Rapper Chika is here to take over hip-hop. Her strength? Vulnerability – Fast Company

If you wanted to know how the past year has been for breakout rapper Chika, just listen to the track Songs About You from her debut EP, Industry Games.

I wanted that song to be a genuine journey into my mind and where I thought I was and who Ive been, she says. Every month [from February to December] I came back to it to add something else. So you really got like a full process of my year.

What a year its been.

The 23-year-old Alabama native, ne Jane Chika Oranika, had been uploading covers and freestyling over familiar beats since 2016. But it wasnt until she stormed Twitter in 2018 with a poetic admonishment of Kanye West supporting Donald Trump that people truly sat up and listened. Praise poured in from celebrities and fellow rappers, including Ice T, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sean Diddy Combs, Leslie Jones, and more.

That wave took Chika into 2019, when she released her first official single, No Squares, in April. She made headlines a month later performing her politically charged track Richey v. Alabama on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, flaming her home state for leading the charge with the influx of anti-abortion heartbeat bills. That same month, she also appeared in Calvin Kleins #MyCalvins campaign. In June, she signed with Warner Records and announced later that year that shed soon release her first full body of work, which is now her seven-track EP Industry Games.

On Songs About You, Chika opens with being invited to Jay Zs Roc Nation pre-Grammys brunch in February 2019 and proceeds to chart her ascension in the game, tackling body image and the pressure to live up to the hype along the way.

Its a real ass song, and its the embodiment of what I wanted the EP to be, which was a snapshot of me and my life and where Ive been, Chika says. Its a coming-of-age project basically.

And Chika is coming of age during a particular time for hip-hop, especially for women.

Not since the 90s have there been so many women with diverse styles and looks being recognized across the board, which, in essence, can be traced back to Cardi Bs come-up during Nicki Minajs singular reign. The fact that two women rappers could coexist and chart equally seemed to shake the long-held mentality for some that there could be only one at a time.

Since then, rappers such as Young MA, Doja Cat, Lizzo, Tierra Whack, Rico Nasty, Dreezy, and more have migrated their talents from the corners of SoundCloud to the mainstream. Its a diverse playing field that, hopefully, is erasing the line between male and female rappers. It also presents a more promising landscape for an artist such as Chika to establish her lane.

In an ever-crowded playing field, what she feels shes bringing to hip-hop is vulnerability.

Not to shit on the past and be like, No ones ever done this, but the vulnerability, thats whats missing, she says. We parade and masquerade and talk about all the shit we have. I pride more than my flex. I would much rather talk about my feelings and get them out and help people process theirs.

Even her track Balencies, which at the start seems like shes bragging about being able to afford a luxury brand such as Balenciaga, seamlessly transitions to her grappling with the pressures and expectations of fame.

At the end of the day, the whole song is me talking about my mental health, Chika says. We kind of lost that sense of self in hip-hop, and weve created characters that people subscribe to. And I dont want to be that person.

Its without a trace of hype to say that Chika is poised to become one of the greatest rappers of her generation. Theres a heartfelt truth to her lyrical content and a timelessness to her flow that has made her a standout in the hip-hop scene. Her skills were evident back in her Twitter and Instagram freestyling days. However, Industry Games proves shes more than her viral clips. Shes in it for the long haul, and she isnt holding back.

Theres stories and lessons on this project, like I talked about losing a friend because of greed and not being appreciated and things like that, Chika says. Me as a person, Im too nice sometimes. Im like, I shouldnt put that in a song. But with this project I was like, fuck it. I deserve to tell my story and talk about what I go through.

Nothing was held back, she goes on to say. Nothing was sugar-coated. I made sure that if I was going to say once and I was going to put out this project, I was going to make sure everyone felt exactly where I was coming from.

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Rapper Chika is here to take over hip-hop. Her strength? Vulnerability - Fast Company