Where are theyyy now: Slayyyter

Liam Jackson, associate editor| September 24, 2019

Slayyyter has emerged as a new pop princess, influenced by 2000’s pop culture.

The lights go down and the crowd screams. Music starts playing and a screen shows the faces of 2000’s pop culture icons: Paris, Lindsay, Britney. The faces soon fade, and a name appears.

S-L-A-YYY-T-E-R.

As the lights begin to flash, the crowd screams louder. Slayyyter struts onto the stage in her white stilettos and speaks into the microphone, “Hello, St. Louis!”

Slayyyter has emerged as a new pop princess, influenced by 2000’s pop culture. Her rise has been quick; it was only a few years ago that she was KHS student. She said classes at KHS helped her form an interest for music.

“Choir class with Mr. Cannon was kind of like free voice lessons in a way [that] got me more into music as a whole,” Slayyyter, class of 2015, said. “Choir class kind of taught me how to sing, essentially. I did acapella choir, and if it weren’t for KHS I wouldn’t have had access to that because we didn’t have money for voice lessons, so singing every single day helped me want to get into it more.”

After graduating, she attended the University of Missouri, but left after her freshman year and became a waitress. At the same time, she began making music and publishing it on SoundCloud. Her first official song, “BFF,” was released on streaming services in August 2018. She said she did not expect the reaction she got to the single.

“I remember I quit my waitressing job and I moved to be a receptionist at a hair salon, and every single day [Twitter] started grabbing on to it,” Slayyyter said. “Every day I would be at my job at my desk refreshing and looking at the SoundCloud plays, and each day it would go up by like 1000, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, people like it. That’s so cool. It’s like my 15 seconds of fame.’”

Slayyyter’s presence on Twitter has attracted a following due to her candid and unfiltered tweets. Fitz Cain, senior at Saint Louis University High School, first found Slayyyter’s Twitter and later became a fan of her music. He said he especially likes her fanbase.

“The main reason I really like Slayyyter is the culture surrounding her,” Cain said. “She got really big online, mostly on Twitter, and there’s this cult following of people who are just obsessed with her and her music. She has a really large queer following, and it’s really interesting and fun to be able to interact with this fanbase and this culture surrounding her. It makes her music even more exciting.”

After Slayyyter released “BFF,” she continued to build her fanbase and released more music. As her popularity grew, she announced The Mini Tour. In June 2019, she had her first live performance ever in front of a sold out audience in Brooklyn, N.Y.

“[Going on] tour is really fun,” Slayyyter said. “It’s cool to see new places and meet everyone that likes my music. [Meeting fans] is my favorite part because I’m like, ‘Woah, we tweet each other and now we’re here.’”

The almost fully sold out tour stopped at 11 cities, culminating in a performance in St. Louis on July 27, 2019. For her hometown show, she wore a Blues jersey, bedazzled by Slayyyter herself. In attendance were much of her family and friends, including Lydia Schjolberg, senior.

“[During the concert] I cried,” Schjolberg said. “Ever since I’ve known her, I’ve known that this is something she’s wanted to do forever. It was amazing. I’m so proud of her for doing what she loves.”

After her tour, she announced her self-titled debut mixtape, released September 17. She was also announced as the opening act to singer Charli XCX in Toronto, Canada and Washington, D.C.

St. Louis’ pop princess is ready to ascend to the throne.