In early May, VMAN first met two of the most captivating artists to emerge in post-pandemic music, backstage in Brooklyn. But Keegan and Jeremiah are better known to the Discord-connected hip-hop and electronic underground – and increasingly, the overground – as kuru and Lucy Bedroque: Like-minded experimentalists from opposite coasts, labelmates at deadAir, among the zeitgeistiest indie imprints on the planet,  they’ve teamed up – along with New Zealand-born producer, artist and friend 9lives – for one of the coolest outings on the road this spring, one that’s packed out venues coast-to-coast, including two sold-out nights at the  Music Hall of Williamsburg.

For kuru, who is only six months older but has been in the game and in something of a spotlight longer, it means a chance to showcase songs from their latest and best album, Backstage hologram, which dropped last month. Headliner Lucy Bedroque is in a different spot, but has also taken things to a new level in the past year. Lucy rose to prominence a couple of years after kuru, first making their mark under the alias lostrushi, through hazily sweet, fiercely DIY singles. In 2024, they adopted their current name, and in quick succession, dropped three EP’s that heralded Lucy as a singular new voice in fractured, ethereal future pop. Epitomized by the gloriously sui generis tune “How to Pretend,” it was stuff so unique that it made Lucy’s 2025 turn all the more head-spinning.

Unmusique, released almost exactly a year ago, marked a major change. For the first time, Lucy was working with outside producers – a baker’s dozen of them – and took a sharp turn into the “rage”-ier side of the underground. Wildly blown-out tracks like “Ultraviolet” and “G6 Anthem” were catnip for the mosh pits, and if less autonomous and “ambitious” (Lucy’s word), the project connected like nothing they had dropped before, opening new doors. It’s also meant decision time for their upcoming, much-anticipated next album.  Simply titled c – which could stand for “crossroads” – it begs the question: does Lucy continue the crowd-pleasing, chaotic collabs? Or return to the beloved, if less turnt, self-prod weirdo-pop? If a flurry of recent track drops on Soundcloud and the ton of new songs Lucy has been featuring on the road (around ten, on an average night) are any indication, the former seems to be winning out, though Lucy doesn’t want to entirely abandon the latter.

Photography by Athena Merry

VMAN: Guys, thanks for doing this. I have so much to ask you both, but first and most obviously, the tour is now three weeks out and a couple more weeks to go. Is it going well? I know you also did a mini-tour in December, where you both kinda got sick…

kuru: This has been going way better than the mini-tour, I can tell you that. I mean, one, it just feels good not having to fly everywhere. Like I have my complaints about driving too, because I am a whiny bitch when it comes to travel? But it feels so nice being able to get proper rest and not being like, “Aw shit, I gotta go do TSA at 4 in the morning,” and this and that. It feels awful doing that. So this is just much more calm, I guess more streamlined?

VMAN: Has there been a high point? A best city yet?

[both]: Atlanta!

VMAN: Really? Well you also played there in December.

kuru: Yeah we did, but like this Atlanta stop?

Lucy Bedroque: I would say it’s the craziest show we’ve done so far. The energy was just amazing. People doing the “A-T-L” chant, which was just, mind you, voluntary on their end. And then it was an immediate encore as well, and overall, really good energy. But then besides the ups of the show, there were definitely…

kuru: [laughs] The biters?

Lucy: There was a bunch of biters in the crowd. Just biting each other.

VMAN: Oh wow. Could you like, see it?

Lucy: I didn’t see it but there were people on social media saying it happened? One of them was out of self-defense, but other people were biting people just to bite people!

I was just like, “Why were y’all biting each other?” Cause like the Atlanta show we did in December, it was probably the calmest in the four-stop run. But now I’m like – I’ve never even heard of people biting each other at shows, especially within the scene? I’m kind of like, “Damn!”

VMAN: Well Jeremiah, tomorrow is a big day, is it not?

Lucy: Yeah

kuru: Lucy’s birthday!

VMAN: The big 2-oh! Happy early birthday!

Lucy: Thank you.

VMAN: And being back in New York, even though you’ve lived most of your life in L.A. you are actually originally from New Rochelle, right?

Lucy: Yes, well, mostly The Bronx. I was born in New Rochelle, which is ten or fifteen away from where I lived. 

VMAN: Do you have any family left back here?

