[Gia Woods](https://www.instagram.com/giawoods/?hl=en) carries the weight of her identity with quick wit, chic charm, and an undeniable boundary-breaking personality, which all comes through so distinctly in her music. Having been discovered by a talent scout in high school, she fell into music sort of accidentally, but has shown up with focused intent. Gia has spent the past 2 years brewing her sound and vision for the release of her EP “Cut Season." Her new body of work proves that she has graduated into, not just a music icon, but an exciting cultural figure. I just wish a Persian pop princess like her existed when I was growing up, but there is no better time than now. I'm so here for it. We spoke with the multidimensional Persian pop princess to talk about egos, breakups, LGBTQ activism, and discovering her own place in music.
**I was like hold on we have like a Persian pop princess in our midst, of course I need to interview her!**
We need that by the way! It’s crazy how there isn’t that many, like what the fuck.
**Oh my god I know, I think about it almost every day. I recall what it made me feel like to see M.I.A. break onto the scene and I haven’t had that level of feeling seen since really. She’s not even Iranian.**
Yeah, it’s a very open field right now so I’m like let’s take it, please.
**I love it! I feel like you’ve also really taken your time as an artist to develop for this moment.**
Oh my god, completely. You never really know what you’re getting yourself into, especially when you’re dropping a song and having it do well. You’re like “wait I didn’t expect that, what the fuck do I do now?” Especially when you start young it’s a lot to figure out your music and your taste. So I feel like I’ve taken the time finally.
**You started when you were a teenager right?**
Yeah I started senior year of high school, that was when I officially was taking it seriously. That’s when I got scouted. I was in a choir class and we did these performances and freestyle where you kind of go in and sing your own song. So that’s where I got scouted from my manager. I kind of started from that year, 2014 I would say.
**Wow, that’s quite a progression of your talent and time.**
Oh yeah, it’s been a long journey.
**I love the lyrics on Ego. The song has a lot more emotion tied to it. I also loved Hungry which is so danceable and fun, but Ego gets me more.**
Oh my god it does, you get it. I love that you get it. Because _Hungry_ is kind of like, I wrote that way way before _Ego_, like about 6-7-8 months ago. And then I wrote _Ego_ this summer because that’s when the whole concept came to me. I was going through a really bad breakup, like I’m talking four years, and I also had lost my dad. So it was a fucking psycho couple of months. It’s been a crazy, crazy journey but it has really helped me. Honestly, music is like the only thing that always helps me get through these kinds of situations, so that’s when I wrote _Ego_ too, so I feel like _Ego’s_ actually the first release from like the world I’ve created and _Hungry_ was kind of like a tiny little tease. But I think _Ego_ is definitely the actual music style, lyrical writing, this visual. Everything is really where I want it.
**The lyrics really do feel personal and I relate. I recently fled a 5 year relationship, so the experiences of those moments are all there on this track.**
You got out of a 5 year? Oh, honey, that is so rough!
**It’s been a great learning experience for my ego.**
Oh my God, yes. Definitely a lot of growth. Honestly, I think when you are in such a toxic cycle and it’s never-ending, and you can’t get out of it and you can’t solve these issues, you kind of step back and you’re like these issues are just paper-thin. They’re nothing. It’s really just your ego that’s always in the way of all these issues. And especially dating someone who has a bigger ego than you it’s like a disaster. So I was just like, honestly fuck this. I’m so tired of this cycle. I really wanted the relationship to work, like really badly. I was killing myself just to make it work and it was overall like I realized I had an ego and that was like the main statement that kept coming to my head. And I was like honestly, I think i need to work on this away from this relationship because no matter what situation I get into next or just like real-life situations, having an ego get in the way like you’re going to be your own problem no matter what, no matter who you’re with. It’s a you problem, no one else’s.
**I highly back that honest perspective!**
Right! Because it’s like always blaming people. That was a part of the whole thing too, it was like parting with these toxic patterns that I had with myself too. Because it’s like you can’t just keep blaming everybody for your problems you know, so … yea.
**I’m sensing some powerful Persian woman wisdom within all of this?**
I hope! Honestly, it probably is. Like I think my mom has definitely passed down like all her strong traits to me because she’s a fucking power woman. She moved here from Iran, against all odds.
**Me too! My mom did the same.**
Wait, no way! We have a lot of similarities.
**We do. And here you are putting it all out there. You don’t hide your sexuality or background. I feel like the power that’s in our diaspora background stories comes with a double-edged sword – a guilty conscience of sorts. You’re now free but you’re also bound. Is that something you relate to? Having been brought up in a Persian environment but not fitting the expectations of normalcy?**
Oh my God yes! Like I’m so shocked that I’m not, there aren’t many people talking about their stories... about even their families coming from another country. Like sneaking their way out here, like there aren’t many. It’s not just being a voice for the community. In general, there’s a whole community in Iran that has no one to talk to or look up to because if you talk about sexuality, you’re literally beheaded or go to jail. That’s insane. So I would like to cross-over there. If I could do a show out there one day, that would probably be the most life-changing experience, a game-changer for our country. Like we need that, we need that progress. And I’m going to do my best to try to be a voice for those people as well because they don’t have anybody and it’s so sad to think about.
