When you're in the company of Helen, Chaydha, Melanie, Alisa and Tami (a.k.a. OMG Michelle) you might feel like you're crashing an ultimate-bestfriends-slumber-party.  But, don't worry, they won't make you feel weird.  In fact, they'll make you laugh and dance so hard, you might pee your pants.

Oh, and we're predicting it now, "You Don't Know Michelle", is going to be the Summer of '08 anthem!

Chief Magazine: So, why don’t you guys introduce yourselves!

I’m Tami of Michelle a.k.a. Africa
I’m Alisa Michelle of Oh My God Michelle a.k.a. Christmas
I’m Chaydha, Little Man
My name is Helen Harris
I’m Melanie a.k.a. Coco Slim

I guess the obvious question is how all these wonderful aliases came to be, but I guess I’ll just skip over that. [Laughing] Like, Christmas, really?  Were you born on the 25th of…

Alisa: Of April! [Laughing] And I love red and green.

Oh, okay. So, how did you guys all meet?

Chaydha: Well, me and Helen and Melanie went to college together at Antioch. Then Melanie started working at a restaurant in Brooklyn and then we met Tami through there and we all became friends.  And Alisa moved to New York last summer and Helen was subletting her room before she got here.  And then she came and then we were all, like, instantly together.

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Chaydha a.k.a. Little Man

Bam! So, you guys were hanging out and then someone was like, “you know, we should start rhyming and being awesome”?  I’m always interested in how “hang out” dynamics shift and become artistic endeavors.

Tami: I remember we all used to hang out together at parties-

What kind of parties were you going to?

Tami: Pantyho’s was one of the ones we’d all hang out at, in the beginning.

Helen: A lot of house parties too.

Melanie: The Met [Metropolitan].

Tami: And we were sort of obnoxious about music, we’d look at each other and be like…

Helen: “Better get CRUNK in here!” [Laughing]

Tami: Yeah, just like, “this is so lame, we’re not dancing to this.” And then when a song came on that we liked we’d get all hype about it and dance… tell the “Creation” story Helen!

Helen: Well, we met Alisa and mostly we just hung out, partying, a lot of drinking.  But, also, we had a dinner collective and Alisa and Chaydha both have backgrounds in music. And me and Mel and Chaydha go waaaay back. Actually, in college we were supposed to start this band.

Really? Like a band, band? Like a, someone was going to be on bass, band?

Chaydha: I had this ukulele.

[Everyone laughs]

Melanie: We had plans to go on tour before we even started a band! [Laughing]

Helen: Well, we were a part of this queer women’s collective and we wanted to make music and do talks. We all write. We’re all up on our shit. Like some real lez shit, like everything creative, holistic healing. [Laughing]

Fucking takin’ herbs,

Helen: Exactly! And we wanted to go on tour and connect with people all over this country and continent who were doing the same kind of stuff.  And maybe start a consortium or plug into a network that already existed. We had all these friends at Antioch and we wanted to meet other people who do that shit too. And some of us, in that collective, were like, “I want a band”.  And me and Mel and some other good friends we went to college with, were like, “that’s going to be our part, we’ll have the band”.  So then Chaydha got a ukulele… [Laughing] but it NEVER happened! [Laughing] Who knows what it would have been! Maybe it would have been some crazy jam shit. But, that didn’t happen and we met Alisa and Tami and did this dinner collective. So, people got to eat home cooked meals. Good food, good friends and even if you’re broke, you get to eat real food, instead of chips and garbage…

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Helen Harris

Yes, no eating out of garbage pails. [Laughing]

Helen: Like, no more chips and bodega sandwiches and beer! And we were doing that and we were like, “we need to do something… let’s rap!”  And we’re like a group. What do you do when you have people, like, like us? Chances are, you rap.

[Everyone laughs]

And did you guys meet KINGDOM along the way?

Helen: Well, when his first mix tape came out, I was really into it.  I just thought, it was really interesting how he pulled from these different genres and it was dance music.  And, at least for me, it was like, what I want.  It was music I could see myself being involved with.  And they [the rest of the group] were like, “yeah, I like this, this guy is really talented” and he is, I mean, he uses everything- pulling from different European dance movements and R&B, and so, we were like “KINGDOM, we like all the stuff you do, but we want to make crunk and we want it to appeal to people like us.” And so, he said he could do that and made a beat and sent it to us and we started the rap and went to his house to record. And Alisa, Chaydha and me went and finished writing and recording “You don’t know Michelle” there,

Chaydha: Yeah, it was all in one night.

Helen: And he kept adding to it and taking it so many different directions, so it wasn’t done for a little while. And it turned out to be this crazy, good song.  And we worked with him more and all the songs we have, to date, KINGDOM produced. Um, and we’ll continue to work with him, but we’re interested in working with other producers. And networking.  Mostly it’s about having fun and meeting new people and making fun music.