Off the Record Podcast with Maliah Aguilar
Episode #002 – Guest: Kara Romero

“This is Off the Record — I’m Maliah Aguilar. Here, we go beyond the music. I sit down with artists and personalities you know — and some you’re about to — to talk about the moments that don’t make the liner notes. From heartbreak to healing, tour life to late-night doubts — it’s raw, real, and completely off the record.”

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Welcome to Off the Record. I’m Maliah Aguilar and we’re back with a brand new episode of the podcast. I’ve been blown away by the positive response to this new venture so far and hope to bring you many more shows throughout the weeks and months, we’ve got some incredible guests lined-up for you to get to know them way more, beyond those hits and headlines.
Full disclosure, today’s guest is someone I know very well. Someone that I consider one of my closest friends in this industry. We have the incredible Kara Romero in the studio today. She’s someone that I’ve followed since she broke into this industry literally thirteen years ago, she’s the first to admit that it took a long damn time to find her feet in this crazy world and truly figure out who she was and what she wanted to do with her own career. I’ve known her for the past three or four years as a friend and can confidently say that no question will be off limits. She is unburden by fame or status, she is one that follows her own path every single time and is a complete open book.

Kara, my adventurous bestie. Thank you for sticking around in one place long enough for us to actually conduct a full episode of this podcast. We text daily, but I actually haven’t seen you in person for like five months.

Kara: London, in February? Fuck, that’s crazy to me. You’re right in saying that I don’t like to stay in one place for too long but I think I’ve probably took that a little too far to the extreme this year. I need to stop hopping from City to fucking City and finally lock down a place to properly call home. I just love everywhere too much. They call it Wanderlust, right? It’s a real problem, I can’t deny that.

Yeah, it’s not easy to keep track of you. When we first started hanging out, I was certain you were like a ‘New York girl’. In person I see you more times in California than anywhere else, but then you talk about London like that’s home these days and I KNOW you’ve been falling in love with a lot of European cities these last couple of months. Paris, Barcelona, Prague, Amsterdam and I’m just always wondering where you’ll eventually settle as a true home.

Kara: I’m the worst for that shit, seriously. But it’s always been that way, I think it’s a never-ending identity search. Born in Spain, fully Spanish background but pretty much raised in Manhattan which is just a complete culture hub. So I never really felt that deep Spanish side of my heritage, it became a second language pretty fucking quickly. Pretentious New York teenager, it was literally New York and nowhere else to me. But then you start travelling in this career and you fall in love with places quickly, California I never thought was my sort of thing and now it’s like haven to me. London feels the realest place to me and I think it fits me perfectly. But I definitely get that wanderlust after staying somewhere for too long, I can’t shake that feeling. Right now, I’d love to call London home for a while but I’m back stateside so I’d say New York is home again for at least a few months.

I think it’s mirroring how you’re managing your career right now too. You’re not tied down to that typical cycle of album, singles, tour, album, singles, tour. You go wherever the inspiration takes you at the moment, if you feel like putting out a few stand-alone songs, you will, record solo stuff, record with Younghood. It feels like you’re just running with whatever you feel in the moment.

Kara: Yeah, I’m at a label that gives you complete freedom to work the way you want. If I don’t produce anything for four years for them, it’s fine. I produce three albums in a six month period, that’s fine too. I’m literally twelve years or more into a career and I’ve put out two studio albums and three E.P.’s. That might not be enough for some labels. But they don’t work to that typical calendar and I think that’s why they’ve always been the right place for me. It’s complete freedom.

Which sort of feels perfect for how you work. Like the E.P with Younghood literally just came from nowhere, right?

Kara: Yeah, we spend a lot of time together. Some people call it dating, some people call it whatever. We’ve never really labelled it, friends that fuck would be my suggestion but who knows? Either way, we’re in each other’s company a lot. I was recording a bunch of solo stuff and we were just hanging out together in the studio. Nire jumped on a beat one day and I was like ‘fuck it, let’s record a bunch of shit and see what happens’ and suddenly that solo stuff was pushed to one side and we dropped a fucking E.P. together. There was no prior conversation or plan, we just figured it out as we went along.

