LP Giobbi turns Amber Rose into both a verb and dance track that speaks to today’s empowered woman

Kanye West and the media have a lot to answer for how they’ve dragged Amber Rose over the last decade, and DJ/producer LP Giobbi created a dance track to make sure they do.

Kanye West might not know the difference between fame and infamy. Over the last decade, he’s claimed to have made ex-girlfriend and now well-known feminist Amber Rose famous, when in reality, he’s been objectively shaming her in the public eye.

Luckily, Oregon-born DJ and producer Leah Chisholm, known as LP Giobbi, does know the difference. And with the help of a hypnotic beat, she’s happy to tutor him on the gender constructs that allowed him to sick the media on Rose for the last ten years.

As a female producer in a sea of men in the music industry, the UC Berkeley grad knows a thing or two about being up against the wall of patriarchy. So when best friend Lauren Spalding, brilliantly credited as Hermixalot, read her 2008 poem inspired by Amber Rose into a pair of headphones-turned-emergency mic, LP knew just what to do.

Over the refrain “I Amber Rose on these h*es,” she laid down an atypical dance track with insatiable energy, echoing keys and trumpets with the deceptively simple message within an incredibly complex context. “Do I need to hook to live? Am I just a lyric in a rap song? Do I not have more to give,” Spalding calmly reads over beats that to unobservant listeners; it can sound mismatched to the message.

But the prodigious piano player LP is one step ahead of any dismissive listeners. “It sounds ridiculous,” she tells me on a coffee run before a show in Montreal. “[They think] it’s stupid, like an ignorant poem. But if you’ve listened to it, it’s actually incredibly intelligent. You have to bring people into something and get them to listen to the message after they’re already at the door.”

According to Spalding, the heart of “Amber Rose” is a “‘f*** you’ to anyone who doubts your agency or tries to put you into a specific box that makes them comfortable while ignoring your humanity and your power.”

If Kanye still doesn’t get it, LP Giobbi is happy to elaborate.

What did you think the first time you heard the lyrics?

I’m going to be so honest here. . . . I literally stopped. I look at her like, “what are you doing?” And she’s like “I’m giving you my best Nicki Minaj impression. I thought you said you wanted a rapper.” And I was like, hold on.

Why were you taken aback?

We both just started laughing because she had literally never been into the studio before. I had never gotten to be in a room with just another female artist, and the whole experience was just so funny… it just felt really joyous, something hilarious… We didn’t know what the end goal [would be]. I didn’t know it was going to be the first release on Sofi Tukker’s record label.

It really just felt like pure, like just childlike, fun energies. Because at first, I was like, this is so weird because I’m like, “Amber Rose, like are you kidding me? What is this?” I had no idea where she was going with it. And then she was there and I was like, let’s leap all the way in on this. This is amazing. I was just like… is this too weird? Can we even use her name? I didn’t even know. The more that we talked about what she represents in our society…man, this is exactly what we’re not going to try to dance around saying.

PALM SPRINGS, CA – APRIL 17: Musician LP Giobbi of LEX attends The Retreat Palm Springs 2016 on April 17, 2016 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo by Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for [is.])And then we like sat down, she pulled out her notebook and we talked and deconstructed it. And I was like wait, brilliant!… I need to make the beat. I have [a] very bare-bones beat and I wanted the breakdown with [djembes] in it. I knew that it hit really hard. I think that we’ve put this mask, but when something’s powerful, there’s an energy to it. And I really wanted to reclaim that. This is a woman singing about the fact that this woman has been put into a box and it has been thrown away sort of. I really wanted to balance this female energy thing of saying f*** that.

Hermixalot said it wouldn’t have worked with a male producer because the message of the song would have been lost. How do you feel, as a female producer, you interpreted it, compared to how a male producer?

I think that for me it’s more about the safe space that’s created in the room, in the moment… I think that she was able to talk about mental health and talk female issues without feeling like a woman who’s just complaining… We’ve been trying to be in male-dominated spaces to reclaim them, doing things a little bit off the wall, a little bit weird, learning how to work together and be really open and safe with each other.

“Amber Rose” was written in 2008. Ten years later, and you have people like Cardi B, who is very open about her past as a stripper. What do you feel has changed since the poem was written in 2008 compared to right now?

I feel like I don’t know if I could’ve really put it out with some sort of response back then. I think that luckily, we’re getting to a time where it’s like completely socially acceptable to have conversations about this and where people are listening, whether they are forced to or want to. But they are.

A lot has changed as far as like public awareness, but nothing has changed as far as actual progress. It’s pretty cool to be able to talk about this and have an anthem that speaks to other women in people… Unfortunately, I had to wait 10 years for it to be listened to. It’s being put in a box and being told you are actually one way and then flipping the script and making something out of yourself from that; I think it’s like we’re able to do that now more than ever.

You had no previous experience in DJing, producing or even playing the synthesizer. It’s really lovely to see this inspiring example of being completely self-taught and thriving in a male-dominated field!

I am a hundred percent here to be proof that even if this is not natural to you, you can do this. All the women out there who are waiting to link up with that male producer, you can do this. I literally just did a DJ gig in which, in an after party set, this guy actually started to explain to me what CBJ’s did — [what] you use to DJ — and I was like, “Are you kidding me?” It was so funny. I honestly tried to try to be nice, but I was just like, damn, there’s just not enough of us yet.

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Here’s hoping LP Giobbi becomes an example of female musicians taking back narratives and flipping scripts to create inclusive, inspiring songs that have more meaning and substance than most — especially Kanye’s.

LP Giobbi is currently on tour with Sofi Tukker. You can find an upcoming show near you on her website here.