S. Samuel
[After dropping her The Strong Survive EP last week, Chicago rapper/singer Nikki Lynette shares the Top 5 reasons to go and support her project.]
1. Real Talk, My Music Rocks
You know how a lot of music these days sounds like regurgitated donkey nuts? No offense to people who enjoy donkey nuts, we all have guilty pleasures in life. But my music isn’t like that. And although I am underwhelmed by a lot of the music I hear these days, I am not one of those people who are trying to make music that sounds the way it did back in the day. I would totally suck at “taking it back to the old school. My music is creative, honest, and weird in a good way; I’m not trying to be like anybody else . It’s fun & musical and actually contains some real instruments. Music like that is the music of the future, in my opinion. That’s mad cocky of me to say, right? Well, listen to my EP and see if I’m a liar.
2. My True Colors Shine Through
What do the movies Rocky, Dodgeball, Scott Pilgrim, The Karate Kid and Revenge of the Nerds all have in common? Aside from having kick a** soundtracks, they teach us that sometimes the little guy is the one who comes out on top. For the first several years of my career, people told me that I wouldn’t be able to make it because my music didn’t sound “black enough”. But now I am finally starting to get a bit of recognition. In a day and age where we all have friends of multiple races on Twitter and a black president in the White House, it looks to me like people are getting bored with racial boundaries. So you should support me, the under dog. And this time next year you’ll be able to tell your friends “I was up on Nikki Lynette WAYYYY before she got signed and got all skinny and started acting Hollywood”.
3. All By Myself
This project is the first one that I created all by myself, from top to bottom. Of course I had the help of dope a** musicians and an awesome engineer. But this was the first project I dropped that has no co-producers, which is a big deal for me. I am [convinced of] my writing ability because I’ve been writing for people and selling songs for a couple of years now, and I have been singing and rapping long enough to become confident in my skills. But this is the first time I relied solely on my own beats. That was hella risky, I know. But people are feeling it, and 3 of the songs from my EP have already been featured on shows on MTV. So when you buy my EP, your $10 helps support a hard working female artist who does more than use her boobs and a** to sell her tunes. Not that anything is wrong with my boobs or a**. [Giggle]
4. Much Ado About Nothing
The TV show “Seinfeld” did really well promoting itself as “the show about nothing”. But music that is about nothing bores the sh*t out of me. I’m really into expressing myself through my lyrics. So whether its a love song or a tune I wrote about my little brother going to the military, or even my materialistic ode to clothes called “Model In the Mirror”, I have to actually be lyrical and creative with my delivery, or else I would start hating my life. I’m a trained singer, and that gives me a different perspective on music than a rapper who has never actually studied music. I’m not saying that makes me better than anybody else, I’m just saying that it makes me different. And ain’t nothing wrong with trying something different every once in a while.
5. The Pursuit of Happiness
If you buy The Strong Survive EP I doubt very seriously that you will listen to it and afterward be pissed off [thinking] “I can’t believe I paid $10 for that sh*t, I wanna slap her now!” Honestly, I don’t make music for everybody. Some people don’t wanna hear a whole bunch of harmonies and real instruments, or they just don’t wanna hear a girl rap if she isn’t talking about her undying love for the penis. And I can’t say that my sound is underground either, so people who prefer that sound of music might not be into what I am doing. I’m not trying to please everybody. But I get e-mails, tweets, and comments everyday where people are telling me that my music makes them feel good or has made them happy in one way or another.
Nikki Lynette’s The Strong Survive is currently available by clicking here.
Check out some Nikki Lynette footage and music below:
