Magnetic Moment

Rapper, Singer, and Producer Leaf Is Here to Enlighten and Inspire. 
 

- Lisa Butterworth

Leaf wakes up at five o’clock every morning, meditates twice a day, and, on the sunny Sunday we meet at a vegan restaurant in West Hollywood, politely declines to order from the menu because she’s in the middle of a juice cleanse. It’s not the lifestyle you might expect from an up-and coming rapper, singer, and producer, one whose recent single “Nada” features Lil Yachty and whose debut album, Trinity, is due out on Fool’s Gold. However, this 22-year-old isn’t one to follow convention. For starters, her rapping evolved from poetry, which she began writing at the age of eight and was mostly about “nature and love,” she says. “I was like, ‘I’m just gonna take my poems and I’m gonna learn how to fl ow.’” She uploaded her first song to YouTube at age 17. Shortly after, she caught the attention of Chromeo’s Dave 1, who bent the ear of Fool’s Gold founder (and his younger brother) A-Trak, who then signed her to his label. Now her songs—which are characterized by dark skittering beats, danceable bass lines, and sublime vocals, as demonstrated on her debut EP, 2015’s Magnet Bitch—are about everything from sex and money to turning up with your girls and calling out fuckbois. And they’re all infused with her staunch feminist ideology. It’s one of the reasons she got in the game in the first place. “Hip-hop and rap have always been something I’ve loved, and I just knew that I had to do it because I felt like there wasn’t enough female rappers,” she says. “That was a voice that I wanted to create for myself.”