BAYLI Is Welcoming Pop Fans To The Self-Care Club With ‘No Re-Entry’

Hot girls, hot beats, and even hotter yoga — BAYLI, the New York City-based, inventive pop purveyor, has been combining her penchant for wellness and musicality into a singular career. Recently, she’s found a way to embrace the underground clubbing scene of NYC while also going sober and taking her body, soul, and mind to the next level with yoga and transcendental meditation she picked up from her mentor Rick Rubin. Her upcoming EP, No Re-Entry is a testament to that exploration, with six internet-era dance tracks plus hypnotic beats and lyrics that play on the idea of hedonism and desire. Her glitchy single “SUGARCOAT” is prepped for runways and clubs, a self-love, sharp anthem from a femme who knows herself. Her second teaser from the album “ALL OF THAT,” pays homage to the indie sleaze BAYLI grew up on, with a bouncy 2000s, vibrating beat under the lyrics “always my princess, sometimes my peach.”

“I started working in music so young,” she tells UPROXX. “Even before I was a person whose body was gonna be on a stage and [in front of] thousands of people, I always connected to taking care of the body. And also, the proverbial… the body is a temple. I was mentored by a lot of hippie musicians who were like, ‘If you do not feel good, and if you’re not taking care of yourself, the music doesn’t come. The greatness doesn’t come if you are not in a good place.’”

BAYLI was just a teenager when she began performing as a backup singer, joining multiple indie bands before starting one with her siblings and friends. “I feel lucky that at around 16 when I was in an indie rock band (The Skins, “like the British TV show”) we were signed by Rick Rubin, who was the most meditative, spiritually leaning producer in the industry.”

“The very first time I left New York to do anything for music, we went to Malibu and the first thing Rick Rubin wants to do is a meditation with us. He does transcendental meditation. He wants to connect on that level before we even talk business,” she says. She was mentored by the “music guru” for four years, and his guidance left her with a new approach to her art. “Taking care of yourself before anything, before writing, before getting in the studio … it’s the number one thing. I still carry that out.”

Below, UPROXX catches up with BAYLI to chat about mediation, creating without expectation, and what we can expect from her No Re-entry EP.

Can you tell us about your experience with transcendental meditation?

I respect transcendental meditation so much, and I’m looking into doing an established transcendental meditation course. Rick Rubin does that and other goated celebrities like Oprah, Stevie Wonder … Stevie’s been doing and singing about transcendental meditation since the ‘70s. I don’t know too much, but what I do know is that it’s a very sustainable way to meditate. You don’t need to do it for hours a day. You can do it for five minutes a day. You have a dedicated mantra that’s made for you, it’s your own practice. I really practice that with how I take care of my body. So with meditation, it could be just 30 seconds in a cab before I show up to an event or it could be a dedicated routine. I think it’s just what works for you, that’s what I take from it.

Can you feel a marked difference in your creativity and music when you’re actively practicing in comparison to when you’re not?

I do feel that there’s a marked difference. I’m not doing it religiously; I’m in the phase of not really doing that much anymore. We live in such a high-sensory world. If you’re not in a high stimulation world, if you’re not stimulating or being stimulated, it’s like you’re not working, you’re not doing enough. Our brains tell us that being chill, taking personal time means that maybe you’re not doing enough in the world. I think there’s this subconscious reluctance [to mediate].

But when you do it, it always helps. The world is so insanely overstimulating right now that the biggest luxury in the future is going to be low or no sensory activities like meditation but now it’s still stigmatized. I think people think you’re working harder and are more quote-unquote successful if you’re waking up early to go to the office than waking up early to meditate. I really still think we’re unfortunately in that place in society. So how do we make meditation and wellness cool? By showing examples. I’m a person at clubs and parties and I’m a bad bitch and in order to be a bad bitch, I have to meditate. I love meditating. I love working out.

Let’s talk No Re-entry. What was the headspace when you were going into the studio to record these tracks?

I’m gonna be vulnerable. I feel really lucky with my career, but [I haven’t had] a super mega mainstream or internet viral moment or anything. I’m not an artist that’s ever had that from my perspective. It feels like with this album, it was giving last hurrah. It was giving last dance a little bit when I was working on it. For me it’s like, ‘Do I wanna keep working in the same space of music? Do I wanna take a break or a hiatus from artist work?’ I’ve been doing it for so long, maybe I could use a change of pace. I wanna put my best foot forward at the same time. I’m not gonna overthink it. I’m not gonna be a perfectionist. I’m just gonna be a little bit looser and more flowy. I was trying to give less of a fuck and not be like so overly professional, overly perfectionist with how I’m finishing this project. I was free flowing with it. That’s why it feels to me a bit more dancey, like club, experimental music. I can be really composer-y with my music and I was trying to be fun.

