It all started with a playlist I actually made on Spotify. I knew so many LGTBQ+ women and gender-variant artists that were doing amazing stuff, and [I] felt like there should be a dedicated space for them to be highlighted or discovered. The playlist got such a great response and got me thinking, “I know so many of the artists on this playlist and I’m one myself…wouldn’t it be cool to record some conversations between us all highlighting our journeys with identity, life, and creativity? Maybe that’ll inspire some people.” So basically after that I just texted a bunch of my friends to ask if they’d be down to be guests and we went from there!

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It was important for me to have audio as well as video for this since I wanted to make sure people who don’t understand English as well or are hard of hearing felt like they could fully engage and feel the energy between my guests and I. Conversationally, I knew I wanted to hit a few specific topics with each guest but not have redundant or rigid interview vibes—so I have a handful of questions that each one gets asked, but for the most part, I try to let the conversation flow organically.

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What's your recording setup?

For season 1, I did all my recording at once, remotely through Zoom, without checking the quality of sound and video after—rookie mistake!—and it turned out subpar, so I really had to go into repair mode to make what I did have feel a bit cleaner. Now that I’m working on new episodes, I’ve upgraded my situation and learned from mistakes. Everything’s still remote—which I prefer, honestly…so much easier to schedule and prep—so I have my equipment at home in my music studio. I’ve got a Canon G7x hooked up to my computer via Camlink so the visuals are crispy; a nice little mic that I’m able to record backup audio from into Ableton; and AirPod Pros so I can hear my guest without having intense over-ear headphones on.