For singer Audrey Nuna, artistic honesty means refusing to give into sonic convention. Her lyrics are by equal turns playful and serious, fantastical and down-to-earth: “Need a petticoat, feel like Comic Sans / Overused for that paper by the gram,” she slant-rhymes in “Comic Sans.” In “damn Right” Nuna muses, “Guess I’m supposed to be grown, this how it feel bone to bone / And I did post but I’m alone, rich off catfish like Petco.” And in “Suckin Up,” her just released single, instead of 21st century peers, Machievalli and Botticelli get name drops, as does the Mona Lisa, but it all comes rushing back to the present: “Why you sucking up?” Nuna croons. “When I need something real…”

Across tracks, she merges motifs and methods from hip-hop, pop, R&B, and indie into a sound distinctly her own. The same can be said of her videos, which take place in lush backyards, grungy rooftops, high-modernist dining rooms, and Hype Williams-esque non-places.

Her honest approach has worked. After a quick New York come up and the release of her debut LP a liquid breakfast, the New Jersey-born 25-year-old has since collaborated with the likes of Jack Harlow, Saba, and Teezo Touchdown, and performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Document caught up with Nuna from her LA home for an improvisatory, logophilic exploration of her practice, process, and universe.

Drew Zeiba: I’ve been watching a lot of your videos the past several days. There’s such a strong visual language. How involved are you in the conception or direction?

Audrey Nuna: I’m very much like a staff member. I want to be involved in the conception of everything. I never just show up on set and say, ‘Okay, what do you want me to do? Where do you want me? What do you want me to wear?’ I love the creative direction side as much as much as the music side, to be honest. I’ve definitely had people I trust to execute on certain things and figure out logistics on certain things and also be collaborative creative partners, of course, but I’d say for the most part, I love to have agency on that side.

Drew: I really enjoyed the ‘Chump Change’ video, and I was struck by this technique that happens in a few of the videos where—kind of like ‘breaking the fourth wall,’ I guess—it suddenly goes silent or the music becomes diegetic. I’m wondering about those silences and interruptions.

Audrey: Nobody talks about that video. That was a fun one. It was fun because Deb [Never] and I got to interact on a real level. We’re actually friends—that was just a random day in LA.

Drew: How much of it was scripted?

Audrey: It was a mix. Some of it was spontaneous and then captured, and some of it was the director, Alexandra Thurmond. She’s cool. I love working with female directors a lot of times. It’s always a calm day on set. A lot of it was her master plan, her brain, and Deb and I saying what we liked and didn’t and contributing ideas. It was a true collaboration, I would say.

Drew: You’ve also released a couple performance videos recently. What kind of energy do you bring to performing on stage? How has it evolved as you’ve gotten bigger audiences?

Audrey: I find it’s gone through a cycle. I came up playing—as everyone does—shows that were DIY, a little bit ratchet, a little bit shoddy, thrown-together type of shows where you don’t even know if anyone’s going to show up besides your mom and your sister—which has literally happened before. I come from that space in an almost punk way, even if the music is not necessarily the genre of punk. Those shows had that energy of like, you don’t know what it’s going to be and you just have to go up on stage and exist.

Doing two tours opening for other people was where I learned the polish side, the craft side, the crowd-control side—the being-a-professional side. This year, what’s been beautiful has been finding the balance of the two. I recently did a show at an establishment I will not name, but there was a mix up. The logistics got confused. I ended up saying to my friend Anwar [Sawyer], who produces all the music, ‘Let’s just do a jazz jam.’ It was so much fun. It was so necessary for me, regardless of the circumstance, to tap back into that 2019-Bushwick-showcase energy where anything goes and the whole point is to enjoy the music. It became a very personal experience. That cycle has been really cool to take part in.

Drew: Were you improv-ing at that show?

Audrey: I was doing a little improv. It was just so free. Because on tour, sometimes the shows are kind of programmed in. This one, I had a DJ triggering live. It was very much living and breathing. I’m still thinking about it even though it was last month because I want to incorporate much more of that live energy into the live performance. That sounds redundant, but sometimes things can be overlooked when you’re busy getting other things done. I’m excited to incorporate more jazz elements, more punk elements into the show.

Drew: I can imagine doing any show, but especially a giant one, you want everything down to a tee. But maybe something gets lost in making it all smooth.

