From her breakthrough mixtape 1992 to her emo-punk project A Girl Cried Red, Princess Nokia has stood out as an unpinnable artist. In order to explore this versatility and her inner duality, the NYC-based rapper has decided to release two interlinked conceptual albums, like the yin and the yang. Besides Everything Is Beautiful and Everything Sucks, that were released today, she has also unveiled a video for the funky fresh “Green Eggs & Ham”. The visuals were directed by Sebastian Sdaigui. Watch and listen below.

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New York-born Puerto Rican rapper Princess Nokia follows up on her 2018’s emo-inspired mixtape A Girl Cried Red with a brand new track and video. Titled “Sugar Honey Iced Tea (S.H.I.T.)”, the single is sun-kissed and summery but also bitter and fierce as the artist takes a shot at her detractors. In the accompanying video, which was directed by Emma Westenberg and “inspired by the NYC Ball Culture of Princess Nokia’s upbringing”, she enters and slays a beauty pageant. The visuals also feature the rapper Maliibu Miitch. Watch below.

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Kelela‘s “Take Me Apart” was one of our favourite albums of 2017 so we’re glad to learn that the Ethiopian American singer and songwriter will release a new project with 20 remixes and updated versions with exciting artists such as Kaytranada, Serpentwithfeet, LSDXOXO or GAIKA. She has also unveiled a first track, the fierce “LMK (WHAT’S REALLY GOOD)”, where she invites Princess Nokia, JunglePussy, CupcakKe and Ms. Boogie (fka Jay Boogie). This announcement also comes with a statement from Kelela:

[su_quote]This project has been evolving in my mind since I was deep in recording Take Me Apart. I obsessed over production choices on the album and my only solace was knowing that the songs would be reimagined in this way. So, it’s not just a bunch of remixes…it’s how my worldwide community of producers and DJs communicate through difference. It’s also about the camaraderie that we experience when we find the overlaps. The same songs get to exist in these alternate realities which means different people get to have a relationship with the music. maybe even with each other.[/su_quote]

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Queer rapper Princess Nokia surprised us earlier this year with a mixtape “A Girl Cried Red” which was sounding quite different from what we knew from the artist so far. Taken from this alternative, guitar-driven emo-mixtape, Princess Nokia has unveiled the video of “Look Up Kid,” one of the highlights of the 8-track project. The visuals are once again signed by Milah Libin. Watch them below.

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“I want to be a multifaceted artist, not just a musician, but an intellectual woman.”; never has this saying been less true than it has been with Princess Nokia. From the title alone, “A Girl Cried Red”, one can quickly make the conclusion that Destiny Nicole Frasqueri has taken a left turn in her stylistic musical direction. Her last major commercial release in 2017, “1992 Deluxe,” was an anthemic homage to her childhood growing up in the gritty streets of New York City. This new 8-tracked album exchanges aggressive horns and chants of empowerment for mellow guitar melodies and lyrical despair.

There’s a stand out lyric that Frasqueri uses repetitively that truly encapsulates the album’s overall glum theme. A pre-recorded sample of her singing, “Smash my heart in pieces / it looks so good on the floor”. This unofficial mantra is used generously throughout the EP and it inexplicably fuses itself well into any melody. In essence, that is Frasqueri in a nutshell: constantly transcending and experimenting through her musical persona: Princess Nokia. Her debut mixtape, “Metallic Butterfly” was heavily influenced by drum’n’bass and the jungle genre while its follow-up, “Honeysuckle”, was a venture into her disco soul roots. Prior to “A Girl Cried Red’s” release, she highly publicized this upcoming album as “real alternative shit”, an outpouring of intimate emotions, fears, and insecurities of peak adolescence and it is clearly obvious over a cursory listen to the album.

What makes Princess Nokia‘s “A Girl Cried Red” worthwhile is the universality of self-centeredness.

What makes “A Girl Cried Red” worthwhile is the universality of self-centeredness. Frasqueri metaphorically bleeds over her specific anxieties from her teenage angst and extreme sadness in her raspy falsetto from the beginning to the end of the EP. The album at its core could be an extension of the once popular punk goes rap series from the early 2000s. She is able to epitomize a generation when the emo subculture was at its renaissance. “Look Up Kid”‘s aggressive electric arpeggio opening is eerily similar to a Paramore song circa “Misery Business” and “Little Angel” could moonlight as a B-side to a early “Dashboard Confessional” album. The incredibly sorrowful “Morphine” and equally despondent “Your Eyes Are Bleeding” pay reverence to the ubiquitous emotional turmoil of accepting the lonely feeling that no one can never truly understand you except yourself.

