Interview: Bridget Kelly Speaks On Jay-Z, Frank Ocean, And Every Girl's Anger

Last seen with Jigga singing about the "concrete jungle where dreams are made," Bridget Kelly is finally seeing her own dreams come true. The Roc Nation signee says girls have got to stick together—unless, of course, you used to date her man.

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Image via Complex Original
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Her name is Bridget Kelly, but you can call her BK. Ever since her "Empire State of Mind" performance with Jay-Z on SNL,  we've been waiting for new records from the Roc Nation signee. Lucky for us, the New York native just released her new EP, Every Girl. We like what we hear.

With production from hitmakers like The-Dream, Ne-Yo, and Frank Ocean, her latest project is a certified banger. We caught up with BK before her listening session to find out what it's like to work with The-Dream and Frank Ocean, what fuels her music, and why she thinks women respecting other women is so important.

On “Seek & Destroy” you say, “You better not fuck this up.” Most female singers aren’t that direct.
Well for me, the majority of my music is really dark and to the point. I felt like using the F-word because it’s the most aggressive four-letter word that you could possibly use to describe something. I think you get the point across better by saying the F-word itself as opposed to saying “Don’t ruin it!”

For the clean version, we could use, “Don’t mess this up,” but to really get the point across, I have to be as in-your-face as we wanted the message to be, so it was necessary to use the F-word.

Where does all the anger in your music come from?
It really comes from a lot of relationships that I’ve been in or I’ve heard my girls come from. It’s a showcase of different situations and scenarios where the universal emotion that all women feel and all girls feel in their relationships—the insecurity, the doubt, fear, jealousy. Those are all real emotions that we feel and I’m just telling my story and giving my take on it.

The EP is called Every Girl and the title song for the EP is about getting rid of every girl that your man has ever been with before you. At some point in time, we all felt like we want to be the only one, we want to be the most important, the best, be the one who can last the longest. We want to beat every other chick out—as silly and juvenile as it seems—that’s something that we all [women] feel.

Do you write your own music?
Not all of it, no. But as far as the creative process goes, I always make sure that anything that gets discussed or talked about in the record is true to form. I make it a point not to sing anything that I haven’t felt or gone through.
Ne-Yo is another incredible storyteller that I happen to be good friends with. We can go back and forth in a conversation and he will be able to translate in song a story that I might’ve told him happened last year or whatever the case may be. Definitely as far as the creative process goes, we’re all involved, but I don’t write everything.

How was it working with Ne-Yo and The-Dream?
Amazing. As people they are incredibly talented, funny, and open minded and they get women. Dream and Ne-Yo understand what women go through, what we feel, what we talk about, what we’re scared of, and I think that their records show that clearly as well.

Everything that we came up with really was tailored for my story and they were real things that happened and they [the producers] were able help me put things together like the pieces of the puzzle so it can be perfectly presentable to the public.

Your first single was written by Frank Ocean. What is he like?
Frank did “Thinking About Forever” on his own. I wasn’t there for it, but he wrote it with me in mind and I obviously fell in love with the record and thought that it was great. It was exciting to put my vocals on a song that he wrote for me.

How did you first start working with Jay-Z?
I always wanted to be a part of a New York-based label so I’ve worked really hard to try and network with people that I felt would put me in the right place. My management sent my music over to Jay Brown who listened to it and we took a couple meetings and I sang for him. It was a connection that I had and it went really well.

That happened three years ago and I was so excited to be signed to the biggest mogul in New York next to Diddy—it’s Diddy and it’s Jay coming out of New York. It’s one or the other and I was just so so proud to be a part of Jay’s unit.

It was incredible sharing the stage with him. The excitement of the show never changed for me. It never got old, never got boring. Something that I learned from Jay-Z is to just always be excited about what you’re doing no matter how tired, no matter how sick, no matter how annoyed, no matter how stressed out you might be in your personal life.

Roc Nation really took their time with J. Cole. You were signed 3 years ago. Does this long process make you feel anxious?
The wait was not anticipated. I would be lying if I said I expected it, and I was excited to wait and put the album out. [But] I think that being a part of what Jay prides himself on, and what the whole team prides themselves on, is that they take the time to perfect the craft and to master it.

I didn’t know what to expect coming into it, so I was excited that I’ve been able to have the opportunity to take the time and to really make sure that the music I put out is true to me.

We can go in and record an album in a month and just put it out, but it’s more about making the impact and really standing out. People just go out and flood music all over the Internet and I think that’s cool, but I’m very happy with the idea that we’re building for something bigger than 15 minutes.

What do you think it is about yourself that makes these listeners bond with you?
As a woman the respect level for other women is crucial to your success, it’s crucial to your integrity. It’s hard to be a woman in this industry. It’s hard to maintain platonic relationships with people that don’t necessarily get the side eye. For me, my sense of confidence and my respect for the women around me is definitely the key piece to my success in all of my close friendships with everybody.

It’s more important to me to have female fans respect me and respect my movement and what I’m saying in my music, and then for a guy to be like, “Yeah, I mean, she’s cool.” I want to be a voice for women that respect other women. You can’t knock on women or disrespect women to get anywhere. Females gotta stick together—especially in this industry—because men are trying to knock us down all the time.

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