursing whatsoever. I had to do it. I'm glad I did because the fans that came from that were young and I was not ready to talk about, I mean, I don't, you know, Black culture is everything. Like it's my entire inspiration I'm realizing now. Like all the artists I listen to, everything I do musically is pretty much inspired by black I mean black people made rock and roll right it's like the the Lizzo lyric in her song it's fascinating how uncomfortable I was with it in the beginning and now as I've learned and educated myself I love it more than I have ever loved hip-hop yeah I think with that sound change, it came in aesthetic change too, right?

So it went from like, it was super poppy. There was like a bunch of horns and stuff. And then, yeah, it was a library, like you were wearing these elaborate hairstyles and these like bright patterns. And now like it couldn't be more different. Yeah.

Was it like a gradual change or was there a moment where everything shifted where you're like, I don't want to do this anymore? I'm finding out. I went to see an astrologer. There's a whole bunch of funny history on how we got out of the record deal. I mean, that was a miracle. Again, I have questions later about that too. Crazy. I always credit him. His name is Gall. He's thecosmicnavigator.com. Changed my life and a bunch of my friends' lives. So at this point, I'm like, let's promote him. Cool. Because Carmen ended up making Leoo rising an album based on the zodiac

signs after this dude like he's incredible but he's the first person who told me i was a designer so what i will bring this back to is when i create as a creator i create music it has to have a visual element just like that hairstyle really grabbed you. Right. Me too, girl. Like, I was like, when I did my hair like that and put on some fake eyelashes and real lipstick, I was like, and this bitch is rapping. It was a perfect brand move too, because it was very distinct, right? Like, I associated, oh, that's the brokenhearted girl, right? Or like, it was very much like I knew, I knew the aesthetic and connected it immediately with what the music was. And like that makes me salivate.

I love that intersection of like the visual and the audio and like inspiring people and building worlds. So I'm slowly making new friends and acquaintances that are really good at this. And so I think it was an unconscious choice at the time to go back to my dark hair and like get lip injections. And, you know, like I was like everything I always wanted to to do but I didn't because I thought my parents would be upset I was like okay I'm 35 let me just start making my own choices so I was like what would what would I wear if I if I had so much self-worth and confidence that I was calling myself a queen and the visual that came out of it was very different yeah so you mentioned the record deal for listeners who don't know the majority of artists who end up signing a record

deal make pretty much nothing right or they end up owing money back to a label and so the stats the research we did say that five percent of artists make any money off a deal but yet there's this like idea that signing a record deal means you've made it. Can you shed some light on the idea of a 360 deal and why artists often get burned by that deal? Absolutely. Oh my goodness. This part is really exciting to me. I was just having a meeting with some friends yesterday. We were like, oh my God, what if we started a label? Because it's a terrifying idea now that we've been through the system and we've seen the broken parts and the little bits that are pretty traumatic yeah about the industry um a 360 deal is basically you're giving up

let's see our carmen deal was probably 87 of the master which when you buy a song on itunes nobody's buying songs anymore, some people. Right. But the stream is, by the way, 0.0033 cents is what you get from a stream on Spotify. And it's different. I have a question about that. So let's go there.

So streaming is so convenient for me as a consumer of music. Same. Right? Nothing more convenient. Yet, I know from musician friends, from doing some research, right, that it is like the worst deal for the artist. Why do it then? Is it just because,

is it a necessary evil? It is. And you know, what it kind of did, which is unfortunate, this is like why I feel a way about it, is if you can get hundreds of millions of streams, it's very much a solid living. Sure. But the gap between, right? Right. And that comes back to my passion about design and building a brand and giving you that visual experience paired with it, a fantasy, a world, a community. A feeling. Like this is how I feel about NFTs. I'm like, Queen is not going to do NFTs until she has built a utility that's valuable that people are going to want to go to. So to me, it's always been about more than the music. If you want to just make some beats and sing some things and you don't want to tour, you don't want to talk to your audience.

You don't want to do these things. Yeah, streaming sucks. Right. Because you're not going to make much money from that. So you got to think big that this is why we ended up doing the cosmetics. We're thinking about getting in cannabis. It's like this whole, you can really start building your world in the real world. But man, I really do want to help artists understand how to make a sustainable career independently. It's possible. I'm proof.

Right. Yeah. So that idea of making it with the record deal, what was that process? And then back to the 360 deal of what does the average person who's never going to sign a record deal not know about that experience so here's how it works artist walks in now they've probably today they've had to blow themselves up on tiktok first right right before anybody's gonna give a fuck it's gonna i'm allowed to curse oh god yeah before anybody can give a fuck right they have to blow up their selves up on tiktok so they have a song and the label will sign them to a 360 deal and say hey let let us us alley-oop you. Because you can have a hit on TikTok for two weeks and it's gone. It's very quick. Very quick. Hit songs are much shorter lived, but they're still very valuable if you can do it multiple times. But the label is supposed to take that and keep you at 40,000 feet. In exchange, you then give them 87% of the master, but they do give you a cash advance. It's very similar to publishing because I just signed a publishing deal and just did a podcast deal.

Congratulations. Thank you. It's very similar. It is. It's a licensing deal if you're lucky. You don't give them your name in perpetuity. You just license them your music for X amount of time. It might be 12 years.

They're pretty long. Yeah. Man, our first record deal, I still have the contract. It's like 50 pages. Make sure you have a good lawyer to walk you through every paragraph. Which if you're an independent artist, who's paying for that? You're paying for that? You're paying for that.

Or not an independent artist because you're signing a deal, but like if you're just getting started. With the Carmen deal, we had a lawyer on retainer for 5%. So you can just give somebody, so let's say you get a record advance of like $100,000, you can give the lawyer $5,000 when that deal is done. You give your manager $15,000 to $20,000. So now look what happens, Tori. You have $200,000, which is now down to $75,000. And you're paying taxes on that money. And so the money actually going in your pocket is a lot less. You better go buy some of these microphones and write them off. Right, right.

And don't eat up all the studio time because the other part of the record deal, the 360 deal, label is paying for your recording sessions, which you could easily do, $500,000 an hour. Now you have mic fees, engineer fees, mixing fees, producer fees. I'm so lucky and fortunate that my partner produces my music, along with Pompano Puff. Shout out Pompano Puff. They're incredibly talented, and we figured out our situation where like, let's all do this independently and make a living from it.

But in a record deal situation, producers will just charge you, you know, $5, $10, $20, $40, you know, some larger producers, $40 grand track. Track. This becomes a recoupable tab at the label. So now you've opened a tab. You're at the bar and you're buying shots. And they're recouping you at what, 87% off the top? The statistic I heard is that 2% actually, 2% of artists. Oh, so it's even less than 5%. Yeah. Recoup to get to the next phase of the contract where they get it in advance again. Does this make sense? So you've got phase one, try to recoup. Eventually our lawyer was like, don't try to recoup spend their money get your fame get your accolades and then go to the american music awards do that shit right well and that's assuming

right that most people are taking multiple well and i want to talk to that point about with you releasing eps at the level at the pace you guys did because usually it's what you rate two three years in between albums and now you're like and the pace you guys did, because usually it's what, you rate two, three years in between albums. And now you're like... And the reason you're doing that because they have 50 artists, right? Right, any time. And Billie Eilish is going to get priority over your record. So then your date keeps getting pushed back. You can't do anything promotional. You can't put anything out because they have an exclusive record deal with you. So then you're on TikTok trying to blow your song up. Right. Are you making money in that time? I guess you're out touring, hypothetically. If you tour, and they do sometimes have ancillary, so they'll

take 10, 20% of your touring as well. And merch, you know, merch, merch deals are kind of shitty. So I stay downtown Los Angeles, right in the fashion district. So I can go buy blanks. I can get them printed locally, which is what we do. Yeah. But it's, it's a lot of schlepping. It's a lot of indie is not for everybody. I always say that. Like, I'm in here doing my own hair and makeup

because that would also go on the recoupable tab. You're also very good at it. Thank you. Also, yeah, it's kind of a ritual for me. I feel like it helps me center myself

and be the character I need to be for the performance. As a theater person, I get that, right? Totally. It's like, dress rehearsal is the first time

you actually feel like the person you're embodying. So valuable. Because you get on your shoes and you get on your wig or you get on it's the shoes every time yeah it's the shoes so you've got the record deal and then what you guys ended up doing was getting out of it yeah which was kind of a miracle that's just why we I was gonna so what is the process of getting out of it and then do you retain any of the rights to any of your music when you do that they so, so ours was, I think, a 12. Let's just say these numbers are fake because I can't remember. Sure.