Audrey: It’s very much a balance between being an artist and being a craftsperson. By nature, they’re very different. Craftsmanship is all about repetition and monotony and consistency, and being an adult and showing up. I think that being an artist is about being a kid and being free and not giving a fuck about about your obligations—in a healthy way, obviously. Same thing with live performance. It’s trying to find the balance of having practiced this so many times that I’m completely free on stage. And the artist can take over now because the craftsperson has muscle memory of the things that you need to stand on in the performance, but in terms of the expression and just being present… I feel like when you do the work and when you rehearse and when you run it 50 times, then you have more space to not know what you’re doing on stage, if that makes sense. It’s a weird tightrope balancing act.

Drew: Art definitely needs a little id to come through. That’s the punk dimension. It’s not abrasiveness necessarily, but some friction or surprise.

Audrey: Totally. And I think that’s why I love, also, being nervous. I always get so nervous. It’s just another level of energy. I’m also not naturally a very outgoing person. I think I’m much more comfortable with myself now. But when I was a kid that was my worst nightmare—like my dad asking me to sing for my family. The whole journey of performing for me has been not fighting against that feeling, but trying to lean into it and see what that feels like. And that’s been such a blessing.

Drew: I was reading in some of your previous interviews that you were in a book club. Is that still going on?

Audrey: I’m sad. I left my book club! My family still does their book club, but I’m not in it anymore. It was more about the book choices. I feel like I have different tastes in books than my family. Like I’m over here trying to read The Diary of Anaïs Nin or something. And they’re like, ‘No, we’re not feeling that.’

“I try to only include the things that I actually think are interesting. It’s a micro-radical level of trying to be honest with every word.”

Drew: Maybe Anaïs Nin is not somebody you need to read with your mom.

Audrey: No, literally. Or even Just Kids, Patti Smith, like that was something I suggested. And they were like, ‘Oh, we want to read this instead.’ But I would love to start a book club here in LA now that I feel a bit more grounded.

Drew: On the words topic, I wanted to ask about the lyrics. A lot of images stand out. In ‘Cellulite’ there’s this chorus ‘Surfin’ too high, I’m off the Pedialyte / Leave you behind, I cut the cellulite.’ The cutting is an unexpected metaphor, but then I think Pedialyte is a really funny rhyme. It’s sort of absurd. It’s treated almost as if it’s a drug. I also think it’s interesting that that’s the brand name. Like, you’re not singing about Balenciaga or something. How do cellulite and Pedialyte come together in one whole?

Audrey: I just have my taste and what I think is interesting overall in life—and everybody does—but to me Balenciaga is not as interesting as Pedialyte. Maybe it’s a logophile’s perspective. There are certain words that I love. And also colors. I’m a very visual person and I love to find the colors that haven’t been used before—if we’re considering concepts and metaphors and words to be colors. I love to search for the things that are real to me. Pedialyte is real to me, you know? That’s on my rider for every show. Cellulite is real to me. I grew up seeing so many billboards talking about how cellulite is bad and questioning that. I just tried to stay honest. And I try to only include the things that I actually think are interesting. It’s a micro-radical level of trying to be honest with every word.

Drew: There’s also some humor to it. Even if the humor is kind of deadpan. It’s both unexpected and tethered. Serious, but it’s kind of got some levity.

Audrey: I love the word you said, ‘absurd.’ Sometimes I’m so sick and bored of everything that I even want to shake myself up and be like, Okay, what do I want to write about? I want to tap into something that I haven’t even given thought, at least on a conscious level and go with that. Like ‘Comic Sans’—the idea of using a font as a song title. My only job—I always say this—is to be honest, and not to be like, Well, I can’t say that because it’s not ‘normal.’ Just lifting the barrier. And I think anyone can do it. Everyone has their own unique interest. We’re taught that there are certain things worth doting on and not. I just don’t buy that shit.

Drew: What’s the writing process? Are you jotting things down as they come? Or do you sit down and you’re like, It’s time to make a track?

Audrey: A little bit of both. Depending on how open I feel, a lot of times I’ll be writing a lot of words down throughout the day. I have like, literally, 2,000 iPhone notes. I go in phases. There are times where words don’t come as easily to me. And then there are times where I can’t stop having intrusive thoughts about lyrics during conversations with people. I’m definitely on the tip of like… I have been low-key driving and thinking of ideas and deciding whether or not to risk my life to write them down. I’m very much open right now. But the final form always happens in the studio. Even if I write something down, I don’t give it much thought until there’s an idea that triggers it into existence. It’s very freeflow. I don’t like to be rigid. I love to let everything coexist.