As rap music has settled onto the throne of pop-music hegemony, from which it deposed rock ‘n’ roll some time ago, its demographic makeup has diversified radically—a natural side effect of an upstart insurgency claiming power over a huge and wildly heterogenous population. So now it’s common to find not only white-dude rappers and Latino rappers but also trans rappers, hipster rappers, punk rappers—all sorts of diverse artists operate on the rap-culture spectrum, in other words. (As opposed to earlier niche oddities like nerdcore, which only rarely interacted with the hip-hop mainstream.)
So far 2012 is shaping up to be the Year of the White Girl Rapper, with artists like Kreayshawn and Iggy Azalea attracting lots of attention from within the hip-hop world and generally being just about the first white female MCs that anyone’s willing to take seriously. (I’m sorry, but Northern State was just not a good rap group at all.) The latest white-girl rapper to start catching buzz is Kitty Pryde, a redheaded Floridian teen named after the token teen girl in the 90s X-Men comics. She’s recently caught the ear of the Fader, Vice, tastemaking streetwear clothiers Mishka, and the managers of up-and-coming rap collective Main Attrakionz, who now represent her as well.