Anybody who takes one look at your social media profiles can tell you’re very intentional in how you’re represented, so tell me the story of how your name came about?

KG: I go by Kueen Gold, Kueen, or KG. Kueen came about in high school. I always felt really connected to Egypt, I’ve always been obsessed with King Tut, Cleopatra, the pyramids, etc. I got caught up in the regalness of being a queen. One day I said I’mma just call myself Queen but I didn’t want it to just be spelled the same way everyone else calls themselves queen. Then I started thinking, I’mma just put a K because I started realizing through relationships and friendships how dominant I was. I don’t have a typical feminine aura, I feel like femininity and masculinity are more personality based than gender based and I have more masculine energy than feminine energy, so I used a K instead of a Q. I feel like I have a lot of king energy too. King energy gives you automatic respect, like it's my way or the highway. Queen energy comes with a sense of sensuality that can make anybody drop their defense. So I feel I have both energies combined. The “Gold” comes from Africa, Gold is big to this day. And then we’re black people and we glow. There’s Divine Kueen, where that’s more of my spiritual side, the part that I’m still trying to develop and tap into, my ascending side.

You’ve engaged in many different art forms over the years, if you had to classify what you are, how would you describe the space you occupy in art?

KG: I am a jack of all trades, master of none. I feel I can do all things, honestly, once I lock my mind into something I can do it. I’ve done so much that I didn’t think I could do. I can literally place myself wherever I want to be. If I have to describe it I’d say I’m a spiritual creative person, that’s the simplest I can put it. I’m a person that needs to tap into everything. I’m never satisfied, I gotta continue to test myself.

What type of kid were you growing up? Were you always interested in art or was it a gradual attraction?

KG: Music was always everything to me, most people don’t know that’s my first life. I didn’t have the best life by any means but I loved music. My mom and dad always had music playing in the house. I’m really who I am because of my parents, they were both the outsiders of their families. My dad was into playing the guitar and listening to Bob Marley and that genre, my mom was into Madonna, Cher, Cyndi Lauper, etc. So it was all around me and I started singing. I became the lead vocalist in the kids choir etc. Music was my escape. People always talk about art and really talk about painting and things like that but when you really love music you can see the color and feel the energy, music really would just give me a high. Eventually, life started happening and I stopped singing, and when I went back to it I couldn’t sing anymore. So I started rapping. Music was really like my hoop dream that ain’t happen. When I heard my first “no” in music it crushed me, it really took a toll on me. My mom was heavy into Christianity at the time so my mom really was not with it so I started to hide that side. Lady Gaga came out and I fell in love, I was back to singing. This was where I got humbled. I auditioned for LaGuardia High School, and while everybody was singing Whitney Houston “I will always love you” kind of songs and then there was me singing Lady Gaga. They were not trying to hear that and I got rejected. But even now, when I listen to music it’s deep, I take it all apart and put it back together, I can see it, I can feel it.

You are one of few people that I reach out to for your opinion on things artistically, and it's because of your attention to detail. Talk to me about that attention to detail and how it played a role in your life growing up.

KG: Growing up there wasn’t much structure, my parents were living life, and that kind of made me grow up fast. At this age I get it, I understand, but at a young age I kind of became a mother to my mom in a logistical kind of way. That made me start to become a lot more analytical. Not that it was neat because my book bag was a reflection of my home life but more so in a disciplined kind of way. Then I started getting older and my dad would go hard saying I was overweight with my baby fat and being critical of my hair at a really young age, it started to make me realize what people want to see. So me being meticulous now is a result of that and just me knowing what other people are thinking and paying attention to. But now it has become a part of my DNA, I'm just a detailed orientated person. It started as something dark and became something light.

So understanding your attention to detail, how has your sense of fashion developed over the years?

KG: I feel like if you’re an artsy person that’s into fashion, your looks should change regularly. Since young I’ve been able to mix it up and make it look good. I was inspired by Aaliyah aesthetically so I always liked to switch it up, I could go formal, I can do streetwear, etc. It depends on how I'm feeling. My parents were heavy into fashion too. My dad was more into European fashion and my Mom was really like the Lil Kim, Rihanna of her time, go outside with a see through dress, just a thong on and short platinum blond hair. Fashion to me is the ability to create a look in your head and make it happen. It’s all art. I know my body, I know what goes with my body, it doesn’t really matter the size you are at the end of the day. I feel like I never had a lane, I never limited myself in that way. 

How did this morph into a business?

