After a raunchy birthday bash held recently at One Eyed Jacks, Boyfriend is about to take off on tour with Big Freedia. Here’s a little on what the New Orleans-based rapper has to say about her music, her career, art, and education.

“I was actually working in education, in New Orleans, before I got into [hip hop]. I never really fancied myself a musician… My work was in arts education, so I always focused on how the arts can, and should, inform education. My daily conversations were about art, the process of art, the product that comes from the artistic process. How and why it’s important. It was an ever-present topic of conversation, and one that still matters to me intensely.

But now that I’ve become Boyfriend full-time, it’s less appropriate for me to interact with children… [laughs]

I hope to be able to teach again. Because it just matters, you know? Not many jobs you can come home at the end of the day exhausted and know it objectively matters what you did that day. There are plenty of days when you feel like you didn’t do anything, like you’ve taken steps backwards… but you know your intention at least was pure. Whereas now… well, I need people to know I exist, I need more people to take pictures of me, I need more people to listen to my songs. I hope, for karmic balance, I can return to teaching someday. Even if it’s when I’m in my sixties!

…The Pemberton Festival was the biggest show I’ve played. It was, well… I played on the same stage Skrillex and Ludacris played, so it was a very different setting for me.

I had to give a talk at a gallery beforehand, in Vancouver. I’d just landed, and I had to go to Pemberton for sound check, then I had to go back to Vancouver, and it was just so crazy. I had forgotten a razor ‘cause of TSA and everything, so I ended up just having someone in the audience come up and shave my legs and paint my fingernails while I gave the gallery talk.

I wouldn’t say I’m forgetful… but I’m rushed. And I like to save time.

I just saw [Alice Cooper] for the first time at Pemberton and was in tears the entire time. The theatrics! Here he is, performing, like, in the name of rock and roll, and he’s not afraid to participate in Broadway traditions. It’s just a really courageous thing that he’s been doing. And continues to do.

…In terms of any “message,” the only thing I’m definitely trying to tell people with my work is that they should listen more closely. And watch more closely. And consume more academically. So I guess my whole tagline would be, ‘She’s got questions, not answers.’ I don’t think I’ve got the way down, but hopefully by interacting with my work, you interact with other things a little more academically as a result. Or at least more actively.”

View the full Big Freedia/Boyfriend tour schedule here.