Princess Nokia

Destiny Nicole Frasqueri,[2] (born June 14, 1992),[3] better known by her stage name Princess Nokia, is an American rapper and actress of Puerto Rican descent.[4] Princess Nokia released their debut album Metallic Butterfy in 2014, followed by the 2015 mixtape, Honeysuckle (as Destiny). Frasqueri, as Princess Nokia, then released the 1992 EP, followed by her debut album, 1992 Deluxe, which served as their breakthrough album. In 2018, she released the emo-rap mixtape, A Girl Cried Red, before releasing two albums in 2020, Everything Sucks and Everything Is Beautiful. Princess Nokia has also hosted an Apple Music radio show and acted in the independent film, Angelfish.

Princess Nokia
Princess Nokia performing in 2014
Background information
Birth nameDestiny Nicole Frasqueri
Also known as
  • Wavy Spice
  • Destiny Nicole Ortiz
  • Destiny
Born (1992-06-14) June 14, 1992
New York City, U.S.
Genres
Occupation(s)
Years active2010–present
Websiteprincessnokia.org

Early life

At the age of 10, Frasqueri lost her mother to AIDS.[5] Between the ages of 9 and 16, Nokia was in foster care. During Frasqueri's time in foster care, their foster mother was physically abusive.[5] After Frasqueri left foster care, she went to live with her grandmother.[6][5] At the age of sixteen, she started writing rhymes.[7] Frasqueri lived around East Harlem and the Lower East Side of New York City at the time.[7]

Career

Early career and Metallic Butterfly (2010-2016)

Frasqueri recorded her first song, "Destiny", in 2010, and released it under the name "Wavy Spice" on her SoundCloud page and her YouTube channel in mid-2012. It was largely autobiographical and gained modest popularity. Subsequently, Frasqueri released their second track, "Bitch I'm Posh".[8][9][7] The track went viral, and as of March 2020, received 170,000 plays on SoundCloud.[10] Frasqueri then released YAYA (Yaya is a Taino word)[11][12] as a commentary of perceptions of colonial history.[13] Frasqueri continued to release singles, such as Dragons, a Game of Thrones inspired piece, Honeysuckle, and Vicki Gotti until changing their moniker to Princess Nokia. Frasqueri released her mixtape, 1992, on Soundcloud and began touring.[14]

Frasqueri claims Princess Nokia is an alter ego,[15] which Frasqueri introduced with the track "Nokia".[8] Frasqueri released an album named Metallic Butterfly on May 12, 2014, and was debuted on Vice and Soundcloud.[16]

1992 Deluxe (2017-2018)

In February 2017, Frasqueri confronted a member of the audience at a charity concert at Cambridge University whom they accused of "mouthing dirty obscenities like 'show me your tits'." The alleged harasser denied yelling such obscenities and told The Cambridge Student: "I was standing in the audience and was told by a fellow audience member that the name of the performer was 'Abigail'. Given that I was enjoying the performance, I shouted out 'Let's go Abigail!'. After I shouted this, they came down from the stage. They slapped me and threw drinks on me."[17][18] After returning to the stage, Nokia told the crowd "that's what you do when a White boy disrespects you".[19]

On September 8, 2017,[20] they released their debut studio album, 1992 Deluxe,[21] which was an expanded version of their 2016 mixtape, 1992.[22] It peaked at #25 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart.[23] NME listed it as the 32nd best album of 2017.[24]

In October 2017, Frasqueri made headlines again when a viral video surfaced of them throwing hot soup in a man's face whilst on a subway journey to Brooklyn.[25] The rapper heard a white man shouting racial slurs at a group of teenagers, and decided to take action against the racist remarks by slapping the man and throwing their hot soup on him.[25] They took to Twitter saying: "this bigot called this group of teenage boys 'n****s' on the train so I stood up and slapped him and everybody on the train backed me up".[25]

A Girl Cried Red (2018-2019)

Nokia also has debuted a new radio show on Apple's Beats 1 Radio on February 18, 2018. Episodes will air every other Sunday and allow listeners to get acquainted with the inner workings of Nokia's mind. They have a total of 6 episodes labelled: "The Voices in My Head with Princess Nokia."[26]

In September 2018, Nokia was chosen as one of the six ambassadors by Maison Margiela to promote their new fragrance, Mutiny.[27]

In December 2018, Nokia re-released the album Metallic Butterfly under the label Rough Trade.[28] In 2019 they had their debut performance as an actor in the indie movie “Angelfish".[29][30]

Everything Sucks and Everything is Beautiful (2020 - present)

In February 2020, Nokia released two albums: Everything Sucks and Everything is Beautiful.[31]

Personal life

Princess Nokia is a strong supporter of intersectional feminism, founding the Smart Girl Club with Milah Libin, a podcast where she discusses healthy living and urban feminism.[32][33][34][35] The rapper is an active practictioner of Santería, and has shared their own experience with clairvoyance and spirituality that they infuse their music with.

Frasqueri identifies as bisexual and has stated such in a past interview and has also talked about how growing up near the queer community of New York City was an important part of her life. The early stages of Princess Nokia's musical career began through performing at gay clubs, as she gained popularity among the gay nightlife scene.[36][37][38]

Frasqueri also opened up about her identity as a gender non-conforming person and uses both they/them as well as she/her pronouns.[39][40][41]

Discography

Studio albums
  • Metallic Butterfly (2014, in 2018 was released a deluxe edition)[42]
  • 1992 Deluxe (2017, as a deluxe edition of their EP of the same title)
  • Everything Sucks (2020)
  • Everything is Beautiful (2020)

EP
  • 1992 (2016)
  • G.O.A.T. (2017)

Mixtapes
  • Honeysuckle (2015, as Destiny)
  • A Girl Cried Red (2018)

Guest appearances

Awards and nominations

Sweden GAFFA Awards

Delivered since 2010, the GAFFA Awards (Swedish: GAFFA Priset) are a Swedish award that rewards popular music awarded by the magazine of the same name.