Been a while. But we're probably about time to go check in with them and see what's up. But 12 years. Because, yeah, if Hello is 2012. Totally. We're getting close. That's 10 years. Okay.

Everybody pray that we're recouped. Because the masters do revert. They do. because that was my next question because i don't think you bought your masters from epic did you yeah okay no we're gonna let them make their money back i really do appreciate la reed for for believing in us so much i mean they really invested in us yeah and i can't even be mad about that like that's incredible yeah it was like a master class sure those. Those five years. Sure. So, getting out, what was that process? Went to an astrologer, got a birthday gift visit. Okay. I

don't think many people get out of record deals and the first step was like, I needed to go have my chart read. This had to have been a destiny thing. Yeah. I got so spiritual. Of course, moving to California will make you buy crystals and go to the ocean. I am so resistant to woo-woo. I am. Like, I have an energy coach, which we can talk about if you want. But, like, that was a big step for me and even still feels woo-woo. Good for you. Like, I'll tell her things when I'm like, this is too woo-woo. And the reason is because you're so brilliant.

You're so smart. Stop it. That's what it is. Thank you. I started working with her to get myself out of my comfort zone where I was like, okay, I know I'm very analytical. I'm like, I need you to bring me into my body because all i do is think and overthink and overthink again if i could just have five minutes in your brain i feel like i could i could do i don't you would it would be insane you don't want five minutes in this fucking brain if you just ever want to

dm me some ideas that you just want to get out oh please i will use them you know 18 year old me is throwing up out of excitement right now it's so fun okay record deal so you're in it you went to the astrologer and he said what to you and i am skeptical as a fuck right now i'm like he he sends an email confirming the time and i'm hungover it's like a birthday gift i'm like hungover to the point where i know i'm gonna throw up like it's a bad hangover i'm like what was what was, I was like 20, I forget, 26, 25. And he says, oh, don't forget to bring your birth time. I'm like, birth time?

I'm going to call my mom? Where am I going to find this? Yeah, I'm not going to call my mom hungover. And somehow I go in the office and I open this book and my birth certificate is in it. I'm like, who, nobody knows where their birth certificate is. Usually it's not like... Wait, you have it? Just that day when I needed it right before the astrology reading. It was in my... I was like, how did this even get here? Birth time. Boom. Got it. 2.10 PM, April 29th, whatever. So I bring it. So I'm like, thank God. Because he

couldn't do an accurate reading without it right and this dude like proceeds to read my life like i'm crying i end up going and throwing up in the bathroom because i'm hung over too it was this emotional like purging okay so my skeptic immediately goes yes you're a famous person you have a bunch of information available exactly online my assumption as well did somebody go google you my assumption as well it's somebody go Google you? My assumption as well. It's things that he was saying to me are things that only I knew. And one of them was really strange. He said, your relationship with your mom is like you were her mom in a past life. And I was like, that's a strange thing to say and have it resonate.

Because you're either like, this makes complete sense or you're completely bullshitting me. It gets personal like that. Interesting. And then he'll even tell you, he'll lay your chart on a map of Earth and tell you like the cities that are most energetically serving for you. That's why I asked you where you are based out of, and it's cool like to move around and find it. What were your cities? Now I'm curious. It was Atlanta. Okay.

Detroit. It was like East Coast vibes. Okay. So I'm still kind of trying to figure that out because I'm a California girl. Right. And you have different lines that give you different energy so nebraska for me was definitely like old tradition i like moved past those lessons la is much more about money and fame so that worked out but i think ultimately i gotta end up somewhere on the east coast we'll see but he told

us how to get out of the record deal can you believe this he's like oh la reedia he's a gemini okay let me look at the dates he's like you need to call him by this date, and by July 1st, it'll be resolved. Oh, and your partner Nick has to do the talking. And I was like, oh, shit. He never wants to talk to the man. He's like, no, my girl, you're my girl, you're my star. But he listened to the phone conversation, was reasonable, and by July 1st, we had an exit contract overnighted to us. So crazy. Can you walk me through, if you're willing to be transparent, like, what did you say to get out? Well, Nick said,

Hey, man, it was after acapella. Do you remember that song, Acapella? Of course I do. It was kind of blowing everybody's mind, because it was a rap record, kind of. Pop rap. It was off of Pulses, wasn't it? Was that your lead singer off of Pulses?

Yes. And we were so excited about it. Also, I love I Want It All. That did not get enough love as it should have. Agreed. Disco, funk, classic. So good. And I wrote that with Esther Dean, who's one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

She's so good. She's so good. For those of you who don't know, she's on Songland. She's incredible. Which is how I actually connected with Zach, who's our mutual friend. How bizarre. So bizarre. That's how small the world is.

Well, so many people actually who follow me are like Songland alums. Absolutely. Weirdly, I don't know why. But yeah, she's on Songland, wrote for Rihanna, was in Pitch Perfect randomly, wrote for a bunch of people.

Hell yeah. Yeah, she's amazing. So that's why you love the song because it was pretty much her writing it in five minutes and us like trying to, you know. Oh my God. And we loved working together because she's like a great singer

and I can like kind of hang. Kind of hang. She taught me so much about lyric writing. Oh, she's so valuable. But that was, yeah, that was acapella time and they were like, we can't get it on the radio, but it's the best selling song on all of Sony. But we can't get the radio to play it. They won't play female rap. What year was this?

This was what, like 2014, 2015? Yeah. Nicki Minaj is out there. She was singing. out there she was singing oh she was starships yeah you're right so she knew what to do she's so smart yep she knew she knew what to do and she was already established for rap too they were still trying to make me more katie perry and it was very confusing branding times yeah and so that's really ultimately why we had to get out for creative reasons. LA wanted to send us to London and to work with, like, you know, I don't know what kind of music he was hoping to. And he loved my rap and my hip-hop project.

Like, I would make Lauryn Hill-type shit. Yeah. And he would call me, like, the middle of the night, oh, my God, this record is, but he wouldn't push it. He wouldn't, like, invest in it because he knew he's smart enough to know we have to put out what they're playing on the radio. Yeah. And it felt very...

Even like Broken Hearted, right? It was like, it was a singing record where you rapped on the bridge. And they took it out in some Midwestern cities. We had to make an alternate version without the rap. It was very touchy. So this is why I'm so thrilled to be where we are. Because we finally not only have hip hop back on the radio, but it's women of color at the top of the charts. Right.

This is my dream. This is like what I've always wanted. Totally. You are a white woman in a black genre. Absolutely. And you faced some a black genre. Absolutely. And you faced some backlash for that. Yes. What drew you to rap and hip-hop in the first place?

