Pushkin

Like Hermanniker suggests, Latissia Tamco, who records under the name Vagabon, is trying

to find a musical place to call her own.

When Vagabon was 13, she and her family moved from Cameroon and West Africa to Harlem.

She learned English in part by watching reruns of the Fresh Prince of Belair, and identified

with the outsider sentiment heard in the email and pop punk on the radio and TV in the

early 2000s.

Like many children of immigrants, Vagabon was encouraged by her parents to become something

practical, like an engineer.

But by 17, she was writing songs and teaching herself to play guitar, and would sneak out

at night to play shows at DIY punk spaces in Brooklyn.

Not only a few years later was recording and putting out songs.

She's been completely immersed in music ever since.

Her newest release, The Self-Titled Vagabon, has been praised by critics at the New Yorker

and Pitchfork.

She's also toured with Courtney Barnett, Angel Olson, and Brittany Howard.

I did this interview recently in L.A. with my right-hand producer, Leo Rose.

We've been working on broken records since the beginning of the year.

She's a DJ and music journalist who spent almost a decade as an editor at Double XL.

When Leigh and I sat down with Vagabon in L.A., she was in the throes of writing songs

for her third album, and talked us about some of the writer's block she was experiencing.

Plus, she talked about her early experiences with music and camera room, and why she sometimes

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