The E.P. took a lot of people by surprise earlier this year, you’ve joked that you probably did lose some fans in the process. But ‘The Bedroom Sessions E.P’ did go number one as well as one of those singles going number one too. So despite maybe some pushback from a few long term fans, it’s surely a positive release from your point of view?

Kara: Shit, like facts and figures aside. Anytime I’m working with someone that talented or someone whose company I enjoy, that’s a good thing. If we made something that we considered was worthwhile and of a standard that was worth releasing, then that’s even better. Like, I get it and there’s some fans that made it clear, this ain’t for me. I heard a lot of stuff about how I’m just going down that ‘sex-sells’ route. *laughs* I honestly don’t think those people know my personality at all if that’s the case. But you can’t please everybody and at the end of the day, from a creative aspect, I’m just going with how I’m feeling in that period of time. “The Therapy Sessions” E.P came at a time when I was deep in that headspace, trying to figure out who I am and how to locate joy ahead of self-doubt and my own neurosis.
“Post-Traumatic” came three years later and was a snapshot of my life at that point, after the therapy. With those same issues but with different coping mechanisms and understanding of my own thoughts and feelings. A combination of moments of self-doubt and complete freedom and joy, that up and down which is where I was at the time of that album. “The Bedroom Sessions” was at a time where I was spending a lot of time with Nire and discovering a renewed outlook on life, very passion filled and lust-fuelled period. I’ve always dove headfirst into what I was feeling and tried to put that out there, it just so happens that I was in a period of renewed lust. Like, that shit ain’t that wild to me, y’know?

I guess it caught some people off guard. But even on “Post-Traumatic” you openly sing or rap about that sexual side to things. Maybe it was the idea of an entire release being focussed on that side of things, but it felt like a very appropriate title for a collaboration between two people that have had a connection for some time finally being in a place where they were open to exploring each other sexually.

Kara: *laughs* It was an appropriate title. But for the longest times we were friends that always hung out, sports, movies, food and all that. There’s some past relationship drama shit that we both had, so we never really crossed that boundary for the longest time. But eventually it was sort of like we were at the same place in our lives, we kinda just thought, ‘we vibe when we’re hanging out’ Why not see if that energy matches in the bedroom too?



I know personally, just from our friendship how there was always something between both of you. It was frustrating to all of us in the friendship group to be like, you guys should be fucking. It’s undeniable, but there was always a barrier between yourselves and that final hurdle. You had your own trust issues from previous relationships that you labelled as your excuse and the public drama from Nire’s past always seemed to rear it’s head.

Kara: I think the unspoken thing between both of us was that we didn’t want to go there and it end up fucking up a real friendship and a real close bond. I know what we have is something you don’t find in this industry all that often, there’s just something very casual about the way Nire and I are with each other. We rarely talk about the industry but he’s a wise head if I need advice, he can be a hype man when I need it and I like to think that I’m the same for him when he needs it. But we just have that bond, I think we’re very similar. *laughs” We’re still hesitant to label this even though we know it’s definitely something. But yeah, it’s just a case of being a little afraid that you cross that boundary and can’t quite get that magic back, thankfully it hasn’t happened that way.

You mentioned past relationship stuff, you’re not the type that wants to be in the press articles but you were friends with him when he was at the centre of the whole Tisha, Drew and Younghood drama and you saw the aftermath from that. Was there a hesitance to keep clear from that messy situation?

Kara: Yeah, I think in the back of my mind that would have been a factor. Like that whole thing isn’t my bag, the paparazzi and stumbling out of nightclubs with people. I keep that side of things as private as possible. I think my music and probably this conversation are the only likely ways of finding shit out about me and as you know, I’m a pretty open book. I just don’t want that media frenzy, rumour mill bullshit to be part of my image and I saw that with Nire first hand as a friend and the shit he had to deal with from it. I think dropping tracks referencing it, definitely didn’t help but sometimes in the rap-sphere that’s the only way to feel like you can get your side of things out there. It took a long time for the dust to clear on that whole thing, but eventually we got into a place where we both wanted to see if this thing between us was as electric as it felt it could be.

I feel like I know the answer, but is it?

Kara: *laughs* It’s pretty fucking electric.

I’ve got to say, as a friend it was definitely a relief when you two finally got together. But we touched on the media frenzy side of this business, I know its something you’re fully against. I’ve said it before, but you’re probably the one famous friend I have that doesn’t live that sort of lifestyle at all. It’s about as low-key as I can imagine.