And can you talk how you've entered a conversation about cultural appropriation and what you've learned over the past couple years of doing this? What made me fall in love with hip-hop was the Dr. Dre Chronic 2001 album, which was given to me by my sixth grade boyfriend. I still have it. In Nebraska. It was a burned copy now, you know, and I'm pretty sure, actually, I have to see, I have to pull it out and see if it was clean or I doubt it because I really wanted to know like about bitches and hoes. I mean, I was so sheltered, but I knew that there was a world much bigger out there. And I went through a very similar experience.

Not with rap music specifically, but more just realizing. I think a lot of us did. Yeah. Realizing I was like, oh. That's why during that halftime show, we were all crying. All of us. Our entire generation was like, this is everything. Yeah.

This is incredible. So that was when Kendrick came out of those boxes i i anderson pox on the drums i was like oh my god incredible so so it was definitely like a some type of a soul connection yeah but r&b music which was big right in the in the 90s early 2000s we got you know um tlc we had 112 we had uh brian mcknight right obsessed destiny child obviously brandy right brand my life totally so they would have rap features on their singles sometimes right like mace would be on the brandy song um mariah carey would have jay-z heartbreaker was like i would just jump on my bed and scream like that was my shit yeah so i don't know why

and a lot of my friends listen to country so it's very different I was just enjoying kind of having attention for being different and I think that's really what happens continues to happen today I had a lot of learning to do when the appropriation conversations came up yeah because I was like, I'm having fragility. I'm like terrified. I need to do more reading. And I remember when it came up too, I was silent. That was like my first reaction. And I think as... Yeah, you shut down.

Yes. So typical. Moved downtown, Black Lives Matter movement erupted locally. Like we were able to walk out our door and join protests daily. Right. It was the greatest. I was like meant to be there at the time. And so now I've gotten much more comfortable

in practicing communicating about it because I think white female artists in the past didn't really speak up about it. So I guess my advice is for any white females that are listening that are also obsessed with black culture like I am, it's a daily practice. Right. Anti-racism and doing the work. It doesn't just end after you read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. One of my favorite

books is Me and White Supremacy by Leila F. Saad, like so helpful. Journaling prompts. Yep. You have to basically pull the racism out of yourself. Well, and acknowledge it's there in the first place thank you yeah so it's interesting because i had my own thing where i actually shared one of your songs and i had a person who is in the financial community who is a black female tell me this is cultural appropriation right and this is a white woman taking our culture absolutely and profiting off of it and like. Like, she's not wrong. Right. So for you, I'm even uncomfortable asking you this question, right?

Because I'm a fan of your music and of course a fan of you. Thank you for being honest. But it's also- Do you feel that feeling like here? Oh, it's like in my- Buzzing. Yeah, it's like- Sweaty hands.

I don't want to say something wrong, right? But I also acknowledge that if you're black and listening to this, you might be calling bullshit on me and calling bullshit on you, right? So I'm like, how do you get your mind around that? Is it a love of this? And so it's like, I'm celebrating this, but at the same time, you can't fully celebrate if you've never experienced it, right? This alone is, like I was saying, when you're feeling fragility, it's really stamina that you're building. This is like going to the gym. For us to change a society

that's literally built on white supremacy. Right. Like our entire society, it's systemic. All of it. We were all, we're all a part of this. To be able to change that takes a lot of stamina. Yeah. So I'm just grateful that we're able to talk about it.

And then always, if you're called out, if you're called in, especially by a person of color, it is so important to apologize. Right. Well, listen. Yeah. Apologize and do better. Right. Like, I love learning just in general, but about this especially, I've found that I'm always learning.

Yeah. Constantly. And I love it. Yeah. Well, and I think you do a great job, too, especially since it was really, it was Sade in the nineties was like the big, big, the big blowout. Absolutely. Right. Can you talk a bit about like what happened there and then what you learned from that experience? Because I think you have done a great job, especially since then of like bringing in other artists and amplifying other people in that space too.

For sure. And I've always been very vocal about who inspires me. Yeah. Right. But around that time too, because nobody knew who Queen Herbie was. They didn't know, oh, she was this girl from Carmen who blew up for rapping. Right. You know, and like 2011. Correct. So I, it, I could have done a much better job of bridging that story and explaining my process and my reasoning for where I ended up visually and sonically. Sure. Because to be fair, like if I was somebody who didn't know this person, I would have said the same thing. Yeah. But when you're in, when you're in, like Nick always says, it's like you're up its ass. You can't step away and see, oh, you're in the thick of it and you're

getting, yeah. Maybe, you know, maybe like wearing braids and having a spray tan that day and surrounding myself with beautiful women of color was too far. So since then, we've kind of discussed it with our whole team. Most of my creative team for that video were Black people. So it was like, not their job. No. Not their job to regulate. And I didn't have, like I said, any of that knowledge. I was very unaware, very privileged. And ironically, it created more attention than I expected. And then it forced me to do some learning. And I appreciate you acknowledging that. I think, I didn't plan on bringing this up today, but one of the things

I'm really nervous about as someone who now has a platform is that I'm not nervous in making a mistake because I will. Babe, you're doing incredible. No, but mistakes will happen. I'm a human person, right? Of course. But it's hoping

that I've built the kind of community where not only will they give me feedback, right, but they will also give me the mercy and the space to be able to learn from that

mistake listen and change yeah i'm scared that that won't happen babe no but it's it's an honest i don't know if you feel this way it's terrifying yeah i feel that fear um and again it's like it's so it's especially when you're so passionate and you want to help and i'm leslie nope and i'm like i want you to love me and i i want to woo you. And I want you to see my heart and see my intentions are good. And it's also, I mean, these problems are so small compared to the actual plight of black and brown people, right? Like, these are white person problems of like, we're talking about like, how do I be anti-racist? And how do I like not feel weird when I get called out? But like, my, right. practice right and my fear though is like that the the community i've built i hope to god that

they will yes 100 keep me accountable and that they will offer the sort of space to allow me to change and learn as opposed to pitchforks and torches good for you do you feel that same like pressure or that same concern so going back to shoddy in the 90s experience right which was a song we didn't clarify this was a song off was it ep2 yep two uh two or three yeah oh i think it was three yeah yes um yes okay because it was a pink coat yes that was three i it was so terrifying that i i clammed up and went silent i actually called my black friends and was like what should i do i made it their problem. This is typical. Rookie mistake.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Typical. No, but yeah. And actually, I think that's the first time I admitted that publicly. I like called my black friends and asked them what to do as if this was their issue. Yeah. Horrible. I mean, this behavior is privilege at its finest.

Right. You have to trust that your intention, now intention is a very iffy word on this topic because you're also like, well, how do we know? Your intention and your impact are different things, right? Thank you. You have to kind of trust God or the universe or whatever spiritual woo-woo you have in you that your purpose and what you're going to do is going to be positive. And I do firmly believe that if you're willing to listen and learn and change, there's nobody that can tear you down for that i don't think yeah now there are people out there that are hurting understandably yeah yep and i can trigger people for several

other reasons too you know i as a woman talking about the patriarchy all week in my house i'm like dang i didn't even realize like i'm a feminist now like how did this happen i'm rapping about having a dick like these are important you know but nikki was doing that 10 years ago right she paved the way right she opened and so this is this is what we need to do as white artists in the space is acknowledge that yeah i appreciate you yeah because i wanted to bring it up but it's it's tricky to talk about you're excellent you're doing an excellent job oh stop that was not what i was looking for keep going yes We were talking before about like streaming, record deal, all of these things. What impact, both positively and negatively, did the pandemic have on your ability to make money as an artist? I was about to go on tour.

