For many years, Thao Nguyen lived what she calls a divided life. As a young performer she played down her ethnicity, to the detriment of her sense of identity. And though she identifies as queer and was openly out in her personal life, professionally she never really addressed her sexuality, for fear of it harming her family.

For years the shame festered, finally bubbling to the surface on Temple, the latest album by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down. It’s an album of catharsis, in which she addresses her sexuality and her relationship with her family and Vietnamese heritage, while attempting to bridge once and for all the disparate areas of her life.

Her journey to this point has been long and not always easy, as she explains in this heartfelt interview.