Kara: I’ve tried to get them to take pictures of me and shit and they’re not interested *laughs*. Nah, I think I just like to keep things pretty low-key, I’m just a street-kid from New York, I like my take-out food and my sports teams. I like visiting different places and doing that touristy shit, but mostly I just keep my life as unspectacular as I can. Commercial flights aren’t so bad. But if I’m home in New York or California, I’m always going to prefer to catch a game, have some friends around, smoke some weed and drink some beer, maybe Wine if I’m feeling fancy. I’m not against going out to a nightclub, but if I can hang at home with some friends, I’m always gonna prefer that action.

You do throw a good house party, being a London girl, I don’t understand any of the sports that you guys love. But we’ve drank some Wine and smoked some good weed over the past few years together.

Kara: Yeah, we’re not so into watching soccer over here. But if you can enjoy some food with friends, a little buzz and a little high in the process. It’s a nice place to be. Those sort of parties where you can’t enjoy yourself because you’re scared of whose watching isn’t my idea of fun. Maybe we’ll put a soccer game on one time just for you. But you’re welcome every time.

It’s always appreciated. It does feel like you’re in a place of total zen right now, you’ve obviously managed to navigate some of the internal battles you’ve had in your life and sung or rapped about. What’s been the biggest key to this change?

Kara: Honestly there’s no one answer. Therapy helped, I’ll always be an advocate for that. But also you’ve got to really put in the work to recalibrate your mind. Self-doubt, anxiety and stress were my biggest issues, this feeling of not being enough or not doing enough was like carrying a huge fucking weight on my shoulders every single day. I think the therapy sessions helped chipped away at that weight to begin with and then altering my own lifestyle in small ways helped too. Drinking to excess and being a little too open to whatever trendy drug was going at that time were too issues that I HAD to fix, the amount of anxiety that came from those aspects alone was crazy.
Now I’m more of a glass of wine or maybe a couple of beers type person and my only drug of choice is weed. Cutting that inner circle down to the bare minimum was important too and surrounding myself with the sort of people that only add noises of positivity and support in my life was a big help. You don’t realise how much people’s own negativity feeds into yours until you step away from that, y’know?

Absolutely and it’s so easy to hear the more critical voices than the positive ones.

Kara: Without doubt. Social media too, just aimlessly scrolling can affect you too. That just feeds into the negativity too, especially when the world is pretty much on fucking fire. But I think honestly, it’s the best thing to be able to take a step back and really look at it from a big picture type of place, find what elements of your life feeds you and what elements starve you of joy and comfort. Once you figure that part out, it’s not so difficult to stick to that path. I’m not saying it’s easy because it’s still a daily battle to keep that alignment right. But when you get to that position of clarity, it’s a lot easier to see when you’re starting to falter slightly and you can alter that trajectory, at least in my experience.

It feels like a crazy question to ask you, because I know how undefined your path is these days. But what exactly is next for you, in terms of your career?

Kara: Shit, now you got me. *laughs* Honestly, I really have this desire to deliver in a big way, but I think that’s the crazy ADHD mentality creeping in right there. I want to deliver that third album, it’s been two years since “Post-Traumatic” so there’s a lot of shit that I feel like I have to say. My mindset is different now to how it was then, so it’s gonna sound like a totally different record. I LOVE working with Nire and “The Bedroom Sessions” was such a freeing and fun E.P to work on, that Kara Romero and Younghood thing just works, right? AND I’d want to revisit writing those nasty fuck songs. We’ve spoke about making a joint album together with a more serious tone which I’m fully on board with.
But right now, I’m in a place where the idea of an interesting project really excites me, maybe like a three-way record or an album full of collaborations. Just something slightly different from the norm would be great. But I haven’t quite figured it out yet!

You’re in a place now where you’re working on your own schedule, so I have no doubt whatever you do next will be exciting at the very least. I’ve loved chatting with you today, you need to stick around in one place long enough so we can really catch up. Kara Romero thank you so much for being my guest this week, keep doing it on your terms.

Kara: Loved being part of this and I’m so happy to see you hitting that boss mode and getting shit done with this new show. Thanks for inviting me!