NYC by way of Philly-based singer-songwriter Antoniette Costa has been gaining traction as of late; not every young artist gets invited to work with Dice Raw and Questlove of The Roots while still in school. Her latest single is “Void of A Legend,” with beat-boxing cellist Kevin “K.O.” Olusola (making every ex-middle school orchestra member wish that they’d stuck with it).
Void Of A Legend – Antoniette Costa and Kevin “K.O.” Olusola
Raised in Pittsburgh, Costa began attending Cornell University in 2004, where she was a resident of their Just About Music dorm and performed with the University’s Gospel Choir. For her sophomore year she transferred to the University Of Pennsylvania to be closer to family after her aunt died tragically in childbirth – a devastating turn she openly credits for her decision to become an artist, influencing much of her work along the way.
Costa independently released her first record, Breakthru, in 2005 on her own label, L.I.P. Label 14. The songs on the album had been written from middle school to college – piano ballads and band-backed tunes that showcased her rich vocal talents, ranging in dynamics from Neo-Soul to Alt-Rock with an edge. Breakthru, dedicated to her aunt, was also her ticket to a series of collaborations with The Roots family. Roots rap artist Dice Raw heard the album and began working with Costa at Larry Gold’s “The Studio” in Philadelphia, where she has also worked with Questlove and Roots producer Khari “Ferrari” Mateen.
In January 2011, Costa began an interesting series in her Times Square studio called “Track 14 Sessions,” in which she invites fans into the studio for a behind-the-scenes look at the recording process. As she and others get to work (including Mateen and fellow singer Nikki Jean), the audience is free to roam about the space, moving from control room to recording booth to get a feel for the entire process. Costa plans to release a live album based on material generated in the sessions.
Big Freedia is first in line of possible contenders for bringing sissy bounce into the mainstream for the first time in its decade+ existence.
Back it up (no really, more on that in a moment). Sissy bounce? If you’re confused, or from anywhere outside of New Orleans, let’s go to the beginning. It starts with bounce, New Orleans’ original brand of hip-hop. Begat in 1992 with the release of “Where Dey At” – a repetitive call-and-response song that many artists (including Big Freedia) have cited as the song that inspired them to start making bounce tracks themselves – bounce starts with a whole lotta’ sampling of two songs: Derek B.’s “Rock the Beat” and the Showboys’ 1986 “Drag Rap,” popularly known as “Triggerman.” MCs shout instructions and catch phrases to crowd, mostly encouraging everyone to shake their asses as much as possible. Bounce took over the NOLA club scene for years, with only one hit breaking through to the mainstream: Juvenile’s “Back That Ass Up” in 1999.
1999 was also the year a transvestite MC named Katey Red released her first full-length bounce album, and a different strain of the music was born. This era was the beginning for several gay and transgendered rappers in New Orleans who identified as “sissies”; the bounce music they created becoming known as “sissy bounce.” Among the first of these sissy bounce MCs were mainstays Sissy Nobby, Vocka Redu and, of course, Big Freedia.
All that was in the early ’00s – where has sissy bounce been all this time? Well, uh, pretty much the same place it started: in small, packed clubs around New Orleans where dancers of every gender, race and sexual orientation come to shake their derrieres in the air to the serious booty beats. The music is made for this special purpose; the commanding beats and the dance moves embodying them are insanely infectious.
Big Freedia – Azz Everywhere
But then somewhere in the past couple years, that started to change. Big Freedia began to travel around the country, hitting the festival circuits, appearing on The Late Show With Carson Daly and getting written up in New York Times Magazine. The production value on Freedia’s music videos went from nil (as with most other bounce artists, a la Mr. Ghetto’s “Walmart”) to the sleek finish you’ll find in “Y’all Get Back Now” (if you only watch one video in this post, make it this one):
Big Freedia – Y’all Get Back Now
The hip-hop community hasn’t been entirely welcoming of the gay MC scene, a part of the reason sissy bounce has remained underground for so long. At shows, there will be legions of girls shakin’ what they momma gave ‘em right alongside the guys (Big Freedia herself being an absolute master of ass shaking, truly giving any number of girls or guys a run for their money), which not everyone has been ready to accept. For some, it is a welcome and essential counter to the often womanizing, homophobic lyrics and behavior of most mainstream hip-hop. Others argue over the validity of the movement; whether it is empowering or actually hurtful to women. Big Freedia and other bounce artists, along with probably everyone who has ever gotten up at a show and had the time of their life shakin’ it, will definitely tell you that this is about empowerment – taking their sex- and body-positive messages to anyone and everyone willing to listen and to, of course, get down.
