Okay Kaya Makes Sex Jams For People With Depression And Yeast Infections

By Emma Madden


Somewhere in Greenpoint, New York, the Norwegian-born model, actor, and musician Kaya Wilkins (a.K.A. Okay Kaya) is holding her phone, waiting for a stranger to call and ask her about her yeast disease, or her experiences in a psych ward, or perhaps her boyfriend Stacy — all of which are covered in graphic detail on her sophomore album Watch This Liquid Pour Itself.


The album's 15 tracks pinwheel across genres at the rate of mood, while they're contained with each other by a Sade-inspired somnambulism, as she reels through a series of admissions you'd hesitate to tell your therapist. In that way, Kaya communicates in the emotional tenor of our age — depressed, yet able to create jokes about it. It's this dark, vernacular sense of humor that permits Kaya to share her absolute, abject truth. "You know I'm only joking While I mean every word I mention she sings.


Still, it's one thing to sing, and another to talk about it, especially as soon as what you're singing is — and here are several of my main go to examples from the album — "sex with me is mediocre," or some days I rub my ghost dick up until I can almost visualize it," or "what if the pills I take will stop me getting wet?" Which might be why, as she picks up the call to her first interview of a couple of while in this press cycle, Kaya sounds a little bit shaky. While she is a prolific model and esteemed actress, having appeared in campaigns for the likes of Calvin Klein, along with because the acclaimed horror film Thelma in 2017, it soon becomes clear that while not afraid to share the grimiest, bile-filled, and truest parts of herself, she's terrified of answering the inquiries that her art asks.


MTV News: Are you in the mood to be interviewed?


Kaya: I'm basically never in the mood.


MTV News: How come?


Kaya: Because I have to answer questions yet I don't feel like I have the response to anything.


MTV News: Well, here's something you could have the ability to answer. As soon as researching the album title, I noticed a bunch of YouTube videos on something called polyethylene. Am I on the correct track?


Kaya: That's it. It's half-influenced by that particular video that's called "watch this liquid pour itself." It's a liquid that has a really big mass, although also, the themes on the record are influenced by a purge of a liquid. Some people talk about melancholy as order kind of like a black bile that's in the body. And I guess, what I saw as a visual was this thing coming out — outwards, upwards. In earlier times there were four kinds of liquids which were identified with different moods. You know, blood, yellow bile, black bile. I just noticed it fascinating that so several different people could describe this feeling with a word or a liquid.


MTV News: That seems like a usual theme in your songwriting — using biology or certain sciences to create sense of your own mood. It's like you’re pathologizing yourself.


Kaya: Yeah, that's certainly fun to explore. Some days it's all I have to describe what's going on at a certain time


MTV News: On one song you're "mother nature's bitch," on another the full world is your "daddy" — is there any value to exploring sublimation in your songwriting?


Kaya: I think I'm just compelled towards that sort of sublimation. In writing, I can embrace those sides of me. Some days I feel petty, I feel sad, I feel susceptible, humiliated, et cetera. Once I've written it down I can try and make it into something meaningful and not just something pathetic. I like to work that way because it means I can check myself a little. Those emotions are valid although they're also just funny. It's like spiraling a little and then looking back afterwards and being like, holy shit!


MTV News: Any time you're in that spiral, you’re like, OK, this is just the logic of my universe right now, however whenever you come out of it, you're like, what the fuck, what was I?!


Kaya: [Laughs] Fully. Along with, the feelings you had in that spiral were really strong, confident feelings. I think that's why I can still feel happy once listening back to these songs, because I was in a different place. That's probably the deal with all records. You feel the way that you do at that certain time — that's essentially what recording is. And then you're just like, OK, that happened!


MTV News: However then you need to have had some sort of incentive to record and to put those certain feelings down?


Kaya: I still don’t really know the response to that question. I played a show yesterday and fully lost my voice. I was playing my record for the opening time for people and however I wish it may have gone a lot better, it was just a way of communicating with other people, that super interesting connection.