Were you really? I was so excited to see my baby. Because you haven't been on tour as Queen Herbie. Correct. Shit. I was so excited because, you know know when it comes to touring the visual... Oh, and meeting people in real life.

So I have not met my audience in real life. Like other than people like recognizing me on the street. Oh, you need to go on tour. That's the plan. But again,

literally blew up during COVID and it was like this was not the opportunity was not here. Yeah, and your reach is much larger.

What I learned during the pandemic the panoramic the Pamela Anderson the panini is that you can make a living off the internet and you can reach potentially more people. It's a different connection. You know, being live in IRL is so wonderful, but we also had been in it for what?

That would have been year four. Queen Harvey? Yes. So going back to the record deal versus doing it independently. I love this book called The Compound Effect. Our whole, my partner and I, like, because we're married as well. So it's like our whole lives are us. Again, I got a question about that later. We are obsessed with The Compound Effect. When we did, when we blew up for the YouTube covers back in 2010, it was, we were posting every week for like 18 months, like two videos a week and eventually had one go. And it was from experimenting with things we weren't comfortable doing, pushing yourself, even talking about appropriation, like doing things you're uncomfortable with always will lead to good

shit because you're going to become better. And if you're willing to always become better, you will be. So I know whenever I tour, it's going to be incredible, but I know now I'm so confident that I can make a living doing this. And I think I now have the tools and the time to help other people do that too. Were you not confident before? I wasn't sure. The first EP went up and I think the first month we made like $700. And this is coming off of Carmen. So we were like, oh shit, did we fuck this up the industry was like oh she's this was a bad move imagine that that having to sit with that discomfort so at that point i was like by huh and having to know and commit to like no i'm gonna rap now we're you know we're doing this

i'm changing my look i'm gonna start i'm gonna talk shit right parents not on board well and you went from something of course you worked very hard to get the deal worked very hard to all these things and then it became safe is that accurate like it was safe and comfortable oh it felt like a job and you didn't want it to feel like a job only when i was with the listeners and the fans on tour did it not feel like a job so when you get off tour and go back to your your house in the valley and you're like it's 100 degrees out and like i don't want to do do anything and I can't get the label on the phone, they don't want to hear the single, they want me to go to London. I was like, oh God,

it was time to break away. And we love being pioneers. We love doing new things. And we'd just seen the birth of Spotify. So it was a perfect timing too, where we were like, oh shit, maybe we could make money on our own right terrifying though well and just the commitment to not only going out on your own but understanding that your business partner is your life partner and that recommend it for everybody i was gonna say and every decision that you make yeah has to not only of course be made collaboratively both creatively and personally but directly affects your career and your home life hard to separate it and then he's you know he's talking about i want to be a producer i could do this i'm like oh babe right

the studio goes in the living room so we are constantly and i'm kind of your guinea pig yes right but i was like i don't want to do it with anybody else of course we called we called pompano puff right away because we had done uh we did actually we did this beautiful cover of pure imagination from charlie and the chocolate factory that was like the first one of the first records we did with pompano puff and he was like let me hear what y'all are working on okay so we play it and it was like the song gucci it was one of the first ones i ever wrote oh my god and he was like, let me hear what y'all are working on. Okay. So we play it and it was like the song Gucci. It was one of the first ones I ever wrote. Oh my God.

And he was like, let me get on that. And we were like, okay, we don't have to do this alone. You can build an amazing team and have people that are committed with you long-term. So in terms of the sustainability of being an independent artist in terms of making money, where is the vast majority of the money coming from right now streaming okay once you get your music made and you're happy with the mix and master you got to kind of assemble your team you got producer mix mix engineer mastering me i'm assuming you write your own songs which of

course you do right i do right so plenty of people don't right and there are songwriters as well right i know many talented songwriters. I've worked with them on some of my... I have tons of friends who, yeah, that's what they do. Yep. Yep. You really can put a team together. As much as you can do by yourself is obviously better.

You get the record, you upload it to a distribution platform like DistroKid or TuneCore. I'm a DistroKid girl. And they're upping their ante. I mean, they've... I'm one of the top independent artists overall. Which is really... Thank you. So well-deserved.

It's like, it's such an honor. But it's great because they don't take any money. It's like 30 bucks a year. Okay? That's fantastic. Some people will sign a distro deal with like a label or a subsidiary. Right, to distribute the music, right. So...

They just put it on iTunes and Apple and they say, we're going to get you on playlists. They don't always do it. No. There's nothing that says they have to. It's like you signed a PR company contract where they're like, we'll get you on Forbes. And I'm like, will you though? Where is my money? Yeah.

They take between 20 and 40%. So that's like a record deal, but they're not doing shit. Sorry. Some of them do, but I haven't found them. Sure. So my Queen Herbie's recommendation, you know. For all of the aspiring independent artists out there. Because you're going to need to be on TikTok blowing your own shit up anyway.

So, I mean, obviously TikTok's been huge for us and it's changed my life and our business. For all of the aspiring independents. Because you're going to need to be on TikTok blowing your own shit up anyway. So, I mean, obviously, TikTok's been huge for us and it's changed my life and our business. And your natural. Thank you. Right back at you. But I think with the interesting thing about, like, you can't just be a good musician, which is hard enough. You have to learn how to produce your music or at least get it produced, right? You have to do all of the things around just like showing up and singing or rapping.

Right. All of the creation of that music. And then on top, oh, by the way, you need to be a branding, marketing, social media expert. Like that's a lot. Our biggest artists in the world right now are experts at the internet. I love that for us. I used to get playlists on Spotify because I don't get playlists, but when I do, I'm really excited. And one of them was like internet people.

Yeah. And I was like, oh, I'm an internet person. Great. Great. So my whole career, I've been told, like when I blew up on YouTube, they're like, oh, well, you're just a YouTuber. I'm getting that now. Like, oh, you're a TikToker.

Like, you're not a real financialist. I'm like. They're just mad It's Well and it's so new That people aren't Comfortable with it And I'm like

Yeah but this is where People are going Like when I get on Good Morning America Then is it legit Right Like what is it for you That makes you

So it's great If I wore a pencil skirt And I talked about money Would you like that Better Should I get my boobs Done or not This is really what

This podcast is at I don't need that You know but We're a poll. I'll take some out, please. If I get my tits done. There's so much to think about. That's so much to think about. That's why I love what you do because you're making it easier for women to not have to be so taboo on these topics. I try to. Yeah. Communication is so clutch. I do think the future is just on these topics. I try to, yeah. Communication is so clutch. I do think the future is just media. Yeah. I'm like queen media. What is it?

Right. Well, and again, the pressure of all of that, of like, you can't just be super mega talented, which should be hypothetically enough. I'm putting enough in quotes. Well, the cool thing is a lot of people are talented.

Right. So it's like you have to also offer some more things and i think this is where i'll bring in like the most i love that you're skeptical about like the woo-woo stuff i am i'm less skeptical than i was two years ago but i'm still like am i putting a crystal in my goddamn pocket i know exactly the feeling and i think this is the next thing for especially straight men to figure out because they're not like emotional or feminine enough to flow with life. We have this book that we just keep reading. It's called Letting Go by David Hawkins. And it's just, it's the act. I know. Careful. Licensing. Oh my God. But it's,

the theory is that if you are able to release things and not grasp onto them so tightly, they actually will flow perfectly into your experience. And that's the way I want to live. You were very publicly in a relationship. Yeah. And of course still are. What kind of toll did that take? This is maybe the biggest victory of my career so far

is that I've been able to stay in a relationship with someone I love. I remember even like when you went Queen Herbie, I was like Googling. I was that person who was like, for Amy and Nick Noonan still together. It's like Queen Herbie age, Queen Herbie divorced. Husband? Boyfriend? Gay? Queen Herbie boob job.