Lucy: My dad still lives in The Bronx. He was here last night, and he’ll be at the show tonight.

VMAN: Oh great, And [to kuru] have been living in our city for a while now?

kuru: Close to three years at this point?

VMAN: Did you go kind of straight from school to New York?

kuru: No, actually – my origins are kind of weird. I was like bouncing around a lot when I was a kid…

VMAN: Rockville [Maryland] and Harper’s Ferry [West Virginia]?

kuru: Yeah, Rockville and Harper’s Ferry, but what I haven’t really mentioned that much is that when I was maybe 1 through 12, I would do this thing where I would spend like half a year in Banyuwangi, Indonesia, then back to Maryland. I was kind of home schooled, until let’s say seventh grade, for real? So it definitely took me a while to kind of get back into like, socializing, with other humans? Honestly it kind of came back to me deciding, “Oh shit, I should play basketball” in middle school, and that’s how I was kind of like re-learning human interaction, and all that stuff.

VMAN: So where in New York do you live?

kuru: I live in Queens, below Jackson Heights. So like, mad Indonesians, very home type of vibe. It’s so crazy to just step outside and be able to speak a language that I haven’t bothered to be fluent in since I was 12. So it feels good to talk to the locals.

VMAN: There’s a line in I think it’s in “U wld never do it” where you say, “I don’t got a home / nowhere to return to” – isn’t that a line?

kuru: It is, it is. Yeah I was kind of on my nomadic shit, for a little bit? And I still am, on occasion. But it’s always nice having like a bed to sleep in. I just have a complicated relationship with the concept of “home.”

VMAN: It occurred to me that this tour represents two kind of different things for each of you. Jeremiah for you, Unmusique blew up last year, took you to another level, everyone is anticipating this much teased next project, and more than half the songs you’re playing on this tour are really brand new. Either absolutely the first time people are hearing them or in some cases stuff you have just recently dropped on Soundcloud.

Lucy: This project that I’ve been working on – it’s been in concept since maybe November of last year – and I was planning on doing a little like mixtape kind of drop, and then a full LP? But over time, I was trying to get the sound that I wanted to get, and it kind of wasn’t coming together like I wanted? And so I just kept making more and more and then, especially in March, that was the month that I kind of figured out the sound and imagery I wanted to go with for this project. And it felt too ambitious for me to kind of just say, “Okay this is a mixtape, I’ll just put some songs on here.” I was actually supposed to submit the project April 17^th! That was my plan. And in my head it was like kind of finished, but even now on tour I’ve decided that I wanted to have myself more involved in the project, in terms of production? Initially it was only gonna be two tracks that were self-prod, but I wanted to add four or five more? So that it actually has that feeling of a unique project. Because, as much as I consider myself a singer-songwriter-rapper, I also consider myself a producer.

VMAN: Right! And I think that’s been a question among some fans, because the early projects were self-prod, and Unmusique last year wasn’t just musically a different place for you, it was the fact that  you worked with, what a dozen collaborators?

Lucy: Yeah

VMAN: So I think for some the question has been, “Is that gonna be the path that Lucy continues on, or will it go back to how it was…” and it sounds like it is gonna be a mix.

Lucy: Yeah I think it’s safe to say, a good mix. At least that’s kind of what I want it to be? I think a lot of people like the more ambitious projects? Like some of the older things that were produced by me, and are less the kind of hip-hop oriented songs that were produced by other producers…

VMAN: Rage-y?

Lucy: Rage-y, yeah! [laughs]

VMAN: So with all this new music you’re playing live, plus half a dozen songs you’ve dropped on Soundcloud recently, are you kind of testing out the responses to them? Are these songs that will even necessarily end up on the album?

Lucy: I feel like a lot of people think that they are like singles, from the project?

But – and I don’t want to call them “throwaways” necessarily – I will say there are only maybe two tracks of the seven that I have uploaded in the last few weeks that will actually be included on the project. Initially I was thinking of having around sixteen songs for the project, but I think I am going for 21. Which is a very large number, it can seem very intimidating. But I think that I’m kind of like ego-tripping in my own music.

