Kitty

She raps with a slowly shuffling flow and maintains a stance that’s entirely slacker, but Kitty contrasts those qualities with lyrics that are quick and sharp, filled with quirky cultural references and smart punch lines. Based out of the suburbs in Daytona Beach, Florida, Kitty began uploading tracks to the web under the name Kitty Pryde. She was still working at an accessory store in the mall as her humorous raps about Justin Bieber, “swag,” and Internet memes began to draw comparisons to Kreayshawn and such, but when “Ok Cupid” dropped in May of 2012, she started to be considered on her own. The track was a deadpan and humorous love letter to rapper Danny Brown with some hallucinatory, witch house-influenced beats underneath from producer Beautiful Lou. It caught fire quickly after release, earning a shoutout on Twitter from Danny Brown and influencing rapper Riff Raff to travel to Florida in search of a collaboration. Riff Raff and Kitty, who dropped the “Pryde” from her name, released their cut “Orion’s Belt” in June of 2012, which was the same month Kitty dropped her mixtape EP, Haha, I’m Sorry plus “Call Me Scabies,” her parody of the Carly Rae Jepsen hit “Call Me Maybe.” The EP also included the track “Ay Shawty,” which in January of 2013 reappeared on her EP D.A.I.S.Y. Rage, this time in a reworked version with Das Racist associate Lakutis added to the cut. ~ David Jeffries