Kitty’s *D.A.I.S.Y. Rage*: Getting drowsy, Bena-Benadryl, y’all

I love Kitty [*but not in a creepy way].  Formerly Kitty Pryde, which I guess she had to change for copyright reasons (it’s a comic book character)– too bad, as plain Kitty is more generic.  Her free- download D.A.I.S.Y. Rage (which you can get here — throw her a few bucks when you do!– it’s on a pay what you like basis) surprised me, made me laugh, and felt like it was expressing a fresh perspective more than anything since Frank Ocean’s Nostalgia, Ultra (although I guess that one didn’t make me laugh so much).

Melissa Leon observed, “To a degree, you can’t blame the confused and angry hip-hop diehards who shunned her as soon as they saw her last year. Who’s really sure, right away, what to make of a red-headed, teenage white girl who lives in suburban Daytona Beach, Fla., works at a Claire’s, has a huge crush on both the major Justins (Bieber and Timberlake, natch), and calls herself a rapper?” Noted. Although you could also just say “because she’s an assertive teenage girl with a big mouth.”  (Truth be told, she faintly resembles Alyson Hannigan.)

She slurs, giggles, talks over the beat, mumbles, vocal fries, texts “Fuck Men!” to her buddies, internal- and half-rhymes, and tells her mom she loves her like the Florida suburban teenager in her room that she is.  The music is woozy-hypnotic, a buzzed-former-Disney-Princess soundscape with loops of toy piano and harp.  You kind of picture this 17 year-old in her bedroom, surrounded by stuff she was into when she was 12 and hasn’t had the energy to clear away.

Exhibit A as to her brilliance, she does a homage to the Wu-Tang Clan’s “”C.R.E.A.M.” (“Cash Rules Everything Around Me”) called “R.R.E.A.M” that follows the syntagmatic chain of associations from the song title to allergy/rash cream in order to rap about the hives, rashes, and propensity for blushing that she suffers from as a fair-headed red-head.  I mean, how completely brilliant!

I sctratch the bumps my skin /Stress Rash Rules Everything Around Me (RREAM) Getting drowsy, Bena-Benadryl, y’all /Rash Rules Everything Around Me/ Getting drowsy, Bena-Benadryl, y’all I’m blushing while I’m running the show/ I don’t wanna pose cuz I don’t want ’em to see/ The anxiety rash I’m hiding under my sleeves /It looks weak, to get all red and itchy when I’m barely upset/ but it’s bad enough to make em call a medic

She also admits to stuffing her face and not being super-thin (“I’m kinda like a pelican, cuz my mouth/ Is way bigger than my belly and/ I like to keep some feathers on my skeleton”), and expresses her ambivalence about annoying cool boys: “I know you wanna prove your dominance, and you want all my klonopin/ You talk about the devil cuz you’re so black metal.”

Her idea of a threat: “I piss all on your bike, I like to see your fixie rust.” Watch out, hipster boys.

So great!!! She will be a star.  Or should be.  I swear it on my freckles.