I was a teenager when I first ran away to New York. There was this book that was really popular at the time in anarchist punk circles called Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink for Beginners. This book literally said, “Run away from home, start your own life, fuck everything.” It was very positive about how “you can do it, you can be an adult.” That combined with “get free, get free, get free” from Lauryn Hill Unplugged—I packed a suitcase. I stole a hundred bucks out of my mom’s wallet, literally only a hundred. My mom makes fun of me to this day. She’s like, “I wish you had stolen more.” I took a Greyhound bus from North California to New York. I was so naive, I hid my suitcase in Tompkins Square Park and obviously it was stolen within an hour.
I was heavily influenced by Paper, the Face, i-D, and Index Magazine. That’s how I knew about Electroclash, Williamsburg, and Ryan’s stuff. The masthead of Index had all these people’s emails. Before coming to New York, I’d emailed Kathleen Hanna, Vincent Gallo, and Vaginal Davis. Vincent Gallo emailed me back. He was like, “Don’t come to New York. You’re an idiot.” So I wrote to him again and I’ll never forget this. He could tell I was planning on running away and said, “If you get sick, email me again.”
I was sixteen at the Cock. I made fifty dollars dancing naked on the bar. I met Alexander McQueen. I had no filter and was just like, “You’re Alexander McQueen.” As soon as I said it, two gay guys swooped in to shield him from me. I was sixteen at the Cock.
My mom hired a private investigator but they couldn’t find me—I was always calling from different pay phones. Then I got an internship with Elle Girl, the teen Elle. I wrote a letter to the editor asking to be an intern, and she accepted. My mom fully supported me doing that. She gave me money and paid for me to stay in a hostel called Jazz on the Park while I interned. Then I came home and was grounded for four or five months.
Years later, back in New York, I started doing music, not because I was so into music, but because I wanted my peers to think what I was doing was cool. After college, I had wanted to do studio art, but I couldn’t afford the supplies. Then a bunch of people encouraged my poetry. I published a book of poetry and all of a sudden I had an article in Interview Magazine. I realized older people were listening to my poetry but my peers didn’t think it was so cool. So I started a band called No Fear. We were really, really arty. It was my training ground, laying the foundation to eventually become Mykki Blanco.
When people ask where “Mykki Blanco” came from, I can honestly say, “One day, I just had an idea.” It was in the midst of a pop culture moment. Nicki Minaj’s feud with Lil’ Kim was just starting. I was thinking about Cindy Sherman and was super inspired by the photographer Nikki S. Lee when I had this idea about a teenage girl who wanted to be a famous rapper. I got makeup and a wig and started making these videos and putting them directly on Facebook. One day, I got all dressed up and went outside. It was that simple. I’ll never forget this guy running across the street to ask me for my number. At McDonald’s, a guy held the door open for me. Going through life as a gay boy and then all of a sudden to have people treat you like a hot girl, it was like opening Pandora’s box.
Everything happened so quickly. Venus X from GHE20G0TH1K was like, “If Mykki wants to be a rapper, you should rap.” The very first Mykki Blanco rap is still on YouTube: “Black Sailor Moon, Doom Generation, Dark Joan of Arc, Now give me my veneration . . .” The second Mykki Blanco song was produced by fucking Arca. Francesco Carrozzini directed and produced the video for my song “Wavvy” for free. I blew up on Tumblr.
I don’t even own a copy of my poetry book anymore. I have a PDF of it, but God. I’m doing my master’s degree now. Professor Blanco.