But like, because you're not only, of course, yeah yeah your business partners and your life partners like yeah it's in a record deal at a record deal touring because you toured as carmen right yeah okay the only explanation i have because i don't i can't even pretend to know everything i always take it back to the spiritual woo-woo shit it's the only thing that makes sense to me and i'm a very live it i'm a logical girl too but when i'm writing lyrics tori that is not me i am channeling something else i don't know if i'm changing my theta state in my brain and like there's somebody talking through me it's like a higher it's the higher self or god or whatever you want to call it so i'm trying to talk to her more and make this like a healthy

thing for people to do this is why i'm they call me like the dominatrix of self-care because I'm very aggressively like no bitch. Take care of yourself. You need a fucking bubble bath right now. You need therapy, please. And I need you to talk to yourself or talk to, you know, a professional because you deserve it. Because you're incredible. You're gorgeous. Like none of this should be fucking with you

if you're balanced and you know yourself and you let go right that's it i i mean a lot of women especially i mean you think of like beyonce sasha fierce right i think is it glennon doyle or liz gilbert who talk about like a different version of themselves i'm trying to get them on this fucking podcast please come on the podcast screaming Big Magic is one of my favorite books. Yeah, well, I think, doesn't she talk in Big Magic about, like, tapping into creativity and it almost feeling like a different person? Actually, she's describing another writer's experience, how they, I forget who the poet is, but she said a poem would come like a wind from the self.

Yeah. And you would have to catch it. And if you didn't, it would move on. Right. And those are ideas, right? But Creativity was like a siren or like a... It's a beautiful book. Yeah. Yeah didn't, it would move on. Right. And those are ideas, right? Creativity was like a siren or like a beautiful book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's incredible. They're incredible writers. I call them my spirit mommies. Wow. So it's like Glennon Doyle, Brene Brown, Oprah,

like all of these women in my head who are higher versions of myself. For sure. Right. Who are just like, hi, they paved the way for us, you know, to come in now and like translate that for our generation. Right. Or for this. Oh, God, I hope so. In a financial flavor or in a music flavor. I hope I'm 10% of those women. Yeah.

Like, I want, yeah. You absolutely are that. I'm not fishing. I want. No. I appreciate it, Amy, but like, I'm not fishing. I'm like a real real I'm a very comfortable with complimenting people

I am too because I feel that people don't get it enough you want to know not a genuine no here I heard this quote the other day I'm about to blow your mind

it was so beautiful maybe you've heard it before it was I'm going to give you your flowers regardless of if you water them which is like I'm going to compliment you that's bars

wait isn't that so good can I use that I don't know I don't know who said it but just I think it's so beautiful. I actually think I saw it on TikTok where it was like, I'm going to compliment you and what you do with it is your business. So if you want to throw your flowers in the garbage,

if you want to stomp on your flowers, ultimately I can't control that. I wish you wouldn't because I just gave you these beautiful bouquet of flowers. But like I'm going to compliment you regardless of how you feel about it. So you can either plant your flowers and water your flowers or yeah throw them in the trash and some people aren't ready for to take care of flowers it's a stressful job it is a stressful but just smelling them before they threw them in the garbage might have like made a tiny change yeah well and i think as women we're taught that it's it's becoming to not take compliments right oh please that's very cultural yeah to do that like and it's weird

if you go thank you i think i do look good right or like thank you i am good it's hard to take a compliment it's very hard well especially when we've been actively conditioned not to yeah especially girls from the midwest shout out i was born and raised in the northwest yeah yeah well and that experience of we're like going back and forth and back and forth, but that experience of being raised in Nebraska, you've obviously talked a lot about in your music. What do you feel like you hold onto about that experience? And what do you feel like you had to kind of let go? I think the compound effect, again, love that book, but the consistency model and the work ethic is real yeah like that will

never leave like if i'm ever in a bind or i feel like unproductive or like a creative block i'm like no eat a bowl of cereal and let's fucking go eat some cheerios i'm reading one now it's this is not a new book but it's the war of art and it's not the art of war it's the war of art the war of art because it's totally different it's totally different i did not know what to expect but so many people recommended it to me i was like god damn it so i got a little used copy i try to buy used books now because i'm like i have so many books so many books i just i'm like stop printing them um but i do love a physical book but i don't have an e-reader i will i refuse what the world can be burning and i'm like no old school bitches. I just really, I love the smell.

I love the feel. And I spend so much of my time on a screen. True. That like reading a book is my only, like one of my only breaks at this point. Yep. Because even if I watch TV, screen, right? Or like listen to a podcast, like you, you know, if you're not listening on YouTube, that's slightly different.

I'm glad that libraries are not completely gone. I know. They're the only thing we have left. Yeah. I mean, movie theaters are like, woohoo. I know. Libraries are super important. So physical books, but the war of art is actually about the resistance to being creative. Resistant, what do you mean? Tell me more about that. So if you're a creative person, sometimes just opening the laptop and writing for four hours a day is the hardest thing to do. The actual work. Like so

many people in this town, in LA, I see them and they look gorgeous and they're out and about and I'm like, what are you working on? They're like, nothing. I didn't make anything this year, but I'm waiting for my label to the, you know, it's like, no, oh no. I've always that Nebraska flavor that I think is really, really valuable is that work ethic and just like the self-reliance, which can be a downfall too because I don't ask for help enough, you know. Yeah. But I know that if I was in a bind, I could figure out a way. Yeah.

Every time. Speaking of Liz Gilbert and what you just said, i think about what she says a lot around like perfectionism have you heard her speak about that she talks basically that like we we have these labels of you know oh i'm a perfectionist and we think it's a good thing when in actuality like it's a killer it's perfectionism she said i think quote is, perfectionism is fear and stilettos. That's cute. So it's like. She would say that.

She needs to be a rapper. I know. She's great. Lyricism. I know. Like this concept of like, you're so afraid of getting started or you're so afraid that it has to be perfect

that nothing ends up getting produced. Anyway. That's what I see too often. Right. So I'm like. Because I see too often. Right, right. So I'm like very— Because we're too scared. Because it's very, very, very vulnerable to produce anything. Imagine, yeah, I mean, you're born on Earth.

We don't even know why we're here. And then you grow up with a talent that you don't want to show anyone because you're sizing yourself up. You're like, am I pretty? Am I ugly? Am I smart? Is somebody else better than me? Am I stupid? I don't have rich parents. Am I ever going to make it? There's too much. It's too much to think about. Should I get a boob job?

We just keep going back. Is that the honest thing that's thinking all the time? I mean, no, but it's a lot to consider. And I think that's where the resistance comes from. Yeah. Because you're like, well, it's easier for me's a lot to consider and I think that's where the resistance comes from Yeah, because you're like well It's easier for me to just like sit here and like be distracted on my phone, right? But then that feeling that that comes in when you finally do put your phone away at 2 a.m and you sit for the five minutes or hour before you fall asleep and you're like And it's really not that much time like even if you do 15 minutes of focused work to work a day It compounds and after a year and a, you have like three albums done.

You do. Yeah. But there is that bravery and the vulnerability that you have to become okay with in order to release anything. It's also stamina again. Yeah. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Right. Repeatedly. Yeah. It's like a muscle, right? So the more you're doing it, the more comfortable you get. Which is why we love self-care because you're going to be uncomfortable a lot. Yeah. And it's good to like learn how love self-care because you're going to be uncomfortable a lot. Yeah. And it's good to like learn how to self-soothe and talk to yourself in the right ways. Yeah.

Because babe, that's actually going to help you be productive. So I've said on the podcast before, and I would love your thoughts about this because you keep bringing up self-care and I'm all about it. I loved your thing about wrap yourself up in a down blanket

and look at your finances. Yeah. But remember at the beginning of that episode, I made a distinction and I love, you can disagree with me all you want, between self-care and look at your finances. Yeah. But remember at the beginning of that episode, I made a distinction and I love, you can disagree with me all you want, between self-care and self-soothing. Because I think a lot of the self-soothing activities get branded as self-care.

Sure. Like the bubble baths and the face masks and the glass bottle of wine, you know? But it's like, those are the things that are so necessary, but we do them in the moment because we're trying to cope with something that happened. Right. Rather than i for me self-care feels like the hard shit right it's the shit that you do because you're trying to

make your life better it's temporarily uncomfortable yeah so like going to therapy i know i was eating a salad i was like you don't want to eat a salad right having a hard conversation with a friend like that for me feels like true self-care for sure and so i i just learned that this i'm like oh i learned this let me share it i love it um the actual invention of the term self-care comes from a black queer woman of the 70s tell me everything this is fascinating to me her name is audrey lord and her quote was this really exactly what we're saying. Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation. And that is an act of political warfare. I was like, yes. You know, it's not the bubble baths and the face masks and all this like

whitewash. Commercialized. Yeah. No, this was activism. Well, that's what I see money as. And people ask, they're like, I don't understand how money as and people ask they're like i don't i don't understand how money is political and i'm like well you look for two seconds and it is that when it's also in a society that actively does not want you to have money if you're a member of a marginalized group yes you having a financial foundation is right it's an act of protest against a system that it's actively trying to prevent you from having agency. So there we go. That's the learn.

If you didn't know that, Audrey Lorde, yes, she is the reason that we say self-care. And that's the original intent of the word. Right. So it's, yeah. And even, again, in a capitalist bullshit society, it's like self-care is now commercialized to the point where, yeah, it's eggs shoved up our vagina. It's America. We can sell everything. I know. And wellness, right? The wellness movement, which is a bunch of white women

at a group conference. If there's an opportunity to make money in America, it will happen. So just find people you vibe with that feels like their intention is pure. Because somebody could actually raise their vibration effectively and become more successful following one of those people that were you know criticizing but it will often lead to even better role models and better writers and authors and activists so it could be gateway i think everybody does serve a purpose even though they're not all super aware of why they're selling vagina eggs candles that smell like yes my pussy um i mean shit that's something i would do see i can't even be i'm like shit i should have thought of that

i have i have people um dm me like hey i started this bit like this candle business a year ago listening to queen herbie and i'm so inspired and i made a million dollars you're like where are my royalties off of that? No, but that's amazing. Right? Yeah. That's actually one of my biggest questions for you. The queen vibe is like confidence, getting money. Like I fucking love it. Thank you. What kind of relationship do you wish women had with money? And what is your relationship with money? I had a document called money, honey, a spreadsheet. And I used to curl up in my cocoon and I used to look at that shit. Like I had the same instincts as you. That's why I was like, I need to be on this podcast. Thank you. I just, I agree. It's so powerful for you to just get

close to it. I've had girlfriends who marry a guy because he says he's going to take care of them and they don't ever learn anything about money. And of course, that's going to end badly. Way more common in 2022 than you think. Yeah. It's still so common. It breaks my heart. Yep. And I'm like, nope, this is my vibe. We literally, I have tweets from people every day, like listening to your music has changed my life.

I'm living the dream right now, you know, and I'm constantly still learning. I'm still not happy with where I am. I'm never going to stop. But I do think that financial freedom comes from knowledge. Is that what you want for women? That's what I want for women. And I would love to see it in our lifetime when the gap is gone. Yeah. I would love to see that. I don't know if it's possible. What do we get, like 100 years? It's not possible. Not? Yeah. Yeah. I think pre-pandemic,

it was like, I think, 82 years, depending. And I think now post-pandemic or like in the midst of coming out of the pandemic, they're saying add 30, 40 years on top of And I think now post-pandemic or, like, in the midst of coming out of the pandemic, they're saying add 30, 40 years on top of that. Really? Yeah. Really? They think it set us back? Because specifically with, like, working moms.

Thank you. It's like this huge. My friends quit their jobs to take care of their kids. Huge fucking issue. Well, and, like, I think about in Seattle, I know Los Angeles has to be similar, if not worse. Daycare is the price of another like another mortgage or another rent payment absolutely yeah i do love the seat look i love a mom i love somebody who's destined to be a mom but like child free my child free bitches

like hey that's how we're gonna do it yeah same i. Same. I think that's how we do it. How we do what? What do you mean? How we close the gap. Having less children? I think so. Is that, I would argue that that puts it back on us though. That it's like, it's our job to close a gap that isn't our fault in the first place. Just like have less children.

Sure. Sure. If that's your dream, then you got to do it. Right. Oh, if you're supposed to be a mom, go. Right. But then it's like, yeah. Then it makes it on us of like, then there's an added guilt to that decision potentially. Right. And I think it's much more complicated. Children are very expensive. They are a hundred percent. Like we know statistically that like you are more likely to have money if you don't have children. Right. But also like

these gaps that exist are because there's no paid family leave required in the united states right or there's no yeah daycare is is two thousand dollars for one child for part-time care a month right so i feel like hey you didn't cause this gap and now it's your job to fix it but like getting an iud is like i don't know absolutely you know no you're 100 right that's why i was like i I know I'm going to learn something. Because I'm over here like having anxiety at night and like, you know, Googling, why do people choose to not have children? Because it's scary.

You're kind of, society expects us to do things. And I've already broken out of so many things. And I'm like, oh God, I'm 35. Like, I'm probably not going to have kids. And I'm like, how do I teach myself that that's okay? Yeah. And then what are the arguments for and against it? Right. And it is usually, how do I teach myself that that's okay? And then what are the arguments for and against it? And it is usually, well, you have more freedom, more money.

Well, and it's that role you're expected to play. I thought I wanted to be a mom for a really long time. And in the past couple of years, in my own learning, it was like, do I actually want to be a mother? Or is that expectation just on me? Of like, this is what you're supposed to do. It's really hard to figure out which one it is. Is it me or is it society? And that's why I love Oprah because she often says like, no, I don't have any kids.

I have like thousands of kids because she sends girls to school. She's a mentor. That would be a much more favorable situation for me, I think. Me too. Me too. I like also want to be the cool auntie who just like flew into Paris. Like that's what I want to do is like come and like, I think. Me too. Me too. I like also want to be the cool auntie who just like flew in from Paris.

I know. Like that's what I want to do is like come and like, you know. I tell my siblings, I'm like, if your kids ever get sick of you. See, I'm an only. Send them to Gallup. Oh, you are.

I'm an only. I love that. That's very powerful. That explains a lot. We could talk for hours about it. But so, yeah, so you will get that option. If I get married or partner with somebody, like I think one of my like like, secret requirements is, like,

I need you to have siblings. Because, like, if I don't have children, I need to have, like, a child adjacent. Someone, yeah. I mean, we don't need to get into this, because this is, like, really deep. I went woo-woo, like, I probably went too far. No, there's no such thing.

We're not afraid of exploration and learning. No. But one of my fans sent me a book about reincarnation, because I'm like, look, we're not afraid of exploration and learning no but i one of my fans sent me a book about reincarnation because i'm like look what we're talking about all this other shit like what happens to your soul like i do have weird dreams and um i have some like some people say it's like what clairvoyance and all these different things i'm starting to uncover some of these gifts like if you see an astrologer they have a certain talent for this or like a psychic and so i'm looking at past lives and i'm like well probably definitely i had a dick at some point these gifts, like if you see an astrologer, they have a certain talent for this or like a psychic.

