UFFIE with DJ FEADZ, ELLEN ALLIEN, APPARAT, PARA ONE and more at Mod Club Theatre (722 College), Friday (September 1). $20, advance
$15. www.addevents.com. Rating: NNNNN
If Uffie ever gets tired of being a glamorous electro-hiphop MC, she might want to try being a spokesperson for MySpace.
No, she’s not the only person thanking the site for the exposure it’s helped generate, but few can boast the meteoric rise to fame she’s experienced.
“Honestly, it just started out with me doing something with Feadz (her Parisian boyfriend) for fun. I wanted something to put on my MySpace site, and it just blew up from there,” recalls Uffie from a club in Baltimore midway through her second American tour. “Everything has come from the Internet all my gigs came from MySpace.
“I started to do music only eight months ago, and they stuck me on tour five months ago. It still hasn’t really hit me what’s actually going on.”
Part of her charm is undoubtedly the odd frisson of raunchy lyrics coming out of an innocent-looking 18-year-old girl. When the “I’m ready to fuck” chorus hits in Ready To Uff, you’re split between wanting to sing along and feeling like a dirty old man. You’ve got to wonder how her family feels about her sudden fame.
“It really kills my mom to hear the lyrics, because she’s very Catholic and conservative, but she’s also very happy I found something, because I was never much of a school-and-college kind of person. My dad loves the tracks — he’s so into it.”
It’s strangers who’ve encountered her work on the Internet who are more likely to read things into her persona and lyrics. Music blogs have exposed a huge number of ears to her sound, but, along with adoring responses, they’ve offered some vicious critiques of her bubble-gum crunk.
“I know this is so vain, but I definitely Google myself and read what people say. Even if it’s negative, it’s still important to hear what people think and learn from it. But some of it is just so horrifying — calling me a bitch and a slut, taking the lyrics so literally. I was only 17 when I wrote the song.”
As she’s quickly learning, though, it matters less what they’re saying than that they’re talking about her. For now, she’s touring constantly and trying to wrap up her debut album, with beats from Feadz and Mr. Oizo, which should be coming out early next year on Ed Banger Records.
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benjaminb@nowtoronto.com
