
Hi divas,
It’s Mo aka DJ Gay Panic, and this(!) is The Deviant Dispatch. I’m blogging from my corner of the NYC underground to bring you event listings, subcultural musings, scene updates, and even blind items. There will be typos.
I have to tell you about Cortisa Star, the new rapper I’m obsessed with. What other 19 year old is trigging the too-online right wing and collaborating with hyperpop producers?
She first blew up on TikTok, which despite being a brain rot factory is a place where alternative artists can find/build audiences. She didn’t hit off-app attention until her From The Block Performance of her song “Fun.” Clips of the performance went VIRAL viral on Tiktok, with mainstream websites like Worldstar posting them as well. The far right and general sampling of the looser community took the time to hate on every aspect of this freestyle.
Causes of commotion include her status as a trans women, lazy Ice Spice jokes, her excessive use of autotune, and her fit: clear glasses, braces, short blonde hair, all topped off fuzzy leopard sweater. It’s not the mainstream high sex appeal package of a female rapper, but we’re far beyond the pale of ‘typical’ in all arenas. Why not have our new stars following suit?
And listen, I’ll take this moment to say I don’t think Cortisa Star is for everyone. Her music is sonically confrontational, but as a fan of boundary pushing art I was immediately intrigued. Her use of pitched-up autotune is the next progression from Laura Les and Young Thug. She told FADER that her boasts are “the menace side of me that I never got to express.” The bass is always booming. The bravado of “Hundreds of bands, put that bitch in my panty, He like my body, he know I'm a tr*nny” is simply iconic. No one else is rapping like this.
And she’s taking the attention and running with it. Her line from the song “hundred bands in my panties” is now her tag for all music. She’s kept dropping singles, including my fave song “Bad ASF.” The song pairs her signature vocal delivery and simple boasts with a surefire melodic hook. The beat sounds like something Sophie could have made.
I’m not alone in my fandom. Charli XCX herself tweeted “i <3 cortisa star” after following and liking her From The Block Performance video. Cortisa hinted in FADER feature that her debut mixtape will feature some guest stars. You can see in every video appearance she’s surrounded by other queer peeps mugging for the camera. The divas recognize a peer in their midst.
Just this week Cortisa put out “Misidentify” with hyperpop producer umru.1 It meets the high bar she set with “Bad ASF.” On it she raps “call me man, but I don't give a fuck 'cause I'm that fucking guy” as a fuck you while clocking she has transphobes pressed. The boasts all flow over umru’s rumbling beats, underscoring the menace she strikes in the hearts of MAGA divas everywhere. My fave couplet:
Steppin' on these bitches necks, I'm right up on they fucking throats
"Cortisa, take your foot off", I start laughing when they fucking choke
Beyond her music, it’s clear she’s just a star. period. Check out the following quotes from her interview magazine feature:
“My friend sent me a video of her in Japan and they were playing “Cortisa Crump” and I was like, “Why am I tapped in?”
Interview: ”What’s your cocktail?” Star: “It was just Abilify. Every time I would drink on it I would black out.”
“Word on the streets is that I’m albino and demonic.”
“I’m like, “Everybody dance right now,” and people start dancing. It’s like, “All hail Plankton.”
“When I’m not performing I want to party with bitches. I don’t care. Like, spike my drink, whatever.”
The kind of authenticity (unvarnished quotes, the blown-out sound) is why I think she’s hitting. The world is getting rougher, more chaotic, and dominated by technology. It tracks that our art and artists would be the same. Is a Cortisa song more cacophonous than someone next to you clicking thru IG stories? Or the screech of the M train over the song playing in your headphones? In a world where the right is wielding a terrifying chaos, it’s nice to have some queer noise to drown it out. While it remains to see what kind of career Cortisa Star will have, right now I’m locked in.
Next on the horizon is a set at the latest sksksks party. I hope I’ll see you in the crowd popping abilify.
xoxo,
Mo
SKSKSKS x CAPACITY Present: Ninajirachi vs umru
When: March 14th
Where: The Meadows, 17 Meadow Street, Brooklyn New York
What: Cortisa Star joins the NYC leg of Ninajirachi and Umru’s US tour. Ninajirachi just released her album GirlEDM, which (naturally) puts a girlypop twist on EDM. Think Skrillex for a post-hyperpop world with singsong melodies and big drops. It’s a worthy match for umru’s transformer-esque productions. With them playing b2b and separately, it’ll be a night of heavy bass with surprising twists.
How much: $27.30
BK club staple / producer for Empress of, Eartheater, and the aforementioned Charli XCX / remixer of Slayyyter + Hannah Diamond