It’s Not Too Late to Discover CupcakKe, A Rapper You Need to Know

It isn’t easy to discover new music. Our Spotify homepages generate playlists of artists we’ve already starred, of albums we already know and love. New rap music, in particular, is difficult to come by. With the genre expanding as the years go on, with more and more cities becoming rap music hubs, wading through the talent can be exhausting and fruitless.

Maybe we can’t account for everyone’s likes and dislikes. But we can attest to who’s got it, and who doesn’t. And CupcakKe, hailing in from Chicago, definitely has it. She is, undoubtedly, a rapper you need to know.

Her fans, enthusiastically, call themselves “slurpers.”

CupcakKe has been impressing the rap scene ever since 2016’s Cum Cake—which landed at No. 23 on Rolling Stone‘s Best Rap Albums in 2016. Rolling Stone described the album, CupcakKe’s debut album, as “lewd and unapologetic, her persona recalls the in-your-face provocation of hip-hop’s Blowfly roots, a 2016 Too $hort whose clever lyrics are as shocking in their unpredictable originality as they are for their up-front sexuality.”

If that description doesn’t intrigue you, we suggest you take a listen to one of CupcakKe’s recent singles. Among the many bangers she has released since 2018’s Eden, we think this one, “Grilling N****S/Lawd Jesus” is one of her strongest displays of who she is. Ferocious. Sexy. CupcakKe is a woman with bars that stick to your skin and put you in your place (which is, according to CupcakKe, beneath her).

They tryna see if I’m black and a threat

but I’m covered in green, they like “Look, It’s Shrek!”

Bankteller sayin’ my shit froze

Pockets thick as hell like Lizzo

Mukbang the beat like Trish, hoe.

This, is CupcakKe.

Lyrics and bars lashing with style and modernity, CupcakKe’s approach to rap music is both new and conventional. Coming for her contemporaries is a tactic rappers have pioneered since day one. At the same time, CupcakKe doesn’t stop short of telling you why she is better than the game’s finest players.

Sit me in a burnin’ stove, before I ever sit in they shows
The only bar that they ever told, was that the bar is too low
I can make a nigga drop his hoes, he be like, “Adi, adi, adios”

Some people find CupcakKe problematic. But in our opinion, CupcakKe is a good problem to have. Not only is she striving and thriving out there, dropping new singles at a near constant rate, she is one of the few out here rapping no-holds-barred. She’s been called “one of the raunchiest rappers” out there by Pitchfork, but CupcakKe’s sex-positivity is just one aspect of her appeal.

Black femininity, friendship, exploits of the body, and power, all define CupcakKe’s lavish and dramatic universe. We are simply obsessed with her takes on this world and her experience of living in it. There isn’t an upcoming concert tour on the horizon for CupcakKe—yet. But considering her constant roll-out of new singles, we think she’s cooking something up for the end of 2021, into 2022.