Dartmouth Soundoff
Last Tuesday I woke up with a 103 degree fever. Barely able to leave my room or even hear myself think, I cancelled my appointments for the afternoon and lay in bed all day wallowing in my pathetic misery and the blue Powerade I made my roommate get from the vending machine. Around 3 p.m., I popped a few Advil and mustered the mental gusto to stare at a computer screen so I could at least not waste the entire day.
You're probably thinking, "Wait Maggie, I thought this was a music column."
Hold on, I’m getting there.
I opened up a blitz from Friday Night Rock with "Tuesday Morning Hiphop" in the subject line. Sent at 9:56 a.m., the only text in the body was "4/26/13," and it was hyperlinked to Mykki Blanco's "Haze.Boogie.Life". Warning: those "herky-jerky effects" of the video that are mentioned in the video's description on YouTube can really mess with you when you have a fever. The video left me intrigued, and unwilling to leave my bed, I started doing a bit of Googling.
The gender-bending Mykki Blanco is a character created by artist, poet and performer Michael Quattlebaum Jr., a 27-year-old artist from New York. Quattlebaum, who, according to the Village voice has "dressed on and off as a women since he was 16". In 2010, he created Mykki, an outspoken, sassy lyricist who takes the gender spectrum, crumples it into wad, and stomps all over it with glitter heels. In some videos, like "Haze.Boogie.Life,", she appears in different arrays of tight clothing, lingerie, big hoop earrings and long wigs. In "Wavvy",Mykki Blanco both runs around shirtless with a baseball cap and rocks nothing but a silky wig and theatrically blinged-out booty shorts.
Last November, Mykki Blanco released her first full length album, Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss, and has recently wrapped up a European tour.
Gabe Rosenstein '13, a booking agent for Friday Night Rock, described Quattlebaum as a performance artist, performing the part of Mykki Blanco, as much as he is a rapper himself.
Mykki Blanco joins two communities that often are considered mutually exclusive; the hiphop community can be at best ambivalent, and at worst, hostile, towards the LGBT community. Mykki is among a number of artists shaping the queer hiphop scene of New York, which is controversial both inside and out. Cakes Da Killa, a fellow NYC artist, is just one of several rappers who, along with Mykki, was featured in a Pitchforkarticle looking at the pros and cons of even defining a separate scene for queer rap altogether. Having their own niche can draw an audience and potentially make it easier for up-and-coming artists as a fan base has already been established. On the other hand, there is danger of the industry only having "room for one," a notion that rapper Le1f, in the article, deemed homophobic. "If we were straight, no one would be comparing us," he wrote.
Maybe you've caught on already, but Mykki Blanco is performing at Friday Night Rock this Friday just in time to kick off the upcoming Pride Week. The event, cosponsored by Outreach Peer Mentors, Year of the Arts, Office of Pluralism and Leadership and the Office of LGBTQIA+ Student Advising, is the latest in FNR's trend of cosponsoring events as well as diversifying the types of shows they put on, said FNR General Manager Alexis Monroe '13. Cakes Da Killa is opening for Mykki, and Rosenstein hinted that a third rapper may be added to the performance at the last minute. Quattlebaum will also be available on Saturday for a RSVP-required lunch discussion, allowing for him to engage with the Dartmouth community in multiple settings.
Mykki’s visit to Dartmouth opens the door for serious discussions about sexuality and gender identity, and Rosenstein hopes that the show may help some to “open themselves up to new arts and performance.”
At the end of the day though, Rosenstein wants people to go out, see a great show and have fun.
Barring another fever, I think I just made my Friday night plans.