The Princess Diaries: Princess Nokia @ The Small Horse, 28/09
Forceful feminist MC Princess Nokia graced Bristol's Small Horse Social Club with a rare performance and Online Music Editor Georgia Marsh was there to indulge in every last sweaty second.
“Being a woman is evolutionary”, Princess Nokia expounds to the sweltering (and female-heavy) crowd at Bristol’s infamous Small Horse Social Club. Endearing, eloquent and electric, the NYC rapper uses her ever-expanding discography, magnetic live shows and post-show pep talk to promote her brand of ‘urban feminism’ – and it is as compelling as it is tremendously significant.
"Rapper-cum-revolutionary"
Not only can a ticket to one of the female MC’s tour dates gain you access to a high energy hip-hop extravaganza, you may also learn a thing or two about womanhood and intersectionality in the process.
Paralleling messages championed recently by the likes of SZA and Solange (who’s latest album A Seat at the Table is more-or-less the deliciously soulful version of Princess Nokia’s 1992), the Harlem rapper subverts stereotypes about women in hip-hop by placing them in the driver’s seat. This is their narrative – the entangled identity of the young black woman in America.
To the amplified crash of military drumming, she burst onto the Bristol stage for the very first time to a sold out crowd yelling back the words to her breakout viral hit ‘Tomboy’.
With the appealing vitality and endurance of an anime character, she repeatedly slams the lyrics “my little titties and my fat belly…/my body little, my soul heavy”, condemning and defying patriarchal constructions of and standards for women’s beauty by toying with the idea of the male gaze.
Songs like ‘Brujas’ and ‘Mine’ illustrate Princess Nokia – the brainchild of Harlem-born Destiny Frasqueri – in her quest to create safe spaces for sisterhood as their heavy beats rumbled under even heavier messages. These kinds of feminist rally cries exist in a scream-and-shout manner as she declares to the boiler room-esque audience; “I step in this bitch and I do what I want / I don’t give a damn and I don’t give a fuck”.
Often she raps over a pre-recorded track, but it doesn’t feel wrong or phony because her flow is consistently slick and her connection with the audience is rife with a very pure authenticity.
On at least three occasions she dives into the crowd in an eruption of squealing delight – everyone packed tightly into The Small Horse is having just as much fun as she is.
As Princess Nokia’s set draws to a close, the self-professed Anglophile thanks the crowd for accepting her in ways that she never believed this country would. She tells a final tale of sorority, creating a warm and fuzzy feeling of tight-knight female bonds among the audience.
We feel safe, we feel loved, we feel powerful – and we can’t wait to see what our favourite rapper-cum-revolutionary will blow our minds with next.
What do you think about rap's brightest new star? Let us know your thoughts below or via social media.