White Girl Rap: The New Frontier
Uffie: "In Charge"
from Hot Chick/In Charge 12"
Last night was among the most bewildering in my life. At New York's Hiro Ballroom in the Maritime Hotel, the simultaneously celebrated and despised white girl rapper Uffie performed a set of lewd, flow-less brilliance. The dancefloor looked like an intersection of all degraded hip-hop sub-cultures. Filled with scads of fake-cool, fake-aggressive, fake-cute hipsters — men in all-over-print hoodies and limited edition Dunks, girls in sailor outfits and sundresses. It was terrible, but entirely memorable, which is more than I can say about most rap shows. Among the outlandish things I saw and heard:
1. Uffie - An 18-year-old expatriate who I believe moved from Miami in her teens to live in South France, where she hooked up with members of the Ed Banger crew, an electro-dance label run by DJ Busy P. Uffie has a coquettish, child-like voice and a crude vocabulary. Her music feels at once cheap and offensive and wonderfully decadent. She also can't rap.
SIDENOTE: Uffie is embroiled in a curious feud with just the sort of people that ought to love her: Posters on the Hollertronix message board. On "Dismissed," a song on the upcoming Ed Rec. Vol. 2, Uffie calls posters who have criticized her in the past "faggots" and "wannabes." This is a mind-numbing insular game that can only signal some sort of post-modern Internet apocalypse.
2. V.I.P. - To my knowledge, the first gay rap trio. Their big record is called "Buut Wallz." Listen at their MySpace page. V.I.P. member Peter Party was a rejected early-round contestant on The (White Rapper) Show and the group's alpha MC is named Jonny Makeup. I'm not even sure what to say about all this.
3. Feadz - Uffie's talented DJ, producer and boyfriend played a two-hour DJ stint that included not one hot record. It was punishing.
4. Amanda Blank - White girl rap scene vet and SpankRock associate Amanda was introduced for a brief guest verse at the end of Uffie's set as "The Princess of Hip-Hop." And while Blank may have the best opportunity out of any of these people to make a career out of rap (she has the best flow, the most confidence and the nastiest lyrics), to hear her introduced as such was a horrifying moment I'll not soon forget. THE PRINCESS OF HIP-HOP, Y'ALL!
These girls (and guys) mix and mash the sounds of 80s party rap (think Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock), Miami booty bass and European electro to create a highly stylized, superbly energetic, wondrously vacuous version of dance music. Last night was bizarre. If white girls like this find a way to win, it's pretty much a wrap for the genre as we know it. Presumably, they won't.
BONUS BEAT
Amanda Blank: "Get Um Girl"
from the B-More Gutter Music EP
SpankRock feat. Amanda Blank: "Blow"
from the B-More Gutter Music EP
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Comments
1.
Alex Gale says:
This stuff sucks, plain and simple. Where some see fun, I see talentless, borderline mockery that hipsters/critics think they should like for the irony of it. As for white girl rappers, these chicks can at best aspire to the level of Northern State, the last much-touted female Great White Nopes who sucked but were sucked off by critics. NS (no skills?) were last seen being dropped by Columbia and have resorted to doing college gigs and random showcases at SXSW, CMJ, and the like.
02/27/2007 at 6:35 PM
2.
david says:
this is pretty much just dance music dressed up in hip hop shit and everybody knows it, no need to get so concerned
02/24/2007 at 9:23 PM
3.
kitsch says:
I believe this "new frontier" is superbly elating and a much-needed divergence from equally brainless shite coming out of crunk's chapped lips.
02/17/2007 at 12:51 AM