“Loko 4 Real” feels anthemic, for example, with a thick wall of bright synths and sampled crowd noise in background, as she chants: “Lo-ko, Lo-ko, lays low, lays low / Lo-ko, Lo-ko, got no time for none of you hoes,” in the chorus. Her vocals are animated and full of energy, but never feel melodramatic or overpower the beat. At times, her words drip into each other, sounding almost glued together in the way that Memphis accents often do at other points, they’re punctuated, measured, like a pinhead whizzing in midair towards a balloon. Still, Loko’s flow also stands out from many of her contemporaries because it’s just so dynamic. Instruments move between octaves in unexpected ways, and harmonies in the background almost feel dissonant if you listen to them on their own-but as part of a whole, they mix seamlessly. On tapes like “Runnin-N-Gunnin ” and “Wanted: Dead or Alive ,” the Street Smart roster raps over beats that feel warped and purposefully fuzzy, like the 4-track recorder Wright used was waterlogged and tangled in weeds. So much of what he produced between 19 sounds different from song to song-and strikingly different from what other cutting-edge Southerners like Three 6, 8Ball & MJG, and Gangsta Pat were doing. Tommy Wright III used these things to his advantage, crafting a lofi sound that was incredibly versatile. Many ’90s Memphis releases were recorded on cheap, analog equipment there’s a constant graininess, the hiss of the tape in the foreground. Police have been spying on Black reporters and activists for years. Her career also foreshadowed some of the styles that define my favorite Southern hip-hop now, running through crime stories and hyping herself up with technical prowess and a unique aesthetic. Loko’s style was often off-kilter and forward-thinking, but shared the grimy sensibility of her Memphis rap peers. But a couple of things make this early work stand out to me, one of them being that the Street Smart sound is weird-even among other experimental contemporaries like Three 6 Mafia, who famously sampled horror movie soundtracks and ’70s soul records. Princess Loko’s music with Street Smart Records fits neatly into some major trends coming out of Memphis rap in the ’90s: fast-paced triplet flows, booming 808 drums, dense bursts of hi-hats, and moody, bleak lyricism. Her raps documented law enforcement surveillance, nosy neighbors, haters waiting to undercut her success, and the gaze of no-good men who want to use intimate relationships to exert power over her. Loko was Wright’s “childhood friend,” he tells fans on Twitter, “the first girl that I produced,” and a key member of his rap group Ten Wanted Men. And her start, her initial success, and her legacy are intertwined with the career of Tommy Wright III-the innovative Memphis rapper, producer, and head of Street Smart Records whose eccentric sound and DIY approach have inspired major Southern rappers like Gucci Mane and Denzel Curry-and earned him a cult following that’s allowed him to claim legend status long after his time in the music business fell apart. Many of them came from the same southwest section of the city where she grew up. She put out two solo projects, 2006’s “It’s All On Me ” and 2012’s “Long Ovadue ,“ and recorded a tape called “Game Recognize Game ” in 2001, which was never widely released.Īs far as I can tell, pretty much every artist she worked with was from Memphis, like her. Many of her most famous lines came out before she could buy a beer-her first appearance was when she was 14 years old-spread exclusively through cassette tapes and CDs sold through car stereo shops or mail orders. Loko’s rap career spanned a 20-year period, from her first verses in the early ’90s to a slew of guest features in the mid-2010s. If you listened to the first track on Beyoncé’s latest album, “Renaissance,” then you know her now too- “I’m That Girl” opens with and then underlays a sample of Princess Loko’s verse on the 1995 Tommy Wright III track “Still Pimpin.'” But more people should have paid attention: Andrea Summers is a local legend, known to many people by her rap name, Princess Loko. Local media didn’t cover it most public reactions came from social media posts, YouTube comments, and a GoFundMe page created for her funeral expenses. In May 2020, a woman named Andrea Summers, a mother of three, died in Memphis just two months before her 41st birthday. This profile of Princess Loko was originally published by Scalawag Magazine. For more reporting that explores the intersection of popular culture and justice, sign up for Scalawag’s pop justice newsletter. Will a Beyoncé feature grant her the 'Renaissance' she's overdue? - MLK50: Justice Through Journalism Close Longtime Memphis rapper Princess Loko died in obscurity.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |