LADYGUNN – CAIN CULTO’S PAST LIVES AND EMPOWERING PRESENT

How is 2026 treating you spiritually, physically, mentally?

I’ve a variety of excited power round 2026. I’m releasing my album this 12 months, and actually stoked to lastly have this physique of labor that I’ve been engaged on for greater than two years out on the planet. It feels simply aligned in a variety of methods. 2026 feels aligned for me on all ranges, spiritually, artistically. 

Do you’ve gotten any springtime practices that really feel grounding? 

I’m in my tea part proper now. I can’t do espresso as a result of it makes me totally insane. So I’ve a very delicate tea. It’s not even extremely caffeinated, however I’m simply consuming that every one day. It’s giving me a variety of power. I’m noticing persons are like, “You’re posting in your tales much more than standard.” And I’m like, “Yeah, it makes me chatty and yappy once I’m caffeinated.” However that’s my spring routine. My ritual.

I’m actually excited to speak to you, not solely as a result of I’m an enormous fan of the music, however I really like multi-hyphenate artists. These are my favourite individuals to speak to. Earlier than music, what creative medium discovered you first?

My mother and father mentioned that I used to be all the time compulsively drawing as a child. I even have reminiscences of feeling tremendous pissed off that my advantageous motor abilities couldn’t sustain with what I wished to create and draw. And my dad was into cartooning just a little bit, so I’d all the time ask him to attract for me. Shortly after that, my mother and father put me right into a magnet artwork faculty and I used to be within the arts program, so visible arts, portray, sculpture. Later in life, my focus was extra in wearable sculpture, style stuff and images after which music. 

You grew up in Kentucky, are a toddler of immigrants, and have non secular roots. What did your group and humanities ecosystem appear like rising up?

I used to be homeschooled once I was actually younger, after which I had a 12 months or two in public faculty, however I feel my mother and father all the time seen I used to be a weirdo. In order that they have been like, “We have to put this child someplace protected as a result of they’re going to eat him alive.” I used to be delicate. They seen that I used to be totally different. I feel my entire life trajectory and my journey can be utterly totally different had I not been in such a protected surroundings like artwork faculty from a younger age. It was an open-minded faculty, despite the fact that I wasn’t. I used to be attempting to transform individuals to Christianity. On the identical time, the safetiness in that faculty was a great container for me to finally blossom and really feel protected to exist as I actually am. 

How did music discover you in all of that?

I grew up in a really musical household. My dad performs and makes guitar. I began studying to play the fiddle in class. I minored within the violin, after which I took non-public fiddle classes. In order that was my gateway into truly enjoying and contemplating myself a musician. I all the time wished to sing and write songs. I used to be making YouTube covers in center faculty and highschool. That’s once I started to dip my toes into songwriting. 

Ultimately that blossomed into main worship in my church communities. I began a Christian pop band that’s nonetheless on Spotify, so cringe and tacky. Truthfully, it helped me transfer out to LA, the funds from the royalties of that band. I contemplate taking it down so typically, however I’m like, I’m actually funneling that cash into my little homosexual family right here. That’s what allowed me to reside earlier than this new undertaking took off. 

Having that paper path of your earlier than and after is an fascinating method to your followers to have the ability to look again at within the grand scheme of your journey.

It’s candy. I cringe as a result of I hear the sincerity within the lyrics that I’m saying. However I feel you’ll be able to see how that needed to occur to develop the place I’m now. Completely different material, however sonically and you may hear me wrestling with fundamentalism and Christianity. There’s frustration even in these lyrics, after which you’ll be able to see the place it led.

How has your relationship to your individual spirituality in your journey developed from rising up, making that music to the place you are actually, particularly in your queerness? 

I feel what outlined the best way I’ve engaged with spirituality as a younger grownup and as a child was the concern that clouded every thing. Every thing was demonic, or not directly a departure from godliness. Even different religious paths, if it wasn’t White Evangelical Christianity, it was, in a technique, tainted by the satan. There’s a variety of cultural shaming, a variety of demonization of lovely cultural traditions simply because it’s not on this small framework that’s actually outlined by colonialism and the way they’ve demonized different traditions. Now, I feel what has occurred is that my concern became curiosity, after which became actual appreciation and desirous to immerse in and perceive.

I feel you see that in my work, there may be this cross-cultural side in every thing I do. I’m pulling from totally different components of the globe, and it’s coming from an genuine place. A whole lot of artwork tradition is tied to historic conventional practices and beliefs which have developed all through historical past. It’s onerous to say, does the artwork pull me in first? or is it my nerding out on this religious custom? It’s often each. After which I simply enable that to circulate by means of in my artwork in the best way that comes out naturally.

With ¡BASTA YA! you mentioned that you simply wished to energise individuals into motion. What do you suppose the function of music and leisure is in 2026?