MTV News: You've done a substantial quantity of modeling and acting, nevertheless is music the one avenue that lets you have that connection?


Kaya: I'm not sure. It's certainly the one where I feel I do the most because it requires you to sit down, to write, and to record. I compulsively make things nevertheless I don't know the reason why however. I'm attempting to figure it out.


MTV News: Because you're so open in your music about your mental health, right now that you're doing press, are you having to reckon with questions like, "Should I be a spokesperson for these issues as well now?"


Kaya: Thank you for asking that because it is really different talking about it in conversation than it is singing about it on an album. Because I'm still attempting to figure my shit out, I don't really feel like I have prevailed enough to be a spokesperson. It's all a process — I just attempt to document it for myself, and hopefully people can connect with that if they're going through something similar.


MTV News: Do you feel a pressure to be resilient for those people who are listening?


Kaya: I think in some ways I am, although I don't know how I'll feel from day to day. I guess that's why I mentioned I'm scared of questions, because I'm still attempting to figure everything out. All I can issue is an openness. Maybe that's accommodating to some people, I'm not sure.


MTV News: Any time whenever you write a song, what parts of yourself do you wish to be understood?


Kaya: I use a lot of equipment, nevertheless the way I work lyrically, I re as crafty as possible while attempting to come across as honest. The listener can either come away thinking "that was a sweet little pop ditty," or they can connect with it in another way. I love leaving it open in that way, yet the lyrics are very graphic in what I'm attempting to mention about myself.


MTV News: I don't desire to skip over the fact that all of those songs are actually pretty funny. I mean, the word "dick" comes up a lot.


Kaya: Yeah, it's also pretty painful to be funny, although that's more like how you communicate in real life. It's also really fun to sing those things, and to sing them as beautifully as I can. I'm certainly having a lot fun with all of the graphic wordplay.


MTV News: I love how a lot of the choruses on this album are literally anticlimactic, like how on "Asexual Wellbeing" you sing, "Sex with me is mediocre."


Kaya: [Laughs] Yeah, just putting it out there. That line came immediately after I went to a karaoke bar with a friend, where each person was really good at singing, and I attempted to sing Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" and fully bombed. Then Once I got house, I thought, what can I sing about myself that's sexual and true to how I feel now? So I began thinking about the Rihanna song where she goes "sex with me so amazing." I don’t know if that's true because I haven't slept with Rihanna, however it feels like it's true, and I wanted to explore my own truth in that moment. I was feeling unfuckable, 'cause I had a yeast disease.


MTV News: The name "Stacy" pops up a lot on the album. What's her deal?


Kaya: It's a joke with my companions where I just call each person Stacy, and I also really want a greyhound and I wanna name it Stacy, because it would just be a little bit bratty dog, really nervous, and I could have the ability to calm her down. I can't wait to meet her one day.


MTV News: Has Twitter informed the way you write at all? Some of your lyrics — and this isn't a bad thing — read like @SoSadToday tweets


Kaya: Some of these certainly begin out like tweets, because tweets are sort of straight to the point, they're some days catchy. Pop music does that also, so there's a mix of these worlds. I love to be short and concise, and I love how a lot of writers are playing around with the medium of Twitter. I definitely spend a lot of time on it.


MTV News: Is there anything on this album you didn't achieve that you wanted to?


Kaya: I'm attempting to be kind to myself nevertheless yeah, I keep thinking about new ways to write things. For a lot of musicians, whenever they're in the album cycle, they're in a different headspace, and I'm currently in a groove of writing something that's quite different. What I meant by "being kind to myself" is that I need to just let this record be what it was at the time, and accepting that. Right now I can just let it go and people can listen to it and hopefully get something out of it, and I can keep exploring.


MTV News: What stage of exploration are you at at the moment?


Kaya: I've Been working on a song about wanting to be a DJ for about two months right now, which I think is gonna be pretty funny. I can't wait to prepare another record however I’m also attempting to prepare a space for myself that doesn't just involve constant writing.