Audrey Nuna Explores Duality With Her Latest EP ‘A Liquid Breakfast’
Photography by Khufu Najee
Audrey Nuna is the future. She’s a future star. She’s the future of how artists create and diversify. She even self-identifies as a futurist. She’ll rap on a track if she wants but she wouldn’t call herself as a rapper. She sings soulful r&b, if that’s what the song requires but won’t be pigeonholed as a chanteuse.
Originally from the “suburbs of the suburbs” in New Jersey, Audrey’s been writing music since she was young but it wasn’t until she moved to NYC for college that her output really amped up. The rapper/singer/producer is prolific to a point where if you saw her hard drives you’d shame yourself for laziness.
With such volumes of content she reveals herself to be an intuitive curator as well. Her recent EP, a liquid breakfast was ten tracks. Out of literally hundreds. Most artists have a hard time deciding when they’re “done.” Or even what they like. She seems to have a handle on narrowing work down to the essentials.
“Sounds cliché, but honestly you just know, a lot of the songs I write are trash. When I want to listen to something I’ve made seven times in a row on the way home from working on it – that’s how I know I want to share it with other people. When I listen to any music, it either gives me a dopamine rush or it doesn’t. It either increases my heart rate or it doesn’t. So the same principle applies to my own shit.”
a liquid breakfast not only demonstrates the breadth of Audrey’s talent but also how she deftly avoids classification. “It’s the soundtrack of my move from the suburbs into the city back into the suburbs. I was a kid when I started writing it. I’m still a kid but there was definitely some Pika to Raichu action throughout the course of this project. I hope I stay a kid forever,” says the 22-year-old.
“It’s weird because I was super shy, I would get so nervous to even just raise my hand in math class to ask a question – but music and performing was way more comfortable to me than normal life.”
It’s almost as if her comfort zone lies in paradox. “Duality is a big recurring theme of this project and my life. Nonchalant and overthinking, foreign and familiar, hard and soft, ugly and beautiful, alone and lonely. I wrote a lot of this project from my apartment in New Jersey, recorded a bunch of it in my closet, sweating.”
Music is only part of her creative prowess. Evidenced by the aesthetics of her music videos, each one a legit filmic piece that belongs flickering onto the walls of a modern art museum. In how many creative outlets does Audrey express herself?
“Music will always be my rock. I would love to do other things though. I want to design couches and make cool ice cream flavors. Writing a TV show could be cool but I haven’t tried it yet. We’ll see. I love fashion and design, anything on the visual creative direction side. I would love to work with Crocs on some custom Jibbitz or creative direct a campaign for a fashion brand at some point… I also fucking love food, especially because I can’t cook very well and it’s one of those mediums where I’m just a consumer and nothing more.” @audreynuna