VMAN: And then Keegan for you, Backstage hologram, which is so great, just dropped last month. Your set is pretty much 50-50 between that album and [2025’s] Stay true forever, and from what I could tell last night, people are just as into the new record as the last one. “Noir kei” for example, went off.

kuru: Yeah it’s definitely been like a major response. Honestly, when I dropped Stay true forever, I wasn’t really expecting much. Cause after the debut album? [ re : wired, 2024] I was just kind of like, “Okay this is cool, but this is like kind of a concept album to me?” Like, granted it’s like what I imagined the end product to be? But it’s not the end product. I honestly think my vocal inflections on that are super weal. So I feel like Stay true forever was just like, “Give me two weeks. Give a TLM 103 [microphone]. I’m pressing go. I’m going every night, just punching shit out.” Eighteen tracks, I got it done in like two weeks, I just went for it. So I wasn’t expecting too much, I didn’t expect it would change my life, like six months later? Cause I feel the traction from it came at a much later date. But it is kind of weird, because I think it kind of blew up the reception for the new album. And it’s very – it kind of feels like everything is kind of completing a little bit.

VMAN: And Jeremiah, the name of the new project, whenever it comes, is c, right?

Lucy: c. Yeah.

VMAN: And that refers to carbon?

Lucy: Yes? Um…It’s kind of a multitude of things. “c” is for whatever reason, one of my favorite letters. But also C is carbon and on the periodic table it’s 6 and like, my birthday is 2006, so. But I think c though now is more a variable. It could mean like a lot of different one-word things, that start with the letter c.

VMAN: The new songs you’ve uploaded and have been performing include “C-section”, “I Know”, “Hello World” with Prettifun….

Lucy: Yeah but that I won’t be including.

VMAN: So some of them will make it on the project?

Lucy: I would say the majority won’t. I think my idea of doing more self-produced songs has inspired me to create like more of like a concept. Also, visually what I’m going for in this project is kind of more horror-esque? And kind of weird. And I will say that I just kind of want to be involved, in that sound. And there are other producers that are involved, but I also want to be as involved as I can be.

VMAN: I talk to a lot of young artists who don’t lean into style that much. But you both seem to really know the value of distinctive looks and presentation. Jeremiah, how would you say your style has evolved over time, even going back to the lostrushi days, and what has inspired you?

Lucy: I would say I’ve been very inspired by a lot of music – like thinking about it, there’s one of Japan’s biggest bands, a rock band, and I don’t know how to pronounce the name, but the lead singer is…[to kuru] you know, Hyde…?

kuru: Oh yeah I know….

Lucy: I am not sure how to pronounce it. [Lucy is referring to Hyde of Osaka alt-rock vets  L’Arc-en-Ciel]. Or even bands like [Japanese metal stalwarts] Dir En Grey.

kuru: Yeah, kind of like the visual kei type of stuff.

Lucy: There’s always within the younger community, where like people kind of – and right now I’d say it’s more the Hedi boys, who are now trying to dress themselves in Dior jeans and stuff. But I’d say a lot of them were like trying to get that whole visual kei type of style, back in 2023? And I feel like a lot of them were not really cultured to the music behind it, or really like, knowing anything about it besides the clothes.

VMAN: So it was more costume than anything.

Lucy: Yeah and like, I am someone where I really like the idea of going all out, and dressing up. And I discovered that when I got into visual kei, after I had watched a lot of [theatrical 90s Japanese band] Malice Mizer DVD’s and stuff, and they instantly became one of my favorite bands. So since then I’ve always wanted to kind of, well, wear kind of visual kei-adjacent clothing, but I’ve also wanted to dress up like full-on costumes, wigs and makeup, shit like that. Cause I feel like that’s really part of that culture, and I feel like it’s sick as fuck. But I think a lot of people are afraid to try that because to them it’s very queer…and not even queer in a gay way.

VMAN: One of your new songs is “Married To My Jeweler” and I do like your jewelry cause you wear a lot of silver and I like silver, I don’t really like gold.

Lucy: I’m the same way.

kuru: I am too, I think we’re 100 per cent! [laughs]

VMAN: Any story behind that song? Do you have a favorite jeweler?

Lucy: Um, not necessarily. It’s kind of just a song,  But I am more into jewelry than I ever have been in my life, I would say. I think it’s such an essential for an accessory to a wardrobe.

