We are here to talk about your music as well today… and your new album Glorious, which includes the song, Right on Time, which is a tribute to your mum, Goldie. What was her reaction to the song?
She loved it! I mean, at first I think she was, it took a second to sink in because she was like, “Is that about me?” I was like, “Yes.” And then when she heard it again … The story I’m telling is just these little things that she’s told me about her childhood and her growth, and what her life was before she became famous. She really thought she was going to have a very simple life and have a dance school. She thought, oh, I’m going to marry a dentist, which was her dream at the time. But then her life just led to these series of things, because she loved to dance and she wanted to perform. It just found her along the way, and all these new opportunities. It’s really a song about what that is for young girls, when they don’t think that’s what their life’s going to be, but they have this thing that pulls at them and it’s just magic. So that was kind of my love letter to my mom, but really about the story of her youth. I think we’re the keepers of our parents’ stories, and we get to share them with our children and we get to share them with your community. I really believe in that third-generational respect and care. But I get to do it in music and then share it with the world, which is really fun for me.
What advice has your mother given you about being a woman in this industry? What have you learned from her?
The one thing I remember growing up with my mum, which is a really wonderful thing now in reflection … I’m a mother of three. I look back and I’m like, I really saw her care in the stories she was telling. It wasn’t like her drive to make films was for the success or stardom. Her drive to make films was to tell the best story, and in the best story she believed there would be the most success. When you look at her body of work it really highlights that. That storytelling is at the centre of all of it. She hasn’t made actually that many films. I mean, young people today, we do so much work. There’s so much content, there’s so many things. My mum’s body of work is very specific and extraordinary. But seeing her work ethic, I think … and same with Kurt [Russell, Kate’s stepfather]. They worked in tandem. We were a real unit and he gave me as much of that as my mom did. That balance, back to what I believe, which is balance, when you have that, I think you learn so much.
When it comes to the industry, what I learned the most from them was that all of this stuff on the outside doesn’t mean anything. It’s what we’re doing in the unit that means everything. That’s just always what I take with me, with my family and my kids.