Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd, or maybe today the Internet's busiest linguist, as we're talking about a term and a phrase that is often thrown around in a lot of pop music discourse circles these days, the Khia Asylum. A very strange, storied, and pejorative phrase with interesting roots in hip hop, considering it literally references the rapper Khia, but is currently being thrown around left and right as a means of defining levels of success between different pop acts today.

A lot of the discussions around who is and is not in the Khia Asylum can get pretty toxic. However, I hope to have a very productive and informative conversation today about the sources of the term, its usage, and what exactly it means to be in or not be in the Khia Asylum. Especially since there seems to be a greater awareness around it as a concept these days, with artists like Bebe Rexha, as well as even Charli XCX, in a recent interview - a fan Q&A around her new film, The Moment.

They're acknowledging it.

The doors to the asylum, I hear they keep them open for me. I'd love to pop back in there, see all my cool friends." - Charli XCX

So, yeah, joining me for this conversation is the one and only Swiftologist.

So here we go.