StudioA: Singer/rapper K.Flay breaks the rules

Singer/songwriter and rapper K.Flay stops by USA TODAY's StudioA.

New to the game: K.Flay wasn't always set on a career in music — not seriously, at least. "When I was growing up, I wasn't in bands, and had really no intention of ever doing music," says Flay, a Chicago native who's now based in Brooklyn. "I went out to California for college, and kind of on a whim started making music really as a joke, and over the course of the next five years started playing a lot of shows, and music became this really integral part of my identity."

Got the smarts: After attending Stanford University in Palo Alto, where she double majored in psychology and sociology, Flay (born Kristine Flaherty) stepped away from academia to find her own creative voice. "I was always very academically focused when I was growing up, and music was something for which I really had no preconceptions or expectations for myself or really any rules," says Flay, who put out her debut full-length, Life as a Dog, this year. "It kind of represented, at least for me, a divergent path of creativity and self-discovery." But Flay says she also appreciates the skills and mind-set her education provided. "I do think there's obviously a really important component to writing lyrics and also being a life-long learner and student of the world. It was good to go to school. Stay in school!"

Genre-bending: Flay describes her music as "a version of indie hip-hop, mixed with electronics, mixed with head-banging," the eclectic mix of styles and influences just another way to express herself. "The music's always been a little bit in between genres, which at times can be a little bit confusing for both myself and other people," she says, "but most of the time it's really cool because I get to do a lot of things and again really have no set of rules to myself."

Keep things real: Coming into a music scene that is often hostile to outsiders, Flay has had to bridge cultural gaps in the cutthroat rap world. "I think the key for any kind of artist — and this transcends music — is a certain degree of authenticity and sincerity," says Flay. "Even when I was making really terrible music that I think I have destroyed at this point, it was kind of authentic to my perspective and myself at the time. ... I think that people have sensed that in what I'm doing and have been really supportive."