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Music

Kreayshawn comes up

UPDATE: Kreayshawn has canceled her TIFF gig. Her full statement, followed by our original feature, below.

T-Dot! I have bad news. I’m sorry to say but my show tonight has been canceled. Ran into some documentation problems at the border. Your taxes hard at work! Jokes!

But srsly, I was looking forward to seeing you and soaking in the sites of your beautiful city. We will meet again someday soon. Thx for all your support, it means the world to me.

If you bought your tix from my site you have been emailed directions on how to get a refund.

One of the more polarizing figures in hip-hop of late is set to make her Toronto debut Friday (September 9) at a small Roosevelt Room gig and TIFF party.

Since her club hit Gucci Gucci blew up online, 22-year-old East Oakland rapper Kreayshawn has landed a major label deal and given the armchair-punditsphere something to agonize over.

Born in San Francisco to Elka Zolot of 90s surf-punk band the Trashwomen, Kreayshawn (aka Natassia Gail Zolot) is also a music video director, an associate of prolific Bay Area MC Lil’ B and co-founder of the White Girl Mob, a trio of female MCs whose musical credibility was quickly compromised by member V-Nasty’s generous peppering of the word “nigga” through her lyrics, despite being white. (She swore off the term last week – in song and on the street.)

Kreayshawn released her first mixtape, Kittys X Choppas, a year ago, but the American mainstream didn’t pay attention until May, when she released Gucci Gucci, a DJ Two Stacks-produced takedown of designer-label-obsessed “basic bitches.” She signed with Sony and followed it up with the similarly themed Rich Whores.

“Gucci Gucci and Rich Whores are a fun play on materialism. They’re not meant to be taken so seriously,” Zolot writes in an email interview. “Being in L.A., I see a lot of materialism everywhere. I wanna remind women that you can do a lot with your style with just a bit of money. That’s how I grew up.

“I always encourage women to be themselves. To not feel pressure to fit the norm. I’ve since been hit up by so many women telling me that I inspired them to get a camera so they can take photos and become photographers and from others that now wanna get into producing songs. The song serves as a jumping-off point for inspiration.”

But with inspiration and 16 million YouTube views also comes controversy.

Fame has had its perks to be sure: a hangout with Snoop Dogg, a flirtatious phone call from Drake during a Sirius Satellite Radio interview, a best new artist nod at the MTV Video Music Awards.

But Kreayshawn also got a dose of its dark side when a group called Hollywood Leaks hacked into her Twitter account and, as she sat unaware in the VMA audience, posted nude photos of her online. Later that night, a perceived beef with Rick Ross came to a head when her manager got into a backstage spat with a member of the Florida rapper’s entourage, all while MTV News cameras rolled.

Add in constant questions from reporters about her friend V-Nasty’s favourite term of endearment and Kreayshawn needed to take to her Tumblr to vent.

“This is quickly turning into something I would never have signed up for: being accused of being racist, getting my pre-teen nudes leaked everywhere,” she posted.

“I feel like this shit ain’t my cup of tea. Someone else want my job right about now? I’m just gotta sip, lean and disappear. THIS GAME IS FAKE AS ALL HELL!”

Though she declined to answer NOW’s questions about the incidents, she indicated that she’s moving on by giving a few details about her forthcoming debut LP. She hopes to be promoting it in “a couple of months” and is working with producers DJ Two Stacks, the Bizness and veteran beatsmith Dame Grease (the LOX, DMX’s It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot).

She’s also planning to release mixes via secret aliases (such as KJ Dreayshawn), write a film script and possibly produce a TV show. Aside from rhyming, she has a background in film and attended a Berkeley film program for a year on full scholarship, but later dropped out.

“A lot of my reason for doing this as a career came from my making music videos for my artist friends way before any of this ever happened on a large scale for me,” she says. “I realized that I wanted to do something different with my life. I had always written poems and been an artistic creature, so I said, ‘Why not try to make music myself?'”

The Red Hot Chili Peppers recruited her to direct their recent single, The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie, but later reshot it. Frontman Anthony Kiedis told MTV News that her version was too “dark and dank.”

Despite the pitfalls of sudden viral success, Kreayshawn says the toughest adjustment has been fame’s effect on those closest to her.

“My manager told me that the hardest thing when you start to make it big is dealing with your family and friends, and it’s true,” she says. “Sometimes they’ll see you in a different light, but you don’t see them differently. Things can get confusing.”

music@nowtoronto.com

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