Undeniably this is a purposeful decision, as Frasqueri and long-time friend and producer, Tony Seltzer, exclusively produced nearly the entirety of the album. Seltzer, known most notably for his work with the underground NYC music scene, complements Frasqueri‘s raw and depressive pour over of emotions with his tightly wound and clean production chops. This allows her to stay within the alternative hip-hop genre while exploring diverse methodologies. Although there are some solid material like “For the Night” and “At the Top,” there aren’t any to provide great single material like “Brujas” or “Tomboy” from “1992 Deluxe.”

Despite not sticking to a signature sound or genre, through and through one of Frasqueri‘s everlasting qualities is her profound authenticity. The modern musician especially female icons are unanimously refined by agents, publicists, and teams of other people. In contrast to this, Frasqueri is a gigantic pot of piping hot soup to the over-processed sugary popstar churned out by the industry. (Coincidentally, she was also reported to have thrown hot soup at a vocal racist in the subways of NYC). At her own shows, her unapologetic magnetism and energy is full-frontal and infectious, calling out marginalized people to come to the front and take up space, stopping the music if a fight breaks out, and displaying her assets without reserve. It’s nearly impossible to name another musician or celebrity like Princess Nokia in the slightest and maybe that’s just what the music industry needs right now.

Labelled as “real alternative music” and “emo”, Princess Nokia‘s new 8-track mixtape “A Girl Cried Red” definitely showcases a new side of the artist’s sound personality. As you might have guessed, the follow-up to her 2016’s critically-acclaimed mixtape “1992” is loaded with acoustic guitar, autotune and personal emotional lyrics.

About this new sound and mixtape name, she explained:

[su_quote]It’s taken from my favorite song, ‘The Robot with Human Hair.’ I have a lot of references from this Dance Gavin Dance album, and the first line in the song is ‘Your eyes are bleeding.’ I always loved that image, and it’s a big motif in my work. The mixtape name is supposed to mean a girl cried blood, or a girl cried fury. There’s so many interpretations of what red is.[/su_quote]

Princess Nokia also shared a Milah Libin-directed video for lead single “Your Eyes Are Bleeding” which mainly features footages from her 2-year-long worldwide tour.

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We introduced you to VXO some weeks ago only, when they released their debut track “Fade 2“. Today, we’re more than happy to unveil these 30 minutes of pure pleasure in company with a lot of female artists. Listen to the mix via SoundCloud and Mixcloud, download it for free, and check our little chat with VXO below.

HighClouds: Hello there, could you introduce yourself to all our readers who don’t know you yet? Also, what is the meaning of your moniker and what is its correct spelling?

I go by VXO. I was born and raised in Norwalk, Connecticut. I’m an experimental vocalist and lyricist. I chose VXO as a moniker originally because of the license plate of my car, which was ZXO, and I thought if I ever start making electronic music I would go by that name. Then people started calling me V so I replaced the Z with that. I also think that VXO are strong roman numerals, or numbers in general that have special meaning. If you’re reading this right now, look into numerology, angel numbers, and meaning of numbers. You won’t regret it.

Your debut single “Fade 2” sounds both strange and familiar. It’s a mix of a lot of influences and genres and we can hear artists like Jessy Lanza and Grimes while playing it. Are we wrong? By the way, how do you craft your songs?

I never knew who Jessy Lanza was until you guys compared this track to her music, honestly. Grimes, on the other hand, i’ve been listening to for years. I would say she’s had some influence on my sound in the past but I really don’t like comparing myself to other artists. Recently, I craft my songs by having Color Plus (the producer i’m currently working with) send me beats or we sit down in the studio and listen to some and I just start freestyling or I jot a few lines or words on my phone or work out a melody. From there we build on harmonies and decide what stays or goes. I’m really lucky to have found a producer that really understands what works for me. We’ve made magic together from the beginning so now we’re working on a full length album that will be released by Vanity Press Records in Detroit next year.

Une publication partagée par V (@vxo.lg) le 22 Nov. 2017 à 11h55 PST

“Fade 2” sounds quite abstract and from outside, it is maybe a bit difficult to imagine what it’s all about. Can you enlighten us?

