Vanity Watson, 19

Is Vanity your real name?
Yeah, my mom named me after one of Prince’s female protégés from back in the day, in the ’80s. She was the leader of Vanity 6.

Vanity—it can have a negative connotation, no?
People ask me that! They be like, “Do you look in the mirror all the time, every other minute?” I kinda do, but I don’t think I’m vain, though. I’m lookin’ good, so why not look at myself a couple of times? [Laughs]

Your hair is half blond, half brown. How’d you decide to go halfsies?
One day I was like, blonds have more fun, don’t they? One of my friends said, “I don’t think you should be a black blond.” So, I thought, why not try half?

Why do you think your friend objected? Is a black girl going blond seen as an attempt to be white?
Maybe. If they do think that, oh well. I’m over here trying to do something different and maybe start a trend.

What do you do?
I go to school full time for music and dance at Olive-Harvey College on the Southeast Side.

Have you written a lot of songs?
Yeah. They’re autobiographical. One is called “No Matter What You Do and No Matter What You Say.” I was dating a guy and my girlfriends were like, “Girl, he’s no good. He’s just gonna go break your little heart.” And so I wrote this down: “No matter what you do or what you say, I’m going to be with you at the end of the day.”

So you like bad boys then?
[Laughs] I like the nerdy ones with the glasses. I think that’s kinda hot. The bad boys—I be like, “Nah, I don’t wanna get in trouble.”

The guy you wrote the song about, he broke your heart in the end?
No, he had to go out of town to college, and I was left here by myself. But I didn’t cry. I have no trouble meeting boys. I’m a very spontaneous, very attentive person. So everywhere I go, people be like, “Hey! Who is her?”

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