Moët, Masks and Molly

I met up with the fashion connoisseur and ever so polite rapper Ojay, aka Zebra Katz, on the final day of Copenhagen Fashion Week. He was at Molly, where he’d performed just a few nights before.. The club hadn’t opened for the night yet so there was no perfume or dry-ice to mask the stench of yesterdays spilled booze. Yikes. The heating wasn’t on either so we figured we’d nick a bottle of bubbly in order to catch the warmth. Surprisingly enough, that didn’t go down that well and we were later subtly chastised for it and stripped of our hard-earned Möet.

What have you been doing this week?

I’ve been in Copenhagen for about five days now. This is my fourth trip here.This week has been Fashion Week so I’ve had the pleasure to do the after parties for Dandy Diary x Face Hunter, David Andersen, and then of course see some runway shows.

You’ve been to a lot of different Fashion Weeks around the world, how does Copenhagen’s compare?

I just love the energy and the people here. I think that a lot of people think Copenhagen isn’t a major city but for me, when it comes to designers, they’re really progressive and they aren’t afraid to try new things. I feel like with the Dane’s style, everyone dresses like they might do interior design.

Danes definitely love them some interior design. Got any new favorite Scandinavian designers?

Definitely some new favorites. Han Copenhagen was a really great show with a lot of great pieces, and then David [Andersen], it was my first time seeing all of his stuff. I was a little bit ignorant because I thought he was related to Astrid Andersen but apparently he wasn’t. Oops.

You’re in Europe all the time, do you feel more at home here than in the States?

I definitely do. I think my audience is definitely European based. I’ve gone to more shows and been to more countries here than I’ve been to states in the US. So I definitely feel more at home. I think the relationship my music has to fashion is what keeps me coming back here. It’s great and I love it. I feel so grateful that I get to meet all these people and get all these opportunities here.

If we were to look at some family albums from back in the day, what was a 12 year old Ojay rocking?

The funny thing about me is that I used to let my mother dress me up until sophomore year of high school. My mother is a big vintage, thrift shop connoisseur, so you know I had a lot of mixed match pieces with a lot of color. It was all very over the top. My mother is Jamaican so I’m first generation American and I have a lot of that Caribbean influence in my style as well.

If your mom was dressing you until high school, did you ever get bullied for dressing differently?

Nooo, I mean I can’t remember anything specifically but I was always the tallest in my class and when I did start dressing myself, I really went for it with full on patterns and orange. A lot of orange. My name is Ojay (like orange juice) so people were always referring to that and I just went with it and rocked orange for a long time. I had a phase.

What’s up with that Winter Titty video you posted recently on your wall, and that wasn’t a mint you were eating there was it?

Definitely not a mint. I shot it in Kiev, Ukraine a few years ago and it was literally the coldest place I’ve ever been in my life and I just wanted to document that trip and then, yeah, I put it out just recently because I felt like sharing it. It’s not meant to be political exactly, a lot of people have said that it must be referencing Pussy Riot, but there’s definitely some hidden agendas in there.

What’s the difference in personal style between Ojay and Zebra Katz?

Zebra Katz gets a lot more free clothes, haha. Obviously with any performance character there’s going to be an element of theater and grandiose that I don’t necessarily take into my everyday life. Sometimes though, yeah, I’ll take some pieces from my act or from a designer and mix it with some of my more laid back stuff, but usually I’m really a comfort freak. And then Zebra Katz is also associated with a lot of masks, and I don’t wear those on a day to day basis.

Can we expect to see a Zebra Katz line or collection coming out soon?

Definitely working on some things, I don’t want to jinx it because I tend to do that but I’m definitely interested in collaborating on a line or making my own.

Follow Danika on Instagram @danikamaia