If you were to infuse the brazen attitude of Lil’ Kim at the height of her popularity with the melodic facility of both today’s SoundCloud rap and the Chicago drill ethos, you’d end up with a completely domineering bully of an artist — or, more specifically, someone like Queen Key. Thing is, as her royal title decrees, Key knows how to to be a boss. “That ni**a want a meal? / Better eat my pussy / If that ni**a want some pussy / Then that ni**a better book me,” she gloats on Eat My Pussy Again‘s “RBA.” (Or take my personal favorite: “All these ni**as internet / Log them off,” from “Gimme $”). Key’s flow sounds like she couldn’t care less what you or anyone says about her, even as her lyrical approach lapses into childish simplicity at times. Simply put, her swagger can overload this project: She sounds like a Midwestern Gucci on “Hey,” even biting Valee’s signature flow with zero remorse and dialing it up to 11. Key isn’t always this in-control: the more saccharine soul cuts (“I Like Me Better” and “Ms. Understood”) are positioned well enough, in the context of the album, but they’re completely unruly on their own merits. As she sings on the former, “When you that bitch / You gotta take risks / That never been took before,” and in all fairness, she actually tries her hand at a diverse array of strategies — upping the ambition of 2018’s singular Eat My Pussy. She shines as the menacing bad bitch — on “Bad to Da Bone,” “Evil,” and “Go” — while still showing a subtle playfulness, like the ominous clang of a church bell in “Gimme $” or the melisma of claps, beeps, and boops on “Ratchett.” She’ll sneak up on you, as she very much intends.
Published as part of What Would Meek Do? | Issue 9