And so I'm looking at past lives and I'm like, well, probably, definitely I had a dick at some point. But if you are meant to collide with a soul, like if you're meant to be a mother, even if it's not biologically yours or if it's just like more of a mentor relationship and it's very like mom vibes, it's going to happen. Because I do believe this, and this is in like the Christian upbringing too, I'm pretty sure. But we are sort of like destined for each other. Whether you, you know, biologically have kids or not, they are going to find you.

Not where I expected this conversation to come from. Look at that. That's great advice. You are like the master of making the whole brand out of your vibe. So you get the makeup line. You get your video content around your aura cleansing and shit. It's great.

I feel like this is always just really like a smart move, but especially for women. Can you talk about owning your brand and developing something into like a whole vibe or a whole feeling. Absolutely. I think it wasn't until I became Queen Herbie that I started thinking this way because I did the queen spelling with a V. Right. And I was like, whoa. Why?

I know why, but I want to know. I was, yeah, I was, well, there's many reasons. Herbie is actually the mascot for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, which is so cute. He's like this little guy that comes out with the corn. I'm like, okay. Oh, I just think of Herbie fully loaded. That's... Also great. I knew it was the origin for you. It was a beetle. My first corn husker was a beetle. It was so bad. I felt very powerful. It's always been my brand, actually, to be like this quirky, loud, like bold person, unique person. But when I started seeing myself as a brand, it was actually a mentor that I picked up. A guy that lives in my building was like,

hey, what you're doing is really brilliant. Like, can I give you some advice? And I was like, thank you. And I had never had, definitely not like a straight man, like above the age of 50 helped me with anything for free. Like he wanted nothing from me, but like some ideas for his thing. And I was like, oh yeah, I love like, and he's telling me like, you're actually good at this, right? This is not something I got from my parents or from anybody I knew. And he started teaching me about this and how to build it. And he was like, I see you more as a curator. You're not like developing products from the bottom and building, you know, you're not designing like the shape of the tech device. You're choosing something and kind of promoting it to your audience

and being that conduit. Yeah. And I was like, no, I'm going to like mix the pigments in my kitchen. And like, so we did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we did. And I was like, damn,

we really needed that. Shout out to Queen Studio and Audrey, my babe, and like all my team in New York. They're incredible. But it was a slow, it was a slow build. That started five years ago as well. And we were mixing pigments in my kitchen. Like those countertops are stained forever. Sorry. Sorry to whoever lives there now. That red, oh my God, red number 40. Because also learning about

vegan and clean ingredients and then like FDA restrictions and then what goes on the box. And it's too much for me now but i but i have so much respect for it so my advice would be well and managing all of that and coming up with it and again fulfilling orders yes out of my house for the first whatever six uh six you're putting those shipping labels on those boxes until you find a fulfillment center that you trust it took three tries and you're paying them to yeah yeah It's important to build it with somebody that has like as much fire, if not more fire than you. Yeah. So I found my girlfriend, Audrey, like really was like, hey, I had a horrible music career too.

Let's do this. You know, and to this day, we're still building it. So my advice would be don't try to do everything yourself. Okay. Be ready to give away some ownership and bring a team into it. Make other people invest in it. Put it all on paper if you can. If you don't have a lawyer, just have an agreement, like an operating agreement and get creative. Red lipstick for me is like instant confidence and that's what I'm selling. So that was a no brainer. We did lips and lashes. I was

like, start small, right? And then expand. So then we started doing like eyewear and merch. And now we're doing finally physical music. Vinyls is like a whole process of manufacturing. But I luckily learned Photoshop along the way. So I am able to like put it together. You might need to hire a designer for that to make a logo. Like we luckily just were able to put it all together. And then over time you can expand to different categories but make sure you have a clear vision of why you're doing it yeah and enjoy it because it's just like anything else it's going to take time it's going to hurt sometimes and then you're going to celebrate every single little victory and you should you have to yep yeah i like, if we don't crack open a bottle

of champagne for this, when we had this big month, like we can't miss that. Right. Because that makes it the blow a little bit softer when you're like, oh shit, we just lost, you know, this, I don't know, subscription box that we were supposed to do. Like there's so much that can go wrong. Right. Okay. Yeah. TikTok. Yeah. What changed you with tiktok we've kind of like danced around it because for me everything changed everything yeah it's already evolved for me all of a sudden reels is like way better for me yep me too but this is how social media works how many platforms have you i mean for me it's it was youtube we had to figure out youtube in the early days and then it got it was great and then it kind of got kind of not great and then

instagram came out and we were like fuck we got to get good at this too. And it was like Twitter. It's like a whole other thing. It's like a mini TikTok within Instagram. So the only thing that's why you're smart, because you're building a community with your newsletter and you have people, don't ever put all your eggs in one platform. Build and borrow plans. Yes. And if you go to TikTok and you get something, you get a, we call it a vertical. If you get like me sitting in front of the microphone singing and putting the lyrics, that's a vertical and nail it. Vertical meaning like how it's shot? No, we call

it like a vertical, almost like a category, like a column or like a, like a, I don't know why we call it that. Is that a music industry term or are you guys just calling it that? It might be like a, like a social media marketing term. Like, well, my vertical is not singing on the microphone. My vertical is... Oh, no, I get that. Your niche. Thank you. Yeah, okay, I got you. Some people just hold it in front of their face and say funny things and cut it awkwardly. Or they'll do crazy transitions or something. So mine was a microphone with the lyrics. Which is so simple and it's so brilliant. So you nail it, nail it, nail it.

And you start seeing a decline. What you do naturally, you don't take it personally. You then find a new vertical. So then I was like, oh, why don't we do these one-liners? Where I'm like, oh my God, I could never wear that. And she was like. Let me show you how to abracadabra these bitches. No, I got you.

Yep. That sound blew up. Well, because then you were like, let me produce sounds that other people can use, which is so smart. Because that's all TikTok is now. It's like, well, let's inspire other people to be the star. I don't care. As long as you stream my songs, I'm cool.

I don't need to be seen. No, it's smart. I don't want my video to be the biggest video. I want my sound to be used. Because that translates to streams, which translates to money, which allows me to do more things. Well, and Sugar Daddy popped off.

Very interestingly. So only in um outside of america isn't this interesting because i got the show well probably because i follow you still trickled it trickled over here but it wasn't like we didn't get a plaque for that i was expecting to because it had like 50 million streams or something yeah but you still could right they were in egypt Dubai and Brazil and Southeast Asia. Weird. Like they called it like the WAP of that region because they're a bit more conservative.

And I was like, wow, sexual freedom is a thing right now. Love that. But then the new vertical, so that now we're pummeling that and we're like pummeling that. And now we're like, oh, we might need to come up with the next vertical. So just be ready to pivot. Yeah. But that's what tiktok has been and then dang when reels opened up and they they were like now we're pushing the algorithm is pushing reels i was like hey team why don't we just repost all that's what we do we rip our tiktoks eliminate the

tiktok logo no one cares nobody has time to say tori this video was clearly shot in august no one cares is it good content or not? Also, only five, I think it's two to five percent of people will even see your video. And if you get new people joining you all the time, you have a bunch of people

who've never seen old videos. This is why it's a mindfuck. Yeah. And you have to be comfortable getting repetitious with your message. Because that's what the best of them do.

