Lady Gaga confirms ballroom influence on Mayhem: ‘I was a student of Paris Is Burning’

Lady Gaga has been spilling tea about her upcoming seventh studio album MAYHEM which sounds more exciting the more we hear.

Many fans will already have been wondering if the singer’s utterance of “Category is: dance or die” on her current single ‘Abracadabra‘ suggests Gaga may have taken influence from the NYC ballroom scene whilst making the record, a suspicion she seems to have confirmed in a recent interview with InStyle.

“I grew up in New York City and I also was a student of Paris Is Burning when I was really, really young,” Mother Monster told the publication. “And I was always inspired by the tremendous amount of grace, freedom, expression, and joy of ballroom culture. I was lucky enough to be around some dancers that were a part of that life.”

The artist also teased two new tracks which appear on the LP’s tracklisting. The first is a track called ‘The Beast’ which will hear her sing to a lover… who is also a werewolf? Oh, we are so back!

“There’s this song on the album called ‘The Beast,’ and it’s me singing to a werewolf and the lyrics are: You can’t hide who you are, 11: 59, your heart’s racin’, you’re growling, and we both know why,” she revealed. “And somehow that gothic dream is not just about me in a relationship with this person that’s about to turn, but what if I was to just sing it to myself and the beast is Gaga? It’s all these twisted dreams.”

Another track Gaga spilled on is called ‘Perfect Celebrity’ which sounds as though it harks back thematically to the star’s earliest work on The Fame and The Fame Monster.

“I’ve spent the last couple of decades being lots of different versions of myself”

“The multiple mes in the [‘Disease’ and ‘Abracadabra’] videos were actually really at the centre of this because I’ve spent the last couple of decades being lots of different versions of myself. There is this duality and I really do explore that duality on a song on my album called ‘Perfect Celebrity,'” she said.

“The lyric is: I’ve become a notorious being, find my clone, she’s asleep on the ceiling. It’s this idea that we all, in a way, have our real selves and then our clone version that we project to the world. So there’s a lot in MAYHEM about multiple yous or multiple mes and what it’s like to have those things be at odds with each other all the time.”

MAYHEM is set for release on 7 March.

The post Lady Gaga confirms ballroom influence on Mayhem: ‘I was a student of Paris Is Burning’ appeared first on Attitude.