Mykki Blanco (USA) • FLUID • Expirat • 27.05

Mykki Blanco has metamorphosed many times. The multi-faceted star was a child actor who founded a performance art collective as a teen, ran away from home, and won scholarships to two prestigious art colleges, quitting both as he realized that “the art world is just one big scam for rich people” – an idea touched upon in album track High School Never Ends written with Woodkid, which premiered on FADER in May.

Finding fame first as a fearless noise rap poet, he published a book From The Silence Of Duchamp To The Noise Of Boys. Then what started as a video art project about a “teenage drag rapper” transformed into two years of Blanco living as a transgender woman in his personal life. Though eventually not transitioning, Mykki Blanco graduated in real life as well as artistically into the non-binary, gender-queer, post-homo-hop musical artist that we see before us today. Needless to say, it’s impossible to pigeonhole Blanco, and his unique and beautiful sound is no exception.

Amassing a vast online following with a savvy and savage social media output, Mykki is hailed online as a digital warrior princess who rules across the underground music scene with mixtapes like Gay Dog Food, cult hits like “Kingpinning”, and sensational videos like “Coke White”, “Starlight”, “The Initiation”, “Wavvy”, and “Haze Boogie Life”. Blanco’s output to date has been hailed as razor sharp, ahead of its time and sometimes deliciously far out. Yet this album seems to leave much of the mayhem behind, marking yet another departure, this time in favor of melody and musicianship, and Mykki comes of age as a serious chart contender. Mykki says: “I realised as an artist I need to focus on myself and on my work. Arguments with people online distract from that. I used to have a problem with the media trying to define me, either as a drag queen, or a transvestite, as a homosexual rapper, a transsexual or an HIV positive pop star, but most people need labels and my true fans know who I am and what I’m about.”

Mykki Blanco’s referential framework is both archival and futuristic: a myriad of culture references, spiritual anecdotes, designer labels, make-up brands, hippie jargon, Fendi here and Snapchat there – all perfectly reflecting the creative dialogue and digital landscape we live in.

#FLUID (born 2016) - a queer act based in Bucharest - is the collaboration between Paula Dunker (performer, actress, choreographer, playwright), Alex Bălă (musician) and other warped creatures. Using sound, music and a microphone as weapons against civic neutrality, #FLUID is the mother of the techno-faggothique neo-genre.