KG: It’s funny because everybody saw the vision. I had a history teacher who saw what I came to school in everyday. The day everyone got their regents award, she announced a fashion & personality award and named me and everybody applauded me. That's when I realized people were paying attention. That prompted me to start really designing, I started drawing sketches in the corners of my papers on the regular basis. I got towards the end of high school and my dance instructor would make all of our costumes. He’d have all of us in his moms house and measure us and make fire costumes sometimes out of scraps and that was my first time being able to see the process. I never met my grandmother but she was a seamstress and my mom has pictures of the dresses she used to make her and I was astounded. They looked like dresses you would go to a store to buy. My mom would make her own clothes and then go to the club, just anything to make the outfit more than what it was. At first I was against it, but then my mom offered to put money behind it, I found a photographer. I didn’t wanna drop my clothing line like everyone else dropped their clothing line so I got the idea to do a commercial. At this point I became a whole creative director, I knew exactly what I wanted, we went to Governor’s Island, midnight, I had a short haired model, and had the city lights faded in the background. I wanted it to feel lucid, NY native but still fancy. In that shoot single handedly I got over a lot of self conscious feelings I had physically about my body. I had a scene in the commercial where I'm wearing a bathing suit under a robe and I drop the robe as I’m walking and I pushed through it. I'm here to leave a mark, I'm here to tell you the sky's the limit, don’t let nobody box you in, just be you. The business started to take off a little bit, enough to make a name for myself, I met somebody and asked them to just teach me a little bit of the game. He agreed, I’m outside waiting for hours and he never came. That was a big ego jab for me, it made me feel a way, but it put a battery in my back. I kept working and a few months later he reached back out and invited me to NYFW which was a surreal experience for me. In music I got my first no and it crushed me, fashion taught me how to use it as motivation. My grades started slipping in school though and I stopped the business to hunt down that degree.

You briefly spoke about dance, what was the dance journey like?

KG: Anything you saw in Step Up we did, we did everything from underground dance to mainstream. I was a cheerleader in high school, I saw it in movies and I wanted to do it. In elementary and middle school Lil Mama was my step teacher, her step mom, Ms. Webster, taught at the school, and she was heavy on making sure I believed in what I was doing. She would say if you don’t believe in it, they’re going to smell that insecurity. So by the time I got to high school I was a pro at stepping and cheering. So one day this dance team comes to my school and they’re flawless, transitions perfect, and these are kids from random blocks in Brooklyn. So I wanted to join but I wasn’t going to because I was scared, my friend Sarah signed me up for it without me knowing. The tryout is in a park in East New York and that surprised me because you’d think they’d have a studio with the way they danced. In the beginning, I wasn’t good at what they were doing at all, but the instructor saw potential in me and took the time to nurture it and I ended up making the team. I caught up to speed eventually though. There was one girl on the team who had a lot of grace and sensuality to her when she danced, another girl was super confident, aggressive, and strong and I took their styles and made my own style. People ask where I get my confidence from and it was through him, my dance instructor, Jordan. What you see in me in pictures, videos, etc. is all from dance.

Your latest endeavor has been in spirituality. That's not something you just pick up and put down, so how did this come about?

KG: Not at all, when I was young my mom went to a psychic but she took me with her. The lady told her, your daughter is energetically sensitive and as long as she’s around she will protect you because negative energy cannot thrive around her because her energy is too strong. My mom knew this but she didn’t tell me this until I was older. When I was 9, we went to this church convention in the woods, there’s no technology, just you, nature, and church. The whole time I was there I felt closer to God, there’s nothing to distract you. So one day we get back to the room and these girls are all lined up, teenagers and adults and I just started reading them, telling them what to change about their lives and stuff. Touching people spiritually and connecting with them. One girl was tough and she told me a story about something bad that happened and I told her what would come of it and it brought her to tears. So it was always there but I was always scared of it. Then in high school I wanted to better understand people that I would date so I started to learn more about signs and charts. And I started doing it for my friends too but I was using it for bad, just to get what I wanted. But I had studied it. On clubhouse people were asking what I did and I just said I was a teacher because I have a teaching license. Then I started opening up and people would ask about their birth charts and stuff and I’d tell them. Then somebody said you need to charge for this and people really started paying for it. People of all walks. Then the person who’s room it was left the room to me for a few weeks and the whole room changed and I was doing the readings. I made a new page for it and people really started to support me and it hit me this is where I am in life. I always wanted to help people and inspire people so I ran with it. The best thing for me is seeing the satisfaction from people, seeing my predictions come true for them.

Where do you see yourself artistically in the next couple of years?

KG: Opening up a space for kids to have an outlet without people minimizing their brains. You have to amp kids early so that they can fully tap into themselves.