VMAN: Keegan, as a longtime fan of Comme des Garçons I loved seeing Rei Kawakubo get a mention in your song “Noir kei”.

kuru: Yep! [makes a heart sign]

VMAN: Rei’s the GOAT. And in one interview I saw you talking about people’s style and how some people try too hard, and ending up looking not – and I thought it was interesting because a word you used was “tasteful.” And I thought, that word almost sound to me like something a parent might say, like a mom to her daughter, “Honey, you need to look tasteful!”

kuru: I didn’t mean it like that! [laughs]

VMAN: Okay, but I don’t know it strikes me as a sort of conservative word. So I was just wondering do you think when it comes to clothes do you think you’re….

kuru: Conservative?

VMAN: Or at least not given to “extreme” looks?

kuru: I think that lowkey my perspective on that has kind of changed? But I’m kind of just a “rock out, you do you.” I’ve kind of grown to know that everything is tasteful in its own right without it kind of being conservative. In the same way that I think like a Malice Mizer outfit, with the crazy-ass wigs and the insane blazers, I love that stuff. I mean I can’t really see myself wearing it because it’s just not my swag. But I think that’s as tasteful as honestly someone who’s just slapping on a Nike Tech sweatsuit and like whatever sneakers fit the day, and just call it. I feel like everything is its own swag. I feel like I never really meant that in a conservative manner, but….

VMAN: I didn’t know, I just…

kuru: No no! I know what you mean though. Maybe I did back then, actually. But now thinking about it, I feel like everything is its own swag. Unless you’re just kind of doing shit to hop on a trend. I feel like that is kind of where it sit with the conservativeness of like, that’s not tasteful. Let me think of – like, when Hellstar was popping obviously everyone hopping on Hellstar believes in skinny jeans, I’m like, “What are you doing? Are you doing this because you think it’s cool, or are you doing this because Instagram shoved it in your face?” But I think everyone’s got their own swag, in their own right. There’s definitely some shit that I still think is corny, but I just kind of keep it to myself.

VMAN: You both seem like artists who want to focus on your newest music, and might even want to move away from your past stuff. Jeremiah, when people want to talk to you about stuff from three or four years ago like SISTERHOOD [2023] do you sort of feel like, “Can we just move on?”

Lucy: Yeah, I really started that like the first quarter of my first year in college? And I was listening to a lot of Shibuya-kei [Japanese 90s indie pop genre] – that’s what it was inspired by. And I still love Shibuya-kei, but I kind of don’t want to have my identity in that. Cause I listen to all different kinds of music. And if I could, I would release a project in every single style that I like! But I feel like it would be really difficult, and confusing. And I think for me, what I want to specialize in is a genre that I can have a home court advantage in?  And I think generally speaking, that is hip-hop. Either hip-hop or electronic, or like, rock.

VMAN: Keegan, when it comes to older music, like do you wish re : wired [2024] could kind of just go away?

kuru: I feel like by the time Stay true forever was releasing I really hated re : wired. Like I was just not a fan. But now, looking back? I honestly just wish I could re-record it. I feel like if I re-recorded re : wired and released it today, it would be a completely different story. Cause looking back, it’s just like it was a little too ambitious? And it was definitely some really  – I am not happy with those takes. But also genre is also kind of a weird thing for me as well, cause I am kind of in the same boat as Lucy in that I listen to a lot of different music. I feel like I really still haven’t locked in on something, but I would like to be known as a rapper, at the end of the day.

VMAN: Well you can do a lot. A song like “Ovrseas” which is most definitely a rap track…

kuru: Yeah

VMAN: To something like “Like glue” [with katmoji] which is definitely not.

kuru: Hell no! [laughs] But I don’t want to play the card where I’m sitting there saying, “I’m not a rapper, I’m an artist!” It’s like, okay, I want to be a rapper, and a singer and a producer. I want to be everything! And it’s like, I still want to be known in all three of those things, but at the end of the day, I always come back to rap music, cause it’s just what I have the most fun making sometimes. So I feel like it’s okay for me to want to be known in all three, even though I might have pros and cons in each.

VMAN: Jeremiah you’ve been asked a lot in the past year about your song “2010 Justin Bieber” and I won’t ask you about it, but I do want to mention Bieber because the culture has had a bit of a recent Bieber moment. And he is someone who has long battled with the press being overly intrusive into his life. Likewise Chappell Roan has talked a lot in the past year or more about the press or parasocial fans not respecting boundaries, and even Jane [Remover] has experienced some of that, especially post-Coachella. Where are you guys on the idea of privacy and parasocial followers?