Everybody has a unique function to play. I’m studying to embrace everybody on their very own timeline and journey. In my writing, it’s about packing a punchy assertion round humor or intercourse enchantment. That’s pop music. It’s packaging storytelling in a method that captivates a mass viewers. As I current my work and roll out my album, how are we utilizing these staple pop instruments and methodology whereas the activist a part of me needs to talk to issues of extra substance? How can we make this hodgepodge that attain people who don’t give a fuck about causes that I care about? I feel it’s the function of the artist on this second to do each. There’s nothing incorrect with leisure for pure leisure’s sake, however I feel it’s not sufficient if we aren’t talking in regards to the present second.

One thing I beloved about ¡BASTA YA! have been the Marionette puppets you made. Are you able to speak to me extra in regards to the inventive world that you simply constructed round these visuals?

It began with the unique model of ¡BASTA YA! and the primary concept was creating jackets out of pinatas. My companion and I thrifted these jackets and used wrapping paper to make them appear like an precise piñata. This concept of creating puppets got here to thoughts, particularly creating ICE puppets to poke at their energy, carry them down, and to point out how they’re actually pawns for this administration. 

Then final month the chance to do the remix with Snow The Product got here round and my inventive director was like, “What if we make miniature puppets of you three?” as a result of we weren’t capable of get us all collectively in the identical room to shoot visuals. I purchased some folks puppets, repainted them, hooked up new hair and customised them in the identical jackets that we had within the unique video. 

I really like the Dora The Explorer reference in  “chismosa.” You and Jarina regarded nice. Do you’ve gotten every other media that you simply grew up with that you simply really feel imprinted in your inventive voice?

One foundational present for me as a child was Avatar: The Final Airbender. One thing about Avatar that was essential to me at the same time as a child was the overt religious themes. It wasn’t Western Christianity, despite the fact that the present is written by Western writers. They’re actually packaging a variety of Jap thought for Western audiences, and perhaps that’s the primary time they’re even studying about these subjects. It serves a goal. It was spoonfeeding me a variety of these concepts as a child that I used to be capable of go in my very own path and research for myself. I really like the thought of the Avatar and bringing stability and issues. I feel I all the time carry up in my very own work, my Libra nature is all the time wanting to carry a number of realities without delay. 

Hat + Coat, PIPENCO. Necklace, LUAR x VITALY. Shorts, LEVI CAMPELLO. Boots, Classic.

What are you able to share about your newest single, “BIM BAM BAU?”

“BIM BAM BAU” is my summer time anthem. I actually wished one thing that felt just like the seashore. We filmed it on a type of sizzling, sweaty days. The tune is about twerking. It’s my simplest and relatable tune. I wished to create one thing that felt celebratory. It’s humorous, as a result of I don’t exit partying that a lot. I feel individuals suppose I’m extra loopy than I’m, however I had this one expertise the place we’re out on the membership and this random lady was simply dancing with us. Spiritually, it was so highly effective. I used to be twerking with this lady and it impacted me a lot. I used to be like “I would like to put in writing a tune about how highly effective I felt dancing.” It interpolates Gloria Estefan’s “Conga” and it’s my very own sort of Kentucky bluegrass flip on this clearly Miami-based monitor. It was drawing from each of my rising up in Kentucky and in South Florida near Miami. 

How do you suppose the tune is in dialog with the album?

The album is rather more summary, experimental and darker. This is among the extra completely happy, lighthearted moments. The document actually dives into the shadow, anger, frustration, sorrow and loss. However I need every thing with stability, so I wished a very vivid, playful tune that would relate to lots of people. I wished youngsters to listen to the beat and really feel actually energized to bounce.

The place it’s much like the album is, that greater than my earlier work, that is such an embrace of my very own uncooked sexuality. It’s reclaiming one’s energy by means of embracing your sensuality. Simply realizing the place I got here from, how a lot opposition and concern and repression there was of that side of myself, to now have a tune the place there’s two big butts subsequent to me on the quilt artwork simply looks like me conquering that concern.

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What else does the summer time and the remainder of the 12 months have in retailer for you?

We’re doing a Satisfaction run, and I’m ending the document. I’m engaged on a pair collaborations proper now, and I wish to get again into pitching singles. I really like writing and producing for different artists. So I positively wish to put a variety of my effort and time into additionally simply pitching songs for pop artists that I really like. So my fundamental manifestation this 12 months is to collaborate with the primary pop lady. 

What do you search for in a collaborator, and what do you suppose makes a great collaborator?

I all the time search for individuals with a transparent visible id. That’s essential to me. Folks must be baddies. No matter that’s, I simply know when somebody’s a baddie I like to enter different individuals’s worlds, too. I like to be a chameleon. Cain Culto as a undertaking is absolutely me exploring heightened variations of myself by means of this character. So if I see another person that has actually charged power and a very clear perspective, I like to enter that world after which carry my power and create one thing particular.

It’s protected to say that there isn’t any artist on the market with a voice in popular culture fairly like Cain Culto. His explosive, celebratory presence is a wanted one in a local weather that always villainizes LGBTQ+ and Latinx communities. He’s a ray of sunshine that brings the warmth to each undertaking he creates. He’s certain to sizzle and steam this summer time along with his upcoming tasks. “BIM BAM BAU” has us sweating within the meantime!

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