Rising from the "Disney Channel Original" and adolescent television programming ashes, came the gay phoenix that is Hayley Kiyoko.
While she's starred as an actress in an array of tv shows, made for tv movies, and Hollywood films that have had target audiences of all kinds, for the adolescents of 2009-2011 Hayley Kiyoko was a "Lemonade Mouth" icon and our FAVORITE Velma Dinkley.
But let's start from the beginning of it all. Hayley Kiyoko Alcroft is an Aries, born in LA, California, to parents Jamie Alcroft and Sarah Kawahara. From a young age, she was drumming and creating rhythms of her own, acting in commercials and starring in school-sanctioned plays and musicals. Utilizing her own ability to brand and market herself, before she had even graduated high school she started a garage band and released five songs and a music video onto MySpace.
All of this work and effort on her own part led to her joining an all-girl powerhouse group with fellow amazing women artists such as Tinashe, called "The Stunners." While this group only released a few songs together, "The Stunners" made it possible for Kiyoko to jump into her role as Stella in the Disney Original hit "Lemonade Mouth" in 2011
Since then, Kiyoko resurfaced in the mainstream musical artistry in 2015 with her second solo EP and her hit single "Girls Like Girls," which became her moment to declare her sexuality as a gay woman. Since then, Kiyoko's discography has opened a door for gay and lesbian romance in musical reputation.
In an Elle Magazine exclusive interview Kiyoko said, "Every time I do a music video, I'm constantly fighting to get my point across. As a gay woman, that's also a big hurdle." Because the fact of the matter is that straight and cis people truly don't understand that the entirety of a gay or trans person's life is queer. Everything they do, from the art they produce to the people they love, is gay (simply put).
Think about it this way, Hayley Kiyoko and Lana Del Rey are musicians that have similar artistic trajectories. Both musicians make songs and music videos about their sexual and romantic selves, but never has anyone said to Lana, "Really? Another song about a grungy sugar daddy twice your age?"
Why? Because she's a straight artist making music about straight love. So for an artist to so unabashedly come out into the music industry and make music and music videos that are so evidently queer in their own right is fundamental to giving young queer kids the chance to see themselves in music the way that straight kids have since, well really, the advent of modern music.
Hayley Kiyoko's debut full-length album by a major label, "Expectations," is set to be released at the end of the month on March 30th, 2018, on iTunes through Atlantic Records. Three singles –– "Feelings," "Sleepover," and "Curious" –– have already been released with music videos that have been almost entirely self-directed. Kiyoko has also been an integral part of the writing processes for these singles so we can only expect that she was integral to the writing of the whole album.
From the gays of the world to you, Hayley, we're so proud to see you succeed, and we can't wait to see what you have in store for us with this album. Keep being amazing, sweety.
