Destiny Frasqueri, a.k.a. Princess Nokia, doesn’t care what you think of her. “With my little titties and my phat belly,” she raps on the song “Tomboy,” “I could take your man if you finna let me. It’s a guarantee that he won’t forget me. My body little, my soul is heavy.” Rising out of the New York City rap scene, Nokia’s vibe is fairly more aggressive than her contemporaries, but unlike the violent nature of the Florida rap movement, Nokia uses her angsty nature to speak about her insecurities becoming strengths and the volatile feelings that come with being young and seemingly indestructible.
In an interview with Bullett, back in 2013 when the rapper was going under the moniker “Wavy Spice,” she described herself saying: “I’m a shithead, I’m a punk, I’m a raver, I’m a slacker, I’m a stoner, I’m lazy.” All thoughts that appear on her record, 1992 Deluxe, at one point or another, as she compares herself to a rotten, mischievous deviant on the opener “Bart Simpson,” and later a “goth kid” on the track of the same name.
Her more angsty material, such as tracks like “Kitana,” “Tomboy,” and “Different,” can lean a bit too repetitive and crass, border-lining on the most mundane elements of over-excited trap braggadocio, but it’s in her songs such as “Bart Simpson” and “Receipts” that her differing styles find a happy medium. Her more subdued, witty tracks such as “ABC’s of New York” and “Soggy Denim,” are where her lyricism really shines however, and where her talents as an MC prove higher than that of simply a personality rapper.
For an artist with multiple name changes, and various personas from her Tomboy look as Princess Nokia to her fashion forward bikini Instagram, 1992 Deluxe acts as a solid sampler of the up-and-coming female MC, a talent that is set to perform alongside Joey Bada$$ and Jay-Z in the upcoming TIDAL show in her hometown of Brooklyn, NY. “Hate to burst your bubble, bitch,” she says on “G.O.A.T.,” but “I’m that weird girl that’s runnin’ shit.”
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