**Oh my God, like I have chills all over my body, that’s beautiful. And to have that type of awareness at this point in your career matters. That power we mentioned has definitely transferred into your ability to establish this platform for yourself and really build it from a place of love and care. I want to see you perform in Iran one day.**
Oh honey, we have to! That’s the fucking goal. Like we need it. It's really crazy like I never thought of it to that degree, cause I was like I’m living in my own little bubble in LA where it’s like ‘yes we still have some issues’, obviously with this topic, but it’s so much more open out here. We have communities, we have a whole area, West Hollywood, hello! I can’t imagine living in a different country and not having like a street to go to where I can just hang out with all my gay friends. It’s like whatever here, it’s just so insane to me.
**It excites me to think of what a great impact you’re having for people who look like us to see your contributions. I can only imagine what that exposure also means for people in Iran, who may be finding their way online and listening to your music illegally. You’re providing a really supreme inspiration point for those who do find you.
**
Thank you!!
**That is all a lot to handle but at the end of the day you’re just like dancing it out and feeling it.**
Yeah at the end of the day you’re dancing with the problems but you’re kind of having fun with them, and like making fun of them too in some ways like even with ‘Ego, it’s like a tease. It’s like making fun of yourself in a way as well. In terms of like that whole other side of things with the LGBTQ communities, I just want my music to be fun and not depressing where it’s like “there’s no hope. You know? So like I try to make it fun, exciting.
**Do you find that it's taken you time to accept the labels, did you ever approach it as “I want to be labelless, I just want to be me.” Or was it something where you were like “I’m going to embody this and make a statement out of it.”**
Well honestly it was a bit of both, in the beginning it was like such a big statement for me to be honest, because I wanted to put out music consistently and I wanted the first record to be like This is who I am and if I write a song about a person I’m with or whatever, you’re going to know it’s a girl. I don’t have to shy away from saying “she”, I just want it to be very open. A couple years later everyone was calling me the “queer” artist and that started to get, I don’t want to say annoying, but I don’t want to be only known for that. I just wanted to be normal, that’s just one trait I wanted that word to not be used as special, more like accepted and normal. So that’s why I got a little annoyed about it, but then I started thinking about it more and it’s actually amazing to see and shoving that down peoples faces because I think it’s really still not accepted and I kind of forgot about that because I’m in my own bubble in LA, and you kind of get wrapped up in that and you’re like “what do you mean it’s becoming so much more universal?” But we still have so much more work to do if we have countries, like my country of Iran, killing people. I think it was kind of a rollercoaster with that but now I honestly feel like I need to continue this legacy of putting it in front of people's faces, until it becomes normal where we don’t have to do that anymore.
**For sure, and I feel like even though we’re free here – our culture, our generation is breaking down molds still. So even within our LA bubble, this is a really big learning opportunity to become more accepting of one another.**
This is the best time right now. This is the most I’ve seen where I feel like all of us seem united in a way. Whenever there’s an issue we go off on Twitter, Instagram, like we actually fight. So it’s like amazing.
**I trust that you have the right self awareness to really own those labels in a way that will affect change for people who want to be motivated to be themselves more so in the world. It’s a beautiful thing. I can only imagine my reaction to your presence if I were 15 and I heard your songs. I had Nar growing up but we were all so underground and intimate with the exposures we had when social media was a toddler.**
Nar was so good by the way, I was like “damn… like you have it all” he’s the package he can play like no other. So I feel you on that. If I had an icon like that but actually universal online, like people know about you, that would achieve everything for me too. It’s crazy I didn’t have anyone either. I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry was as close as it got because it was the only gay song that was out, which is crazy.
**The creative direction for _Hungry_ and _Ego_ is dope. Do you personally take ownership of that as well, of how your image is transferred?**
Yeah, so I think that was a part of the thing that I was trying to figure out during the years before when I was like “How can I connect the visuals and the meanings of the song, and how can I make an actual project?” Because a lot of the time I was just releasing singles, and singles are just individual stories. It doesn’t really feel like a big picture and I think that was my biggest thing where I was getting frustrated. I want a project. I want to say something bigger and that's why each title is so cohesive with the next one coming out, and the next one. It’s all a progression of reasons to cut people and toxic emotions out one by one, and as soon as I started to get into this theme, every song just kept coming. It was so easy and then the visuals were also easy. I was working with this girl Jenna Marsh, who I work with a lot. She's kind of my creative director on everything. It’s been really cool to kind of tie in the visuals to the song and it’s really fun to be a part of all of it. Because again before it was like pitching some songs here and there and trying to tie it in, but I don’t think it connects as well. If you start to see the next releases coming out you’re going to really get to know me and where I’m at, and what I just got out of. So yeah!
**I’m super excited for everyone to experience it and I think _Ego_ is already one of my favorites off the EP.**
I know, me too! Because I feel like it’s so universal like we all have things we need to cut out in life it doesn’t matter what age you are, where you’re from, we’re always constantly battling that. Whether it’s toxic people, or business partners or anything, we all have to get to that point where we know someone needs to get out of our life.
**For sure! And it can even be ourselves. Like our own ego.**
Especially ourselves! That’s a big thing too. I have such a fucking big ego, and I’ve really been working on not having one.
**I support your ego fully. I think it can be used as a positive element. Ego may give you the confidence to really put yourself out there in the world, whereas sometimes it can also get in your head about it.**
Totally. It’s all, everything in one. That’s the thing about that word. It’s you, people, everything. Ego is everything in the air.
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