I wrote “Fade 2” when I was living in Brooklyn last year. My time in New York was coming to a bittersweet end, I had just started a new relationship and I was still letting go of toxic behaviors from a previous relationship. I was growing a lot. My job at the time had me driving all over New York and I would always go over this one bridge that had a Cinema off to one side. I remember seeing this gorgeous sunset once and it was never the same for me after that. I wrote in my notes “sunset over the bridge aint the same over the cineplex”. I guess that could be a metaphor for a lot of things. As in- things and viewpoints change all the time. Anyway, Color Plus sent me the beat before I headed to his studio and I wrote the rest of the song as I drove over there. It took 10 minutes. When I write it comes out really naturally, almost subconsciously. The song is about me taking control over my life and how I feel about myself and about love. I “fade to black while you fade to grey”, is me telling myself and others that I know now that when something is supposed to end I have to let it. I’m the only one that can control my fate. In the past I let others do that for me and these lyrics were my liberation from that.

“I never understood gender fully until maybe this year, and I still have a lot of work to do and a lot to unlearn.” VXO

Have you ever felt considered in a different way because of your gender? It seems like a topic you care about, is there a particular reason?

I felt different all my life because I could never pinpoint my gender identity. I never understood gender fully until maybe this year, and I still have a lot of work to do and a lot to unlearn. I care about gender identity because it’s fucking important. Cis people don’t really see it that way because they’ve never had to question who they were when it came to their gender identity, that’s why they’re cis. For myself, and other trans, non-binary, or genderfluid folx it’s a continuing struggle to not only come to terms with our true selves but also to have the courage to be open about it to the rest of the world or even our friends, family, and partners. I have a lot of trouble telling people that I prefer gender-neutral pronouns because some people just don’t get it and then ask a bunch of invasive questions. Trans people, especially black trans women, are dying every day. It’s not safe and cis people need to understand that and allow us space and opportunity. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to just go with the perceived gender that people give me out of fear. I’m working on it every day and I’m grateful to have a strong community of trans and non-binary people on social media that help me get my shit in check.

Can you tell us a bit more about the mixtape you made for HighClouds?

I’m so excited to share this mix. So I made it on this DJ app off of my Iphone and it features a bunch of femmes, some friends, that I deeply admire. I think these tracks are really cool and they tell their own stories. You have to listen to their music if you haven’t already. The mix includes Nicolette, Snake Eyes, Bearcat, Embaci, Girl Pusher, Frankie Consent, Mal Devisa, Princess Nokia, Evy Jane, and myself. I’m super happy with this mixtape so I hope everyone enjoys it!

Une publication partagée par V (@vxo.lg) le 27 Nov. 2017 à 12h26 PST

What is coming next for you?

I’m releasing an album with my sis/producer/collaborator Color Plus next year with Vanity Press Records. Color Plus is also releasing his EP with Vanity Press in December and we’re having a release party at Elsewhere in Brooklyn on December 15th, the day after our birthdays (yes, me and Color Plus have the same birthday!) ((super sister twin powers)) So I hope everyone in New York comes out to that! I’ll be performing new music there. Tickets can be purchased here.

VXO‘s mixtape tracklist:
Nightmare – nicolette
Shoulda – snake eyes
P.G demo – bearcat
My pussy is expensive – princess nokia
Fade 2 – VXO
Rave angel – evy jane
Freak in me – embaci
Thanks bitch – girl pusher
Do i look like a cis girl – frankie consent
Crowd pleaser – mal devisa

In the 8-minute video, wich starts with the album opener “Bart Simpson”, Princess Nokia is bringing us back to her high school days, with quite intimate and realistic sequences of her life at school and into home parties with friends. In the second part of this video that she co-directed with Milah Libin, Princess Nokia shows us the metro line she was used to taking every day and raps in front of Queens’ Unisphere. This double video appears as particularly authentic and personal as it enables us to understand a bit more about her real life but also because this can be what a NYC’s teenager life can look like.

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“Bart Simpson” and “Green Line” are both taken from Princess Nokia‘s excellent album “1992 Deluxe”, wich was released in its new version on September 8 via Rough Trade.

Besides those news, Princess Nokia also started a GoFundMe campaign in order to raise money in support to Puerto Rico, which was seriously damaged after the hurricanes Maria and Irma.

Connect with Princess Nokia via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.