How the Empress Made Herself the Main Character in 'For Your Examination'

Lorely Rodriguez appears on the screen for the Zoom call from Los Angeles. She beams in from her house, which she claims is a mess. The singer, songwriter and producer, who releases music as Empress Of, attended the Billboard Women in Music Awards last night and didn't get a chance to get fit. “It looks like a hurricane came through here. I had hair and makeup and rings,” she explains. Rodriguez bristles that appearing on camera on red carpets is part of her job now, but if playing a star is in her job description these days, it might be because she is.

Over the past decade, Rodriguez's emotionally and musically complex electronic music has earned her a large underground following. As he has passed career milestones, selling out dates in Paris and London, touring with Carly Rae Jepsen, the following has become much less underground.

On her fourth album For your attention, Rodriguez approaches this moment with subtle humor, starting with the album art. On the front cover, she rides a shooting star that appears to have escaped from a marquee, while the lights of her hometown of Los Angeles shine below. In the back, she's draped in gold as she crawls across a plush carpet that looks just like an Oscar trophy. Both images are anarchic, erotic and surreal. The visuals pair well with the wild, unruly energy that permeates the record.

Call this her writer's era. With For your attention, Rodriguez stepped fully into the role of executive producer, teaming up with an array of songwriters and producers to create a pop-driven album driven by protean dance beats. Although he wrote and produced the 2020s I am your empress on her own, she started collaborating with other producers and songwriters in 2018 Uswhere her collaborators were Devonté Hynes.

Collaboration has become part of her creative process, but the truth is, she's more independent than ever. Having left XL Recordings, her new album will be the first to be released on her own Major Arcana label. She told Rolling Stone why it's some of her best music.

The title track to For your attention it's about separation. Can you tell me to write it?This song was the catalyst for the album. I've told this story about the song, about falling in love with a director and being love bombed, and then being told they're emotionally unavailable. The next day, they announced their FYC for the Oscars and I saw it all over the internet. I went into the studio and told this story to my songwriter and my collaborators and we played on it. You wouldn't have the album if I didn't write that song. And I wouldn't have written the song if that guy didn't tell me what he told me.

How did this song become a catalyst for the rest of the album?
Thematically, it's this idea of ​​wanting to be wanted. This record has a lot of push and pull, a lot of “I want you to want me, and I want you to be out the door tomorrow morning.” You know, quick thrills. I wrote this record when I was single. So it's very much like all these people, all these stories, all these moments, none of them are here now, but I kind of make myself the main character. I'm the star of the show. Maybe I did it to feel good about myself.

Was sexuality something you wanted to explore with this album?
I wasn't in the mood to write a breakup album. I am your empress it was a breakup album. Even the day this record came out, I was crying. I was happy at the same time, but it felt so emotional. And I just wasn't in the mood. Every time I went into the studio, I said, “I want to feel warm. i want to feel lustful.” I want to be on stage feeling the way I feel right now, having fun and having a good time. I remember just saying to the songwriters, “How are we going to make it hot? How do we make it sexy? How are we going to flirt with it?' If we ever tipped into the separation zone, I would say, “No! No! No! No!”

You're playing with the idea of ​​Hollywood a bit For your attention. Do you feel like you have a different view of Hollywood as someone who is from Los Angeles?
I've seen For Your Consideration billboards all my life. My mom was a cleaner and a nanny and we used to go to these big houses. He was always so distant from me, even as an adult. My friends hung out at Sunset Tower and Chateau Marmont and I had never been there. I've never been on that side. I had never really been to West Hollywood growing up. Well, I thought it was funny, now that I'm at this stage in my career, I said, “Wouldn't it be so funny if I had a billboard that said For Your Cause: For your attention.” Makes me laugh.

It also has that energy to be remarkable and award-worthy. Like, I painted myself gold. The back cover of my record is painted like a statue, like an Oscar or a Grammy. In a way, I'm already choosing myself. As in, I know this record is good.

The album has some pop tendencies. Were you deliberately tapping into your inner pop star?
The thing about pop music is, however you define it, it's really, really hard to write a pop song, make something that catchy and concise, and get the lyrics right. This record is some of the best songs I've ever made and I think part of that was having amazing songwriters, who write a lot of pop music, in the room.

Some of the first meetings I had for this album were with Nate Campany and I learned so much about songwriting. It was a challenge for me not to drown things in transit. I really like that because I'm ten years in and I'm still learning things about myself as an artist.

When I wrote “What's Love,” I felt so embarrassed afterward about the vulnerability I had. I left the studio and was like, “I can't get this song out. It's the worst song I've ever written.” After a day, I listened to it and said, “This is one of the best songs I've ever written.” But I would never have written this song myself.

After producing yourself for a long time, was it difficult to relinquish some control?
It's in the relationship with the other people in the room. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Everyone on this record gave me room to really co-create. I've been in rooms where I don't feel that, and those songs don't sound like my songs.

I'm really happy that everything on this record sounds cohesive, even though Nick León does futuristic reggaeton and I have Kyle Shearer, who produced Carly Rae Jepsen and Caroline Polachek. But they are all people I admire.

Were there specific pop references you had in mind for songs like “Kiss Me?”
You wouldn't hear it in the songs either, but I was listening to Dream. That was Puff Daddy's first band he did, in the early 2000s. I was listening to Tupac, “Changes.” My head was in nostalgia when I wrote “Kiss Me”.

How would you define pop star?
I think he has a song that reaches global status. For me, if someone plays my song at a wedding, then I'm a pop star. I want it, sure. I want to make a song that is played at birthdays, weddings, funerals. This means that I made a song that is universally understood to some extent.