HOW I WROTE MY OWN STORY

THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES HITMAKER STEPS INTO THE SPOTLIGHT AND SHARES WHAT'S GOING ON IN HER PRIVATE WORLD

- RACHEL DESANTIS

More than three decades ago Linda Perry arrived on the music scene ready to disrupt. With her signature hats, soulful wail and no-nonsense attitude, the singer-songwriter carved out her own place in rock history when her band 4 Non Blondes unleashed their existential anthem “What’s Up?” in 1993. All these years later, just like she sings on her breakthrough hit, Perry is still trying to get up that great big hill of hope. “Everybody thinks I’m this confident cool cat, and I have the strength of a hundred lions,” Perry, 59, says, “and I am not that.”

While 4 Non Blondes disbanded as a one-hit wonder, Perry surpassed that label and found success on her own terms, becoming a behind-the-scenes power player by writing era-defining hits for pop stars like Pink (“Get the Party Started”) and Christina Aguilera (“Beautiful”) in the early aughts. Now, with her heart proudly on her sleeve per usual, Perry is looking back on her legacy of resilience—and how love, loss and a cancer journey have shaped her— in the new documentary Linda Perry: Let It Die Here, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York City on June 6. “I’m soft when I need to be, and I’m tough when I need to be,” she says. “In this world, doesn’t matter what business you’re in, women just have to dominate. If you don’t, you get walked over, stepped on and pushed aside.”