Categorizing 21 year old rapper Kitty's work as a "joke" is still oddly pliable in 2014. Though she's been practicing her craft for two plus years, releasing stellar tapes of bleary-eyed music like D.A.I.S.Y. Rage and last year's Impatiens, many staunch hip hop fans see it all as hokum. They hear the fragile vocals and weightless cloud rap beats and go running for the hills to find solace in muscular boom-bap. Not so much a male/female issue, they're agitated by a perceived lack of seriousness. Any MC who isn't a consummate professional isn't worth their time.
That said Kitty's been deceptively serious since the jump. Sure in "Okay Cupid" she was lovingly ripping off "Thinking Bout You" for a few seconds and waiting around for "drunk dials at 3:30 AM", but there was a heartbreaking obsessiveness to it. Kitty herself acknowledges "I'm not familiar with this type of devotion" and that admission guarantees the relationship she's "idealizing" won't last.
Despite wobbly new single "marijuana" not being much concerned with relationships, it's still consequential. Gliding atop Chrome Blaze's chortling electronics, Kitty frets about not landing a label deal and falling into obscurity. She's at a point where she has to assure her mom she's "doing great" because it's been awhile since she's seen a Klonopin. To stay in control, Kitty rattles off everything she's not going to do: "not gonna piss on the carpet, not gonna roll on the ground." And if none of those promises land, she'll make jokes to cope. "I've got all the rays Imma be a sunshine, making raisins out all of the grapes," she cracks. Sure Kitty can be humorous, but that's not all she's about.
Kitty's heading out on tour at the end of the month for a string of U.S./Canadian dates which you can find below.
Tour Dates:
6/30 Columbus, OH- A&R Music Bar
7/1 Detroit, MI- Shelter
7/2 Cleveland Heights, OH- Grog Shop
7/4 Toronto, ON- Wrongbar
7/5 Montreal, QC- La Vitriola
7/7 Cambridge, MA- The Sinclair
7/8 New York, NY- Highline Ballroom
7/9 Philadelphia, PA- District N9ne
7/10 Washington, DC- Rock N Roll Hotel
7/11 Raleigh, NC- King’s Barcade
7/12 Atlanta, GA- Masquerade
7/24 Dallas, TX- Club Dada (w. Awkwafina)
I think she's brilliant, sly and funny, and this track sounds great.
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Delete[Edit] Absolutely! I hate using the word "coy" much because it usually turns into a lazy, extremely gendered descriptor, but the jokes she crafts in a song like this are incredibly coy and pair extremely well with some of the cutting minutiae like chatting with her mom about Klonopin.
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