In this day and age of social media, where everything is so centred around how many Instagram and Twitter followers you have, what's keeping me afloat is the fact that my live performance is something that people can enjoy.

I am a rapper. The reason why I was against the whole rapper title is because I know so many people who want to be rappers and they're not.

It may look like things have gotten better, because everyone is semi-being appreciative. Not appreciative, but conscious of people being gender fluid and all those things.

There are two singles I did with Noah Breakfast, ["Talkin Greezy" and "New Phone (Who Dis),"] which was a cool experience. So it's cool either way, I think. It depends on the relationship you have with the other person - not everybody is going to work the same way.

I like to consider myself a student of hip hop. There's a certain level of certification and wit and craftsmanship that comes with rapping. As rap progresses - it's a young genre - it's becoming way more mainstream, crossing over to different lanes. I feel like it's losing its essence in a way, because it's getting commercialised. I want to keep it fresh and keep it progressive, but I also want to respect the foundation of what rap is about.

In this day and age of social media, where everything is so centred around how many Instagram and Twitter followers you have, what's keeping me afloat is the fact that my live performance is something that people can enjoy.

I'm a lot different in my career since that interview. To have someone like Diplo tweet "Cakes' album is really cool" is cool, but in the same breath I still like what I do without anyone's approval. It's still good music.