Although I’d be wrong to tell you that Sissy Bounce has been completely underground since its birth. Peep big-time artists such as Beyoncé bitin’ on bounce in tracks like “Get Me Bodied,” not to mention countless signature dance moves. Before Beyoncé fans blow up the comments, she’s said so herself: Beyoncé introduced the song at the New Orleans Essence Music Festival in 2007 by saying, “I stole this from y’all.”
Beyoncé – Get Me Bodied (Timbaland Remix)
While on tour, Big Freedia holds classes with dancer Altercation in how to best dance to bounce music (it involves a lot of bending over and shaking it, if you hadn’t guessed). Classes include a lecture/group discussion portion that focuses on race, class, gender and sexuality. Big Freedia herself has become an academic subject of sorts, with term papers and theses being written solely on the culture of sissy bounce and sexual identity in hip-hop.
While still outside of the mainstream, Big Freedia and sissy bounce are taking big steps: note her latest collab with Spank Rock, a track titled “Nasty.” The two acts are slated to tour together this fall as a part of the Check Yo Ponytail set. Tour starts October 20 – I’ll be at their October 21st show in San Francisco!
On Lana Del Rey’s facebook page, her genre of music is listed as Hollywood Pop and Sad Core. I think that is a perfect description to have in mind when listening to her music! On songs like “Kinda Outta Luck,” the Hollywood pop tag line rings true. With a little bop and swing this song deserves a big band behind it and some stage time at the Dresden. However the song with the most buzz, “Video Games,” is more on the “sad core” side. This is the track that has earned her comparisons to The Weeknd; not bad company to be in.
Lana Del Rey (also known as Lizzy Grant) is originally from New York despite her Hollywood starlet vibe and has been working that scene for a while. Some local New Yorkers might recall the face with slightly smaller lips (part of the Hollywood treatment I’m sure). Cosmetic differences aside, her sultry voice has always been consistent and pure.
Lana Del Rey herself has very diverse tastes that come out in her music. Some of her listed influences include:
Ginsberg, Elvis Presley, Britney Spears, Nina Simone, Nirvana, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Sadness, Beach Boys, Antony & the Johnsons, John Waters, Mark Ryden, Marilyn Minter, Juergen Teller and Philip-Lorca diCorcia! Whoa, that’s a mighty strong list.
There is a theme in Lana’s songs that speaks of frustrated love. “Video Games” probably gets the most attention for the somber way she speaks to it with lyrics like: “He holds me in his big arms, Drunk and I am seeing stars, This is all I think of. Watching all our friends fall, In and out of Old Paul’s, This is my idea of fun, Playing video games.”
Right now Lana has a record deal in the UK with Stranger Records and is rumored to have already signed with Interscope in the states. The buzz on her is about to burst wide open with the release of two songs from her UK label next month.
Before she was hitting the road with Passion Pit and Das Racist, playing big festivals like Outside Lands and CMJ, Kristine Flaherty was just your average tomboyish, self-described jock studying Sociology and Psychology at Stanford University – a Bay Area transplant from Chicago who had never really been involved in music or performance. It wasn’t until the end of her freshman year at Stanford, inspired by a DJ friend who was making music, that she invested in some equipment and taught herself how to make beats. And learn she did: on stage as K. Flay (a nickname from college that stuck), she plays guitar, sings, builds live beats and – most impressively – raps with a flow that can step with them best of them.
Seriously, check it out:
On stage her persona is captivating; you might not quite know what to make of her. Her adorably tomboyish style (a uniform of Jordans/sneaks with jeans and a tee) is hardly a giveaway for her smooth, girly voice. And though she obviously has mad talent and rapping abilities, she comes across in person as sweet and vulnerable – immediately likeable. It’s not hard to see why she was swooped up by Zion I to voice the chorus for his song “Coastin.’”
K. Flay's Stage Style
Zion I – Coastin’
In the current wave of white-girl rap, it might be easy to dismiss K. Flay as part of the Ke$ha-clandemonium (somebody call Webster). What sets her apart, aside from doing it all herself (and we’re talking everything here: from making the beats from scratch, to running her website, to bolting between laptop and mic, mixer and guitar at her live shows), is her intelligent, quirky, repeatable rhymes and absolutely enjoyable, unique vocal style.
