HBD Queen Bee + Great New Tracks From Good Girl, Mulatto, Leaf & CHAII
7/11/20
Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to this week has told me that it’s been an inexplicably awful one, and while I don’t believe in retrograding mercury or misaligning stars, I do believe in mood altering music.
With that, I present the latest playlist, some great new tracks from great new artists as well as a b-day bio for the Queen Bee!
Playlist Highlights
“Thirsty” - Good Girl Feat. Mulatto
I always say that great things happen when female musicians come together (Hello...Megan/Beyonce, Doja/Nicki, Iggy/Charli, etc.) and I will forever advocate for the creation of more hip-hop girl groups (See…Salt N’ Pepa, TLC, City Girls, etc.) That being said, Good Girl is a fresh and exciting R&B/Hip Hop quartet from Philly who have teamed up here with fast rising femcee Mulatto to drop their first single of 2020, “Thirsty”. The quartet, which consists of Bobbie, Megan, Arielle, and JL, perhaps chose their group name ironically, as you can tell by the title of this track alone that the members of Good Girl are not that innocent. The song starts off with an undulating laser sound effects that reminds me a bit of the X-Files theme song, before cutting into a booming bass and some chopped up school alarm bells. Then the girls punch in with their oft explicit lyrics, where they proceed to call out awful acting men with much attitude. Good Girl also dropped their music video for “Thirsty” this week, which is a trippy and colorful journey through an OnlyFans-like site. I particularly love that the girls in the video are each rocking their own monochromatic look throughout.
“Go Dum” - Leaf
I’ve been anticipating the release of NYC native rapper Leaf’s debut EP for a couple years now, and became ever more eager after she dropped her darkly fierce premiere single from it, “Fashion Bitch”, earlier this year. The EP—also entitled Fashion Bitch—has, at last, arrived and is definitely her best work to date. After “Fashion Bitch”, the first track on the album, trails out with its ending sinister beats, the next song, “Go Dum” is a refreshing transition, starting off with a light caribbean steelpan intro. Leaf then starts rapping in a quiet, sensual voice, but one that’s nevertheless still full of intensity aimed at another woman of interest. The icing on the cake is when the track’s chorus hits, where Leaf mimes the hook from legendary reggae track “Dat Sexy Body” by Sasha, but makes it her own, changing the lyrics ever so slightly—”I would like to get your number, baby”. Leaf, who is also a model, plans to release a 2nd EP at the end of this year, so you should start getting to know her now, baby. According to Leaf: “Fashion Bitch is me in my full element, it’s just the beginning to the story of Leaf. I had to let people know who I am. A girl from New York whose been in fashion for a while…the project shows what I’m about…different sides of me people haven’t seen yet. As well as give the fuck you anthems and motivation people have been waiting for. My music is a baddie vibe.”
“Lightswitch” - CHAII
“Lightswitch” is a fast-paced, club-thumping marathon of a track that is—surprise!—inspired by the history of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Released by the experimental/electro/hip hop/dance (read:genre fluid) artist CHAII as part of her visual EP, entitled, well, Lightswitch EP. The Persian/New Zealander is not only the musician on the album, but she is also the songwriter, and beat creator, as well as the video producer and director of the Lightswitch video trilogy released in conjunction with the EP. The revolution that inspired CHAII was one that in the late 70’s forced a lot of creative artists, actors and musicians to flee from their country and relocate to California, as their work was being banned in their homeland. To date, California still has one of the biggest Persian communities outside of Iran in the world. According to CHAII, some of her biggest musical influences include M.I.A., Vince Staples, & Missy Elliott—each of whose styles can definitely be heard in CHAII’s music. Though it so much more than that, CHAII describes her sound as a fusion of American hip-hop and Persian music which is something I’d definitely like to see more of in this world. The video for “Lightswitch” is also worth a watch—brimming with shots of California all beautifully re-colored in pastel greens and purples, as well as a whole series of incredible coverall/jumpsuits that I’d love to borrow.
This Week In Rap Herstory - A Bee Is Born
On this day, 46 years ago, Kimberly Denise Jones was brought into the world in Bed-Stuy, New York, the neighborhood she would one day help make famous by building it up as the epicenter of hip hop music and culture. Jones, better known as Lil’ Kim or the Queen Bee, did not, however, have a royally easy beginning. At the age of 9, Kim’s parents separated and she and her brother were raised by their father alone, with whom Kim did not get along. Soon thereafter, Lil’ Kim was kicked out of the house, which left her living on the streets and caused her to drop out of high school. It was during these difficult teenage years that Kim met the man who would help change her trajectory, good old Christopher Wallace, better known to most as The Notorious B.I.G.
In 1994, B.I.G. began promoting his Brooklyn-based rap group, Junior M.A.F.I.A., of which Lil’ Kim became a part of, and at which point she took on her very apropos rap moniker (Kim is 4’11”, B.I.G was 6’2”). The group’s debut album, Conspiracy, produced several hit singles that featured rap verses from Kim, including “Get Money” and “Player’s Anthem”, and as the solo female voice in a crew of nine and despite her small stature, Lil’ Kim stood out. Not to mention, Lil’ Kim right out the gate was spitting incredibly sexual and racy verses that caught everyone’s attention…on “Get Money” for example: “Rather count a million while you eat my pussy/Push me to the limit get my feelings in it/Get me open while I'm cummin' down your throat/Then, you want to be my main squeeze nigga/Don'tcha, you want to lick between my knees nigga”. Right then and there, Lil’ Kim forever cemented her name in history as a pioneer of sexually explicit, sexually confident, and sexually demanding lyrics, which for better or worse, opened up an entirely new playing field for women in hip hop and music in general, and branded Kim as the poster child for the sex-positive feminism wave of the 90’s.
The rest is herstory. A year into M.A.F.I.A success, Kim launched her solo career, dropping her debut album, Hard Core, in 1996 to much fanfare, with the album hitting number 11 on the Billboard 200, the highest achieved spot for a female rap album at the time. The album continued Kim’s sexual revolution and went double platinum, and included now rap classics like “Crush On You”, “Big Momma Thang”, and of course, “Queen Bitch”. 25 years later, Lil’ Kim has never left the game and is still going strong, always making sure her name is never out of your month for too long. She’s since released several more iconic albums (The Notorious K.I.M., La Bella Mafia, The Naked Truth, etc.), collaborated with a plethora of artists on now legendary tracks (“Lady Marmalade”, “Magic Stick”, “Can’t Hold Us Down”, etc), received oodles of accolades and awards, appeared on Dancing With The Stars and her own show Girls Cruise, and so much more. And though she’s found herself embroiled in several femcee feuds over the years (thanks to the treatment of women in the hiphop industry, mostly), Lil’ Kim has always been and continues to be a proponent of supporting female rappers, and the forever mimicked, never matched “Ladies’ Night” is proof. So revisit some of this woman’s greatest contributions above and below, and let's all wish a big HBD to our eternal Queen Bee.