Demi Grace releases “For The Girls” and talks Black Girl Magic

Since speaking with Hype Magazine, the young songstress, Demi Grace, has been hard at work in the studio giving women all types of goals. Grace has been consistently working on her brand, self-worth, and last but not least, her music. Recently, Demi released her new single titled, “For the Girls.” Let’s just say the song is nothing short of fierce. While the song boasts a pop tempo and a somewhat Arabian nights instrumentation, Demi lets her listeners know that she is not the one.

Take a listen to the new single below:

After speaking with Demi about her newest release, Ms. Grace also let Hype into her world a bit more as she talked about what she represents in the culture and what her plans are for herself as she continues to grow. In an exclusive interview with the Hype Magazine’s reporter, Natesha Folkes, Demi tells it all.

One of the things that I admire about you is that you’re not afraid to be aggressive in your music. I listened to your song, ‘For the girls’ this morning, and I definitely got that “Don’t mess with me Vibe.” What inspired that song?

Well, I mean, I– I know this is ‘Oh boo-hoo sob story’ but I was bullied a lot as a child so you can often hear that aggression in my music, just trying to be who I wanted to be at the time, when I was younger and you know just being bullied. With that song I just got to a point in the music industry where I just felt like everybody was trying to tell me what I needed to do in order to be successful, but they weren’t even real successful themselves. So it was just kind of like reiterating who I do it for, why i do what I do, and just kind of like–just standing up for myself really.

What was it like joining with Beyonce for the MTV VMAs, and how did that feel?

Oh my gosh! Okay so I’m finally starting to feel normal again, but I do have times where I’m just kind of like ‘Yo you were just rehearsing with Beyonce for four days straight and then you went to perform with her at the VMAs’ and it’s so humbling and it’s so surreal still to think about the fact that I did that. I learned so much from her, she’s a very very sweet lady and she really–one of her dancers actually said Beyonce is very generous with her camera time and people really had nothing but great things to say about her and I can clearly see why, I was clearly able to see why when I had that opportunity to work with her on the show so it was just incredible, still surreal, I’m still pinching myself and I just hope that I can carry out what she is trying to do, not only for black women but for black female artists and for crossover artists as well.

That must have been amazing, I can’t even imagine!

Yea, It was really–it was so critical that I was able to see that because, I think as an independent artist, people are not very–and especially with the music industry that’s really over saturated, nobody really shows you what it is like or what it takes to be a Beyonce or to be a Rihanna or to be even a Chris Brown, or to be a Sia, or Pink, or anybody that’s doing extremely well or has done extremely well. We seldom get to see what it takes to actually do that well, and it’s a lot of ground work and to see something like that, it’s not that you cut yourself some slack but you’re not as hard on yourself when something isn’t going your way cause maybe you don’t have that big of a budget you know what I’m saying? To make that kind of effect happen, or maybe that’s not your range or you know you just get to see things–or at least I got to see things that helped me to stop comparing myself and I really hope that I can tell this to as many people that are trying to do anything with their lives and have the struggle of comparing themselves.

I see that you’re the new face of Sephora, Congratulations on that! How did that come about?

So that came about, back in February or early March. My agent sent me out for a Make-up Forever campaign, and the details on the casting was that they’re looking for a dark skin female with beautiful clear skin, full defined–well defined lips, and I saw the casting and I looked at my sister and said ‘Girl, let me go get this casting real quick’ *laughs* I was like ‘Okay, let me go get this’ they clearly should have just put Demi Grace because I was like ugh that’s so perfect for me. I went to the casting, it went really really well and they ended up choosing me to represent the lipstick shades for deeper skin-tones.

Okay so, recently I’ve noticed that a lot of people of color have started to appreciate their skin more like with hashtags of ‘melanin’ and ‘dark skin is beautiful’. So what I wanted to know is, were you always this radiant, and confident about yourself?

I wasn’t always, I had a lot of work to do, I still have work to do but you know, because of the recent spike in appreciation for dark skin, obviously I really don’t have any issues being a darker skin female. My cousin came to visit me in New York recently and she’s the same skin tone as me, and she was just telling me about–cause you know I grew up in the bay, and she was telling me that it’s still the same way as it was when I left, that she still expects her lighter skin friends to get “got at” when she’s in the bay but when she comes to New York and Atlanta, she’s like ‘they love it! They look at me like I’m a goddess!’ So I guess in some areas it is still a struggle but for me, I think I’ve grown in that area.

What would your advice be to some girls who still haven’t gotten to that point of self-love?

Hmm.. I would say, finding multiple things to appreciate about yourself is probably the best way to build up that confidence. Something I used to do was, let’s say I didn’t like–cause I’m toned, my arms are toned, I have abs.. I don’t really work out like that but when I was younger, I used to get teased for being toned, they would say ‘You look masculine.’ But I started to say to myself, I don’t like how toned my arms are but thank God I have arms and that sounds kind of funny but eventually that turned into real appreciation for how I look and for the body that God gave me. You know what I mean? Just start somewhere, if you liked your eye-shadow that day just say that and just stick to that and eventually that energy will start to grow and resonate from the inside out and it’s really about how you feel on the inside for people to start appreciating you on the outside.