Princess Nokia opened up about being a gender non-conforming artist in hip hop music in Playboy’s Equality Issue! The 27-year-old rapper, born Destiny Nicole Frasqueri, spoke about the importance of representation and not being placed in a box or a rigid gender binary.
“Every day I feel different. Every day it’s either masc or femme or in between,” Princess Nokia told Playboy. “I’m a gender non-conforming androgynous person.”
The Puerto Rican singer is known for her breakthrough single “Tomboy” and admitted the song put her in a box with fans. “Some people are like, ‘What happened to your tomboy phase?'” she said before adding, “It’s so much easier to understand artistic men. But women — especially brown women —we think they have psychological issues.”
She continued, “I love being proud of how studly I am, how boyish and how manly I can appear. I love being androgynous. I feel beautiful like that. It’s just another beautiful side of me.”
The New York born artist admitted that female artists in hip hop music are often pigeonholed into a sexy persona, while also being held to higher standards for their lyrics. In order to avoid suffering a similar fate, Princess Nokia chose to only work with a small team and not accept a record deal.
Princess Nokia added that she is often labeled as “crazy” or “fake” because of her diverse identity. “I find that really unfortunate because I make it so easy for people to understand me,” she said.