Her releases thus far include an EP, a slew of singles and, most recently, 3-part mixtape I Stopped Caring In ’96, available for download on her website. Check her out on tour the rest of this year on both coasts.
MISS and Nola Darling together again! If you are an avid MISS reader then you know we have a huge crush on these ladies! We have been waiting for almost 3 years to get new music from Nola Darling and with the release of “STFU (Start the Riot),” we got that and more. Trust me though – it is just the tip of the iceberg. Their new release is sure to be a pivotal EP from the girls of Nola Darling. The bi-coastal duo has been very busy writing, working and finding inspiration with a new production partner, Kwame, for this new release. Now residing in Los Angeles full time, Alex and Jaq have begun work on enough material for 2 full lengths and are ready to get their music out to the world. I was lucky enough to check the girls out last week at Little Temple Bar in LA for their showcase; beforehand we chatted about life, loves and the pursuit of power.
MISS: Is there a consistent message you feel is important to you tell in your music?
Jaq: Absolutely! There are a few different messages we feel are important to speak to. 1) Girls are people, too! We feel really strongly about that shit.
Alex: There’s no middle ground where you can be a normal person. You’re either hyper-sexualized like a Lil’ Kim or super thugged-out – and that’s cool too, but that’s not what we are. And I think a voice like ours has been missing in hip-hop for a long time. It is a man’s world but we’re learning to take our power back.
Jaq: That’s the whole point of Nola Darling, anyways. It’s about telling one’s story ourselves. It’s about being the subject not the object.
MISS: That’s right! I’ve read that your name, Nola Darling, comes from the Spike Lee film She’s Gotta Have It - only you are looking to tell her story from the female perspective.
Alex:We love Spike Lee’s work, but at the same time felt like the character Nola kind of got the shit end of the stick. She had a rough time. So basically we like to think we are telling the next chapter of her story.
Jaq: It’s not about men defining who she is, its about us defining for ourselves who we are as women and human beings. Taking that and showing the world.
Alex: As women in today’s society we still define ourselves by the men we are with, and that’s fucking bullshit. It’s over and that time is coming to an end. So for us it is about the journey – accepting who you are and embracing your power as a woman. Because if every woman did that and we stuck together, really, this would be a woman’s world. And it shall be.
MISS: So new album? It’s been a little while since your last release; what are the inspirations and influences?
Jaq: Right, we put out a mixtape in 2008 – produced by Melo X – and since that time we have done a lot of exploring, a lot of focusing and zeroing in on what we really want to do. We knew what it was – it just took meeting the right person and the right person for us was Kwame.
Alex: Kwame fully stepped into our world. What he created with us sounds nothing like the rest of his catalog or any of the things he has done. What he created with us was for us and it was incredibly amazing. This album is like the continuation and a volume two of the mixtape. We brought the ancestors with us on this, it’s heavily influenced with different sounds. We love to blend genres so you’ll hear a lot of Afro-beat, traditional Haitian rhythms, dance hall, house. It’s a really nice blend that just works. We’ve had a lot of time to grow and live as young women over the past three to four years. That journey is really chronicled on this album. We’ve gone through a lot - from relationships to personal growth to accepting your flaws and turning them into positives. Because that is what it is all about as women. We try to write from a personal space and where we are; hopefully other men and women can connect with that. We just keep hearing the same stories so we know we aren’t the only ones. That’s how we know it is important for us to tell it.
MISS: What’s inspiring your style?
Jaq: That is a great question and maybe the hardest! We are just being ourselves.
Alex: Clothing should be fun. Most of my life, clothes were not a fun thing and I spent a lot of time hiding in my clothes. Now I just want to have a good time and feel comfortable and feel good. Everyday what I put on reflects my mood, so hopefully I am in a good mood. Haha.
Jaq: We are just living our little girl fantasy of dressing up. It’s not that serious to us. Whatever works for you works for you.
Right after our interview I was able to hear Alex and Jaq perform 5 new tracks – all amazing. They weren’t lying about bringing back their ancestors, the Afrobeat-Haitian-dance-hall-house mixes were right on point. Expect this new release to be on repeat at house parties on both coasts. Also in the house was our own Rocky Rivera! Looking and sounding better than ever, she rocked a packed room with her “fan favorites” and a new cover of Rihanna’s “Man Down” – loved it! Rocky is about to tear it up on even more stages this fall touring the west coast – all the way to Hawaii.