Lucy: I think the fact that we’re adjusting to being known, to the degree that we’re know – I think it’s very strange at this point in time. And having to know what everybody is thinking about you at all times and kind of having this response in your head? And I guess if you’re already responding in your head to things that you don’t need to respond to, you’ve kind of already lost, in a way? I feel like if you want to respond to things, there is a way to go about it as well. And that’s something that I myself kind of struggle with.

VMAN: Fans, like that, you mean?

Lucy: Yeah. Fans, and also people that just have this kind of warped perception of me? Especially my peers, as well. And I didn’t really understand it as much when I was younger, especially when I was first making music. Because it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t as bad as it is now.

kuru: My situation is a little different from Lucy’s, because I feel like, poor Lucy, it’s just like – there’s a higher peak for Lucy than there is for me, right now? But I’ve already understood the arena a little bit, if that makes sense. Cause for me – this is gonna sound like a rant, but I feel like I popped off kind of early, like “Clueless” popped off when I was like 14, 15 – we’re talking 2020, 2021. Old like hyperpop era. And I feel like I had a lot of eyes on me, and I had a lot of people judging me for shit, and I’m sitting here just a little ass kid – that’s why I feel so much for like Nettspend and stuff like that. He’s still just 19 and he has that many eyes on him. That shit is horrifying to me. I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. Because I didn’t want to in the first place. I just always wanted to be a rapper, I just pretty much kind of ended up kind of backtracking into like, “Okay this is really what I wanted to do, to begin with.” Kind of just learned everything from the late Lil Xelly. And it’s just kind of like, “Okay, now let’s do this all over again. And just pray it doesn’t get out of hand like it did when I was a little ass kid.” And it does still get out of hand, and there’s definitely a lot of moments when I’ll sit there and still tweak out, but at the end of the day it’s just like, I think one good thing about living in New York? I check my phone, it’s bullshit. I go outside? I just see my friends, and it’s a normal-ass day. So I’m just like [points to phone] this isn’t real.

VMAN: It’s true.

kuru: And there comes a point where it catches up to you. Like, there have been little instances, little dramas that I have been sitting there tweaking about in real time, and I hate the fact that I do that, but unfortunately that’s just my personality. I do think it’s very helpful that all of us on this tour are friends. Because I’m standing there, I’ll see stuff on the internet, and I might tweak out a little bit! And sometimes it’s up to Max [9lives] and Jeremiah to be like, “Keegan, you’re losing your mind!” [laughs]

VMAN: So, both of you, what’s in store for the rest of the year? Jeremiah, you’re going to Australia?

Lucy: Yes. There’s a few festivals in like July-August. And then I have a Europe tour in September-October, and then another North America in November and December. I really do honestly enjoy tour life because I enjoy traveling, that’s a big part of it? And also performing, it’s fun. So everything right now it feels like a package, it’s everything I want.

kuru: My main thing is I want to do like a mini-tour here, headlining. Kind of the same set up we did but I want to fuck with the bill this time.

VMAN: And do you think you’ll have another record out before the end of the year?

kuru: Maybe before the end of the summer! Maybe an EP. I am thinking of trying to get a lot of the [DMV music collective] Too Many Strikers people on one half, you know kind of really locking in with the DMV side of rap, and for the other half locking with, maybe get more ambient. I want to sit there and maybe granularize stuff, and maybe play with my hardware a little more.

VMAN: Is there even a ballpark date for c to drop?

Lucy:  I am trying to really invest the most that I have ever invested into a project, cause I consider this album to be like my debut debut. So I am aiming for just the month of June. I don’t know what day exactly.

VMAN: Cause it’s the sixth month?

Lucy: Sixth month, yeah. That and also, it gives me more time to figure out what I want to do.

VMAN: Well June is not far off.

Lucy: No it’s not far off at all. And then also I am trying to have another LP at Christmas.

VMAN: Oh yeah? Cool.

kuru: Bedroque Santa? [laughs]

VMAN: But not a “Christmas album”?

Lucy: Nooo not a Christmas album. [laughs]

kuru: I’m not gonna lie though…that would be tight!