Princess Nokia Is The Savior Of Emo Rap That We Deserve

Once upon a time, I was just another misunderstood teenager with a sensitive soul from the suburbs experiencing the thrill of being emo. Far because the "scene" kid identity goes, it was a fleeting phase that my parents are grateful I grew out of, nevertheless the sad and angst-driven anthems that became the soundtrack for such a tumultuous period of my life still hold a special place in my tender heart. Fast-forward to 2018 and the emo revival has expanded from the corners of pop punk to the hip-hop world. Real ones know that rock and rap have more in typical beneath the surface—rage fueled ballads that attract marginalized outcasts who escape from the chaos of their lives by congregating in mosh pits—but "emo" is having a major cross-genre moment now. The late Lil Peep was hailed as one of the leaders of the emo rap movement alongside artists like Lil Uzi Vert, Yung Lean and Lil Xan.


The rise of the "sad men continues as lo-fi, teary-eyed messages of pure self-destruction are dispersed to the masses, although ladies are usually moved to the side and non-consensually cast as muses for all of the pain and suffering. As a substitute opposed to waiting for an invite to the melodramatic party, Princess Nokia counters the male gaze that the emo scene can shamelessly thrive on, presenting a fresh narrative from the mind of a Afro-Latina with her A Girl Cried Red mixtape. In a recent interview with DAZED, the New York rapper explained the concept of option culture" within black and brown communities of the urban world and the underlying connection with emo music.


"There's a vulnerability in associating with pain and sadness that has habitually lived in that narration," she mentioned. "This is our shit. Very obviously, that's why we return to it. It's ours, it will usually be ours."


The title of the mixtape was directly inspired by Dance Gavin Dance's 2006 song "The Robot With Human Hair" (just last week, the musical group released a new song called "Midnight Crusade" that's featured on their forthcoming eighth album Artificial Selection). Princess Nokia grabs the initial line of the track for her assignments lead single "Your Eyes Are Bleeding Red," a menacing anthem about self-sabotage and the unstable path that follows any time depression is treated with a heavy dose of denial.


"I habitually loved that image, and it's a big motif in my work," she told DAZED. "The mixtape name is supposed to mean a girl cried blood or a girl cried fury. There's so several interpretations of what red is."


The only collaborations on Princess Nokia's mixtape come from producer Tony Seltzer and Phony Ppl member Elijah Rawk on guitar. Similar to the iconic bands that influenced the project like Blink-182, Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco and Silverstein, the core that strings all eight songs with each other is the reccuring theme of battling demons that are deeply rooted in depression and loneliness. Throughout a livestream on Instagram, she declared that her intention isn't to ride the "sad girl wave" by glorifying or romanticizing mental health issues. Through this number of autotune and acoustic jams, Princess Nokia offers her personalized experience inside of the dialogue of the continuous dialogues about the stigmas surrounding depression and why different characteristic of your life can spiral out of control as a result.


Despite the negativity that comes attached with this overarching theme, A Girl Cried Red isn't solely immersed in bad energy. About halfway by way of the mixtape, Princess Nokia slips in "Look Up Kid," a upbeat and uplifting track where she encourages those who "suffer in silence" not to give up on themselves because things will get better eventually. It's like a cry for help reversed from the perspective of a concerned friend.


If A Girl Cried Red doesn't earn Princess Nokia a spot on the lineup for the last-ever Warped Tour this summer, someone may have to catch these hands! As soon as you're willing to have your heart ripped out and smashed into pieces, let your inner scene queen roar and stream the mixtape in full below.





Like what you hear and want more? Princess Nokia will be on tour the following dates:


4/15 Indio, CA - Coachella Festival


4/20 San Francisco, CA - 1015 Folsom


4/22 Indio, CA - Coachella Festival


4/29 Chicago, IL - The Metro


5/5 Brooklyn, NY - Elsewhere


5/6 Brooklyn, NY - Elsewhere


5/12 Miami, FL - Rolling Loud Festival


5/25 Barcelona, Spain - Secret Location TBA


5/26 Madrid, Spain - Tomavistas Festival


5/27 A Coruna, Spain - Inn Club


5/31 Athens, Greece - Piraeus 117 Academy


6/1 Copenhagen, Denmark - Distortion Festival


6/2 London, UK - Field Day Festival


6/16 Richmond, CA - FEELS 6 @ Craneway Pavillion


7/7 Turku, Finland - Ruisrock


7/8 Zamárdi, Hungary - Balaton Sound Festival


7/13 Dublin, Ireland - Longitude Festival


7/14 Dour, Belguim - Dour Festival


7/15 Berlin, Germany - MELT Festival


7/19 Benicassim, Spain - Benicassim Festival


7/ 20 LisbonPortugal - Super Bock


7/21 Seyðisfjörður, Iceland - LungA Art Festival


8/18 Hamburg, Germany - Dockville Festival


8/20 London, UK - O2 Forum


8/21 Leeds, UK - Belgrave Music Hall