Yes. And it makes your life a lot easier, takes the pressure off. Like, okay, every day I'm going to tell them they're a bad bitch because that's what's working. And that's what gives me satisfaction. Right. Well, I appreciate the ego being eliminated from that too.

Right. Because I think like a lot of artists, it's like, oh, I want to be known as the person who created this beautiful thing once. And I can't keep repeating myself. Totally. Oh, it's hard on the ego. It takes a while to let go. Right. The book Letting Go. Yeah. To let go of those expectations. And if you start trusting and allowing things to flow,

then, like, the universe is going to be like, bitch, you're actually supposed to, like, cut your hair off and do that. Like, I started wearing glasses. I'm like, nobody wears glasses. You wear glasses to the AMAs. I know. I was like, who does that? You wear fucking glasses.

Now people are thanking me. Are they prescription glasses? They are. Good. Thank you. I know. I was like, who does that? Your fucking glasses. And now people are thanking me for- Are they prescription glasses? They are. Good. Thank you. Thank you because I hate the fucking glasses. I'm like,

if you have not had your glasses knocked off by a tether ball when you were in third grade, you don't get to like co-opt them. The poor engineers have to like,

because I'm screaming and they're like, no, it just drives me insane. I'm like, you don't get to comment and hear this as a fucking fashion statement because I am,

I cannot see. I cannot see. Oh, the day that, the day that I told my mom that I couldn't see the chalkboard and she was like, oh, we're going to the eye doctor. I was like,

oh no. Oh. But then I was like, wait, glasses are fucking cute. I love my glasses now. I love them. But back then, God.

And then I was like, damn, I really do just like, I think I look funkier and cooler and like girls are less cute. I love my glasses now. I love them, but back then, God. And then I was like, damn, I really do just like, I think I look funkier and cooler and like girls are less intimidated, which is important because I talk to a lot of girls and I don't want them to be intimidated. I don't want to be too like pretty pretty. It's like, ew, no, I have a message. So now people are like, thank you for

normalizing glasses. Really? I think so many people have had trauma from feeling dorky with glasses and I'm like i think so many people have had trauma from feeling yeah dorky with glasses and i'm like no you get teased for it and it's also like it's such an inconvenience it is i'm running around in the gym cleaning them yeah and yeah that's a lot oh it's so funny glasses glasses girls glasses girl gang all right what sort of experience do you want people especially women to have when they listen to your music i uh visualize because this visualizing is important

when you're creating art of any kind you're like all right what is my intention what do i want people to but you're you have to like separate yourself from it right and i'm like damn when someone turns on my music oftentimes it isn't the morning when they're like getting ready to go and start their day. Because it's very like purpose, like I want you to find your purpose. Right. I want them to discover themselves to my music. I want them to have the vibration of, wow, I'm a way badder bitch than I ever thought. And as they're like putting on their makeup or just getting dressed, fashion is a huge thing for me.

I'm like, that's how you express yourself and build courage and stamina for facing this world every day. You once said, I'm a well-dressed motherfucker. I sure did. Which is still one of my favorite lyrics all time.

So good. And I'm learning now, like, I like to be cozy too. So I'm trying to figure that out. I'm like, is that a brand? The athleisure?

Yes. Queen Herbie? And I want people to feel their self-worth at such a high level that they can open their mind to these dreams that they might be suppressing. Because I was suppressed for so long. I know what it's like to pull back the onion layers. So when I make my songs, I don't write that many love songs

because for me, the self-discovery and self-love is actually the key to even manifest a relationship that's going to work. Yeah yeah i'm all about actionable advice yeah for you if you're willing to share what was that confidence journey for your own for like showing up because i feel like a bunch of people it's like fake it till you make it and i'm like is it that like i a lot of us of course we want to be confident yeah right but either we exist of course in a society that actively is like, what are you doing? Right? Or it's just like self-worth issues.

Yeah. Well, even all the way back in high school, when you know, when you know, let's go back to, let's take it back to fourth grade. Sure. Amy in Nebraska. And I was wearing Lion King shirt, Pocahontas. I was a, I'm still a Disney adult, which is so embarrassing. So the popular girl wanted to tell me that Disney shirts were stupid and that like. I'm still a Disney adult, which is so embarrassing. So the popular girl

wanted to tell me that Disney shirts were stupid and that I look like a little girl. It's like, when are you going to grow up and be sexy and cool like me? We're in fourth grade. Shut up, Amber. I don't know her name. Probably. Shut up, Amber. Yeah. So I was like, I need to get some Doc Martens. I need to get, or Airwalks is what I wanted. I really liked the more like street wear stuff sure and so I went to what was it like probably back then like TJ Maxx I think that's what it was or Marshalls

Marshalls and I got cool girl clothes and I was like oh wow like I could also get Jenko jeans which are like those crazy those are cool too so I was like wearing skater shit. And I remember that that was my choice to be, I was like, well, if I can't be a Disney girl, I'm going to be a grownup, but I'm going to be unique. And so that was successful for me because I noticed that it worked and then Amber was no longer bothering me. But you were also shamed into this choice.

I was, I was. I'm inspired by criticism. I am. I've had people tell me I can't do things and it makes me so... Oh, so you're like, I'm going to fucking do it. Look at me now. It was like my buddy...

You're getting paper. My buddy was like, I don't think this is a song you could do. I love him to death. But he was like, maybe just sing it. I was like, oh, sing it? So that's why I did it. So I'm motivated by that, and I think that's something you kind of have to be born with. But my advice would be, if you want more confidence, it's that stamina thing again, push yourself out of your comfort zone and just go for it. See how people receive it. People will be jealous and criticize you and all these things too. I feel like it's easier today than ever. Yeah, well, because you can hide behind anonymity.

For sure. And you can also see somebody out there killing it as a reflection that you have not taken a sort of vulnerable leap, right? You see somebody else's success potentially as criticism of your lack of pursuit of something, right? If you need confidence, go to a drag show. It's great advice. You will be so inspired. That's fucking great advice.

I am endlessly inspired by drag artists. Yeah. Yep. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me. No, it's incredible. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow.

I don't know what else to say that we didn't cover in that episode. Special thanks to Queen Herbie for joining me and being one of our biggest cheerleaders at Her First 100K and Financial Feminist. I had a full multiple fangirl moments in this interview, but one of the coolest moments just in general, just in life is when you have someone whose work you admire tell you that they admire your work. It's very, very flattering. And I just appreciated her deep vulnerability. We had some potentially really uncomfortable conversations and something that, you know, we're continuing, both of us, to navigate as individuals. And of course, we are all navigating as a collective society. And so I really appreciated her coming on and just being so transparent with all of this. You'll frequently also see her in our

comment section because she's just so supportive. So please make sure and give her and her music some love. She's at Queen Herbie on all the socials and Queen is spelled with a V as opposed to a U. So Q-V-E-E-N. You can follow her on Instagram and TikTok, listen to her music wherever you listen, and then bonus points always if you buy it. And we've got links to her YouTube and other social channels as well as Queen Studio, her makeup line in the show notes. We will see you back here every Tuesday with new guest episodes and every other Thursday for many episodes with me. Please make sure to subscribe, rate, and review Financial Feminist. That is the easiest way to support us

is hitting the subscribe button so you make sure to not miss an episode. We so appreciate, as always, your support and coming back every single week for conversations like this. Can't wait to see you next week, financial feminists. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Olivia Koning, Sharice Wade, Alina Hilzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Valerie Oresko, Jack Koning, and Ana Alexandra. Research by Arielle Johnson. Audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolf. And theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.

A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, episode show notes, and our upcoming book, also titled Financial Feminist, visit herfirst100k.com.