Bay Area Rap

Bay Area Freshmen 10 of 2011 Spotlight: Kreayshawn - the latest ...

Pop culture has always been filled with polarizing figures; people that fans either love or hate, but do not feel moderately about. As a result they often spark a lot of conversation and controversy, with the end result almost always being an agreement to disagree. In the music world, the conversation around these highly debated artists often goes like this: “Artist X is the future of music.”. “No, fuck that. Artist X is an example of everything that is wrong with modern music”. If you have been paying attention to rap over the past couple of months, chances are you have taken part in at least one similar conversation in regards to Kreayshawn . 

I think it’s safe to say that more than a couple of people have been scratching their heads and wondering how Kreayshawn has sparked the attention of so many major people in such a short period of time. Personally, I think it lies in her ability to appeal across many different audience groups. She’s a white, sexually ambiguous rapper, with a heavy house music/dub step influence, and a unique sense of style similar to that of the hipsters, that rebels against the standard image of beauty, who is closely linked with Odd Future and Lil B’s Based movement, and has street cred due to her upbringing, her management team and the rest of the crew that she rolls with. Yet that barely begins to describe her music, which at the end of the day is all that should matter. While “ Gucci Gucci ” shows signs of Kreayshawn having the ability to match a catchy hook, with unique style, and some creative punchlines, lyrically the majority of her work released thus far (most of which was recorded prior to “Gucci Gucci”) seems to resemble what thanks to Lil B we would now call Based. Most verses seem to be an extension of her stream of consciousness translated loosely into rhyme and structured around a given theme, with plenty of “bitches on my dick” lines as well as boasts of incomparable swag and an uncanny ability to steal men’s girlfriends. Yet at the end of the day, I think her most endearing quality is that she really lets her eclectic personality come out in her music.