When Lorely Rodriguez first moved to New York City back in 2011, she felt trapped by a cloud of haze. The producer known as Empress Of, now 25 years old, was fully surrounded by the city’s youthful lifestyle: that of working your ass off during the day at service jobs, partying and going to shows every night, crashing with friends, showering at their apartments the next morning, (literally) living at music venues, and generally learning by diving in headfirst. But when it came to producing her music, this overstimulating world was not conducive to creation. “All of the music I was obsessed with at that time was hazy, hazy New York and hazy emotions, everything was hiding behind a texture,” she says. “It was really nice but I realized how hard it is to connect with haze. I couldn’t connect with an audience when I was drowned in textures.”
