Steve 'Flash' Juon“Just think of what the future holds for Kitty Pryde (now just Kitty), Iggy Azalea, and whoever comes along next.” Adam Bernard wrote about meme rappers in 2013 and in all that time I never looked up Kitty Pryde. I believed that she probably got sued out of existence due to her rap nom de plume being directly ripped off from an X-Men character. As it turns out though Adam was 100% correct — she changed her name and is now just Kitty, sometimes stylized in lowercase with a heart on either side. He was also right about “what the future holds” — even her songs on “D.A.I.S.Y. Rage” at the time predicted it.
“I’ll see you in seven years” raps Kitty on “Skrillionaire.” She’s still around in 2020. Kitty released studio albums in 2017 and ’18, and also formed a group with her husband Sam Ray called The Pom-Poms. We’re getting ahead of ourselves though. The one thing Adam got wrong about Kitty was referring to her as “the meme rapper, who is here today, gone tomorrow, replaced by the next meme rapper.” That may be true of many so-called meme rappers (I’m almost hoping it will be true of Doja Cat) but somehow Kitty persisted. What was she doing on “D.A.I.S.Y. Rage” that gave her staying power through the rest of the decade?
Perhaps “Scout Finch Bitch” can give us some insight. Besides opening with bars from San Jose rapper Antwon, who delivers some humorous bars like “white people love me like chipped beef on toast,” the song’s production from GRANT unapologetically bumps. When he starts bragging about having weed and cocaine, she feigns ignorance and says “No you don’t, stop! You’re gonna get me in trouble” then apologizes to her mom: “Don’t listen to ‘Twon, nobody has cocaine on them/and I never do anything wrong.” A few bars later she drops the facade and asks “‘Twon, can you teach me how to smoke a pot?” It’s hard to not laugh out loud at that. Kitty plays up her persona for laughs, managing to sound like a clueless white girl whilst rapping like she’s straight out of the White Girl Mob.
“Unfollowed” also shows she can rap pretty fast, and she moves pretty fast too, playing the role of a Lolita as she proclaims that “the stalker thing’s a pretty bad plan/but I’m just a little girl and you’re a grown ass man/so I know how to handle you.” WOW. The lightly bubbly beat from SELA sets off just how creepy the rap is in context. It helps a little to know she was actually 20 when the song was recorded, but you might have thought twice about friending her on social media hearing those bars.
The most discussed track of the album may be “Dead Island” simply for borrowing from Major Lazer’s “Pon De Floor,” but I’m still entertained by her ownership of her sexual prowess on the track: “You don’t know why all the boys flock to me?/Bitch, draw your eyebrows on then talk to me.” It’s not that I can’t believe Adam B was right about her being a “meme rapper” at the time, especially given the popularity of white girls saying nasty things on rap tracks had a brief surge in the mainstream, but Kitty actually started rapping two years before that all went “viral” so she ended up being carried by the wave instead of imitating it.
To be honest I think the title “D.A.I.S.Y. Rage” and the cover art’s seeming homage to “Buhloone Mindstate” say it all. Even though folks may have been attracted to her because “wow listen to this white chick spit bars,” she had a genuine abiding affection for hip-hop from childhood and just wanted to make the music she grew up with. I know how Adam judged her in 2013, but with 2020 hindsight (sorry about the terrible pun) I think we can say she’s “aight.” She certainly proved to be more than just a meme.