How Kari Faux Is Changing the Rap Game
Kari Faux hasn’t even lived in Houston, the third-coast hub for hustlers and trunk poppers, for a year before leveling up. Last night, the Arkansas-born long-time indie rapper announced via Twitter that she’s launching her own record label, Lowkey Superstar, named after her most recent EP. “I’ve been doing music professionally for 10 years with no label support while taking huge financial/creative risks” she wrote, “so I said why not sign myself.”
Her recent Houston expatriation helped influence the push. “Just thinking about rap history here, from Rap-A-Lot to Swishahouse, it’s always like some imma do this shit myself type shit” she told The Daily Beast. But Faux’s been mulling over the decision for almost as long as she’s been a working artist. Eight years to be exact: “I’ve been doing this shit damn near by myself, I mean, of course I’ve had help but for the most part it’s been me tryna figure this stuff out.” The arc of Faux’s career has been defined by intuition and experimentation. And that was both by design and for her own survival in the music world.
As often as her music holds the ear-wormy character of what some would call “internet rap,” the descriptor has always been a misnomer. What Faux has showcased over the course of her career is an equal measure of self-awareness and fun that elides many hip-hop heads who might view their career in bursts, pushing her to make songs that, while catchy, are still narrative-driven, grounded in a down-home Southern thump, with variations on melody and topicality as the music calls. That’s why she can go from rapping about making that ass “bounce like Spalding” on her 2014 breakout smash “No Small Talk” to basking in the glory of solitude on her 2019 soul-leaning single “Leave Me Alone” from her most lucid record, Cry 4 Help.