Did that make it harder or easier? How did the shift in that mode of thinking impact the final project?

With the former projects, there’s a young and fearless mindset. Like boom, I’m gonna put everything into this and it’s going to be life-changing, it has to be really good. The expectation and the perfectionism from my last projects didn’t make it fun. So, when I had a moment that was a big deal, like when I was Spotify EQUAL Woman of the Month and I had a billboard, it’s like I’m not even present and thinking that that’s a big moment or a legitimately cool moment. I’m just like, ‘Cool, what’s next? I looked kind of terrible in that photo.’ Nothing is present. When you have that perfectionism, it’s overly transactional. I took the pressure off and the expectation off for this one. If the song isn’t the most profound song ever, I’ll be fine. It makes it freer, it makes the writing process freer. It makes the visuals and the creative direction freer. It was just me playing with the process of ‘This doesn’t have to do really well. This doesn’t have to be like a game-changing project.’ I think I got different results. I’m really happy with. I’ll be really happy to look at this era and know I was in a slightly different, freer mindset.

Let’s talk about your single “SUGARCOAT,” to me it sounds like summer. What inspired it?

It was a really quick one to write. I wrote it with John Santana, who produced “Telly Bag,” one of my songs. Also, Malik Ninety Five, who’s a big Doechii producer and collaborator. There is also an artist named cr1tter, she was my co-writer, so we were vibing. We pretty much all knew each other and then we wrote the song within 30 minutes and nothing about it was serious. I’m sure there’s serious messaging in there, but not nearly as serious as my past work. It’s just “Tell me you adore me, sugarcoat it for me.” We were just playing around in the studio. We ended up writing another song called “Femmes” in that same session.

“Femmes” is such a good name for a track.

My music media company is called High Femme, Inc. I love us, I love femmes, I love women. I wanted to incorporate that messaging even into the project. I’m always trying to say something empowering, whether it’s serious or not.

What about your next single “All Of That,” what can you tell us about that track?

It’s really a touchstone of the project because “SUGARCOAT” sonically is a harder dance song. It’s like a techno vibe or a hard groove, it’s a ‘how hard can the beat go’ type of song with a hard groove. All of that is more of the foundation behind what inspired the sound of this project. So, “All Of That” feels a bit more indie sleaze. That’s because I was thinking of when I was starting in music, when I was a bit younger and just having fun and [thinking about] who were the artists I was listening to and the bands popping up in New York during that time. It was LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, ASAP Mob, MIA, Animal Collective. Long story short, I ended up working on this song with Nick Sylvester, who’s an LCD Soundsystem producer for that era. I was trying to capture a Peaches, LCD Soundsystem type sound with the production.

I love Peaches. They don’t get enough credit.

They’re legends and I feel like a lot of people are utilizing that sound these days. I really grew up in that era. I wanted to pay homage to that coming-of-age era for me, 2009, 2010, and keep it in the club world. It’s still dance, it’s still upbeat, but it’s a bit more indie-sleaze.

I know you have some yet-to-be-announced features on the EP. What can you tell us?

We have some legendary features. I don’t even know if I wanna drop them, but I wanna gag the girls a little bit. I wanna drop it with the track list. But we have amazing queer, Black features. I’m a queer Black artist and I’m always gonna bring the community with me as much as possible. Really sweet features and people that really inspire me, old and new features. Think about the 2010s era … who from that world could we possibly have? And then also the new age people bringing in the new wave of music. I don’t mean to be vague, but let me not even share prematurely.

Something I saw that you posted over a video for “SUGARCOAT,” was Black girls making club music will heal the world. Can you expand on that? What does that mean to you? What would you hope people take away from that?

I know Black people invented literally every genre. We are the foundation of all Western music. That’s me being like, ‘We’ve been the blueprint.’ We black people are doing dance music, disco music and club music. We’ve already healed the world before. We need to bring it back. Also there’s such an underground scene of young Black club musicians between New York and LA and in the club scene. I wanted to bring that to the forefront. I think also club house music is very healing and spiritual to dance amongst a thousand people together in a room and be that free and have that level of trust and feeling music at that level, I think is really spiritual.