Year Nominee / work Award Result Ref.
2018 Themself Best Foreign New Act Nominated [43]

See also

References
  1. http://musicandriots.com/princess-nokia-reigns-supreme-as-the-queen-of-emo-rap-at-special-house-of-vans-chicago-2/
  2. Cooper, Wilbert L. (September 21, 2015). "Stream Destiny's 'Honeysuckle,' the Funky Follow-Up to 'Metallic Butterfly'". Vice. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  3. "Happy birthday Princess Nokia". The FADER. June 14, 2017. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
  4. Davis, Shanice (December 14, 2016). "Princess Nokia Talks Infusing Santería In Her Music". Vibe.
  5. Marotta, Jenna (August 28, 2017). "This Time, Princess Nokia Is Going to Do It Right". Vogue. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  6. Snobette (July 5, 2016), Princess Nokia: "There's No Money in Record Deals & I'm Not Looking to Be Taken Advantage of", retrieved May 10, 2018
  7. "Wavy Spice is Making "High-Tech airy Girl Music"...and we're Listening". Paper. October 14, 2014. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  8. "Track Premiere: Hear Wavy Spice Transform Into Princess Nokia on 'Nokia'". Archived from the original on December 4, 2017. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
  9. Wavy Spice" "Bitch I'm Posh" Archived 2014-02-20 at the Wayback Machine
  10. "Wavy Spice (New band of the day No 1,679)" The Guardian. Accessed 27 November 2016
  11. "Dictionary of the Taino Language". taino-tribe.org (in Spanish). Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  12. Princess Nokia (October 29, 2012), Wavy Spice - YAYA, retrieved May 10, 2018
  13. "Princess Nokia is Our New Age Hood Leader". Remezcla. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  14. "1992 Deluxe". SoundCloud. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
  15. "Wavy Spice: Harlem Is Burning". Archived from the original on December 4, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2014.
  16. "Princess Nokia's 'Metallic Butterfly'". Vice. May 12, 2014. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  17. "Rapper Princess Nokia Punches Audience Member After Being Harassed On Stage". Out. February 22, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
  18. "Fashion show headliner ends set early after hitting audience member". The Cambridge Student. February 15, 2017. Archived from the original on February 24, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
  19. https://heatst.com/culture-wars/rapper-princess-nokia-assaults-white-boy-in-audience-who-called-her-abigail/
  20. Berry, Peter A. (August 28, 2017). "Princess Nokia Shares '1992 Deluxe' Album Release Date". XXL. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  21. Darville, Jordan (September 8, 2017). "Listen To Princess Nokia's New Project 1992 Deluxe". The Fader. Retrieved January 12, 2018. The New York rapper considers this new release to be her debut LP.
  22. Geslani, Michelle (September 9, 2017). "Princess Nokia releases 1992 Deluxe album: Stream". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  23. "Princess Nokia - Heatseekers Albums". Billboard. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  24. "NME's Albums of The Year 2017". NME. December 27, 2017. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  25. "Princess Nokia, Armed With Soup, Fights Off a Subway Racist". Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  26. "Princess Nokia Debuts Voices in My Head". altpress.com. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
  27. "Meet Maison Margiela's New Fragrance Mutiny". Vogue. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
  28. "Metallic Butterfly". Rough Trade. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  29. "Angelfish by Brian Shaer". Film Threat. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  30. "Angelfish: Film Review". Remezcla. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  31. "Princess Nokia's Everything Is Beautiful/Everything Sucks is audacious". Evening Standard. February 28, 2020. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
  32. Petridis, Alexis (September 8, 2017). "Princess Nokia: 'At my shows, girls can take up space the way men do'". The Guardian. Retrieved January 5, 2018.
  33. Mallett, Whitney (August 26, 2016). "Princess Nokia, an Artist Making a Career All Her Own". V Magazine. Retrieved January 5, 2018.
  34. https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/ypnpzk/why-princess-nokia-matters-now-more-than-ever
  35. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/9kb53p/smart-girl-club-meet-princess-nokia-and-two-of-the-most-important-women-in-her-life
  36. Moran, Justin (October 10, 2017). "How Princess Nokia Achieved the 'Gay New York Dream'". Out. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  37. "Bi Artist Spotlight: Radical Self Love with Princess Nokia". The LGBT Sentinel. May 9, 2017. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  38. Hill, Zahara (August 20, 2018). "rincess Nokia On Being Sexually Fluid And Making Music For Girls With The 'Delusional Confidence Of Barbra Streisand'". Blavity.
  39. Sanders, Wren (February 26, 2020). "Out Loud: Princess Nokia Is Done Explaining Themself". Them.
  40. Stone, Avery (October 28, 2019). "King Princess Is Making Queer Pop Anthems for the Next Generation". Vice.
  41. Ushe, Naledi (December 20, 2019). "Princess Nokia Opens Up About Being a Gender Non-Conforming Artist in 'Playboy' Equality Issue". OK Magazine.
  42. "Princess Nokia Re-Issues 'Metallic Butterfly'". Billboard. December 14, 2018. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  43. "GAFFA-Priset 2018 – och de nominerade är ..." GAFFA (in Swedish). Sweden. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
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