Flyana Boss are running laps around TikTok and the music industry with You Wish.
Theyve always had a master plan to be a star.
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Flyana Bosssopening bars to their hit You Wishhas become the bat signal for Black alt-girls across the internet.
For the next two years, they committed to vlogging and releasing music and videos on TikTok every day.
Theyve heard the chatter, and their response?
Youre gonna see when our baby hairs werent laid.
Our most hectic runner yet but wait…whats that in the background??
Bobbi: They accept everybody.
Thats kinda wassup, though, no?Bobbi: Like sometimes, right.
But its like the learning curve.
I think it stagnated people knew more about music.
I mean … can we cuss?
Absolutely.Bobbi:It was a bit of a shitshow.
Like, sometimes we would show up.
I showed up more than she did.
Folayan: I never showed up.
Its like,Damn, its just me today.
When yall first got together, how did yall mesh?
Folayan: Also, theres a word for it.
Bobbi:Ambivert,I think.
Folayan: Yeah, were a mix of both.
Bobbi: Right.Introvertedis like when you have to recharge by yourself;extrovertedis when you recharge around other people.
And us together, like even when were not on stage, its a show.
Even this conversation right now.
Folayan, youre from Dallas, and Bobbi, youre from Detroit.
Both are two beacons of Black Weirds.
Wait, no we looked up Triple-D, and Dallas came up.
But if you look up The D, thats Detroit.
Im a passionate Detroiter, for sure.
But she doesnt really care.
Folayan: Im just not connected in that way to my city.
I dont know why.
I think its cuzmy momis just a worldly person.
But I do love Dallas because Im from there.
You traveled a lot too, though, right?
I read you lived in Sweden after school.Bobbi: Shes a citizen of the universe.
Folayan: I worked for a company Epidemic Sound that did like overhead music, or elevator music.
It was really cool.
People in Sweden are so sweet.
But there were no Black people, so I felt uncomfortable sometimes.
They always say Sweden is the happiest place on earth.
And its like, cus they only see themselves there.Bobbi: They dont have to deal with race.
Bobbi: I was tryna figure it out.
And I was doing everything by myself producing, writing, video treatments, dress, everything.
Bobbi: But you kinda waited a little bit.
For one EP, sumn like that.Bobbi: I was down for that.
Folayan: But really I wanted to hold her down for the rest of my life.
Bobbi: And she locked me down!
Folayan: Im committed!
You be planning shit out, Folayan.Bobbi: Very sneaky too.
Cus she comes off like, Oh I just had an idea.
Thats what I wanted to do.
First, I moved to L.A. and moved in with my moms best friend.
I was just at her house playing her piano all day and watching TV.
And literally on my first day of class, I saw Folayan.
Folayan: And then I dropped out, moved to Sweden, came back.
She was still doing her shit.
Bobbi: I feel like when we first met, my skill level wasnt as good as Folayans.
So then when she come back, I was much, much better.
Do yall push each other heavy?Bobbi: I think its subconscious.
Its not like, Girl, you should probably no, its never that.
Its more like a positive encouragement.
Like, Actually, I think you’re able to try that.
Or, Why dont you do this?
Folayan: Its not like Wait, lemme talk to you outside real quick.
Theres a lot of trust built up there.Folayan: I feel so free around Bobbi.
Bobbi: Its a forreal friendship!
I know people might think its for show.
This is the best friend Ive ever had in my life.
Thats beautiful, honestly, and refreshing to see.
Then your careers really got goin in 2019.Folayan: Its been four years, yeah.
The pandemic fucked us up, so we took two years off.
We didnt fully stop; we built our social media.
Bobbi: We didnt stop-stop.
But we had been on a roll doing shows and sessions.
Folayan: Meeting people, exactly.
Bobbi: We were in the Triller office tryna do that stuff.
But it all kinda got slowed down with thepanorama.
How did yall deal mentally with that?Bobbi: We had each other.
We talked; we FaceTimed a lot.
Folayan: Also cus were introverted, it wasnt necessarily all the way terrible.
We didnt like going out too much anyway.
But we definitely met up to do content and havestudiosessions.
Our producer, Marky, is very close with us.
So the three of us pushed through the whole pandemic.
So there were no lulls?
Folayan: I worked in Chipotle, and we werent closed down.
On the front lines!Folayan: Helping the people, giving Black people extra of whatever they want.
We need more workers like you.Bobbi: I worked there for three days.
We also need more workers like you who knows its not for you!Bobbi: Exactly!
How did yall work through the lows, though?
Im sure Chipotle wasnt helping.Folayan: I was miserable!
But I needed money.
We were trying to go viral or forsomethingto happen.
So we said,Were gonna post every day for two years.
You have to treat it like a job.
Ive been studying TikTok more.
Folayan: I think its all us!
And the TikTok people said,No, we dont know how things pop off.
Theyre just like,Doing what youre doing, literally.
Did yall ever get tired of the TikTok grind?
Thats just a ton of energy.Bobbi: There was definitely a time where we got bored of it.
Folayan: We didnt see anything happen.
What was the first thing to pop off?Bobbi: There was this video of our song.
Well, Folayan recorded it on her own.
Folayan: I didnt tell anyone I was doing it.
I just posted it.
And I remember I noticed it.
She thought maybe one of our managers put an ad on it.
Super-organic.Bobbi: The next one we did together got even more views.
Then we just kept posting.
Folayan: We were getting like 100,000 views, which was on the sound.
And then TikTok took it down once we released the song because we copyright-infringed ourselves.
We didnt know that was a thing.
So all the organic stuff we had on this sound, wiped away.
Ring Aroundpopped off too.Bobbi: That was 2020.
Folayan: And we ran a campaign where we paid influencers to do a dance that we made.
Bobbi: That was okay.
Folayan: Ring Around was nice because other creators were doing it.
But most songs that go off, especially then, were influencer campaigns.
Like that was the way to get your songs out.
Bobbi: It made the streams go up, but people werent curious about us.
Cus they werent actually our videos.
They werent seeing yall do it.Bobbi: We knew You Wish would be a hit-hit.
We went to our managers like, We want a TikTok campaign.
And theyre like, Theyre dead, they dont happen anymore.
Folayan: We were like,Whatre we gonna do!?
Bobbi: Just Way too expensive, blah, blah, blah.
Folayan: So we said fuck it!
Well pay our own … but we didnt.
Bobbi: We just ended up making our own content that went off.
And Evan was like, I dont need a car.
Bobbi: Hes an athlete too.
He did lacrosse, though we didnt know that at the time.
How does that happen?Folayan: We did a deal with SyncWorld early on.
We just made an album for them technically, but it was on our page as well.
Bobbi: Its easy money, you know?
Put your twist on it and get the bag.
Yalls earlier stuff shows your range.
Folayan, you were on your whole jazz-rap thing.Folayan: I was on my boom bap.
And then Fuck Yall is so frustrated, I was like, Who pissed my girl off?!
Bobbi: I forgot about that one!
Folayan: I remember that.
I was in Sweden when you put that out!
Bobbi: I was pissed at everybody.
Pissed off at the world.
Mainly at school I was definitely inspired by teachers at school.
This is the fun, bestie, silly, vibrant side of myself.
And then the boom-bappy jazzy sound is my little chill side.
They dont know what to do with them?Folayan: Theyre like,its not gonna work.
Were like,yes it is.
One of our dreams is to do like how Outkast did a double album.
But whats cool to see is that people online are gravitating towards us because were doing us.
So it gives us more fuel to just keep doubling down on who we are.
Fuck whatever the executive people or whatever are saying, people love us.
I dont know if yall have heard theallegations.Folayan: The industry-plants thing?
Like what is going on?Folayan: I dont know, Google is free!
Google our names; youll see my SoundCloud stuff has been up for a long ass time.
Youre gonna see when were doing trends.
Youre gonna see when our baby hairs werent laid.
Folayan: But its kind of inevitable when you go viral.
Viral is already something that people dont understand.
I barely understand it myself.
Folayan: Yeah it was like,Smells like daddys money, or something like that.
Folayan was at Chipotle!
Bobbi: Because we were both doing the same things.
We both were performing Crazy in Love for our family as babies.
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