For this week’s blog, I wanted to highlight an emerging female artist in the Naija underground. As an avid listener of underground Hip Hop in the States, I am keenly aware of the role that women play in both pushing the culture and shaping the sound of the underground. In that same vein, as I have matured, I have also become aware that even in spite of underground spaces positioning themselves as alternatives to mainstream norms, they frequently reproduce the same harmful structures that overlook and marginalize women, both as artists and listeners.

In many underground circles, I hear discourse where the presence of women is scrutinized, and oftentimes outright degraded. As listeners, they are expected to “prove” their knowledge of niche artists or subgenres, testing their “legitimacy” and reinforcing a culture of gatekeeping where women must overperform to gain credibility. As artists, the bounds of a woman’s creativity is often relegated into hyper-specific aesthetics in order to be considered valid. For example, some prominent and longstanding female artists in the underground include Bktherula, Molly Santana, and xlovclo. Each of them have distinct sounds and have proved to be key influencers of the culture, building strong fanbases outside of the traditional industry. In the face of their innovation, however, many emerging female artists within the underground are often labeled as clones of these three, negating their individuality. This comparison is deeply gendered, as I know tons of male artists who directly copy the sound of larger artists, with the purpose of riding the trend wave, and are celebrated for their “ingenuity,” while women are flattened to copies.

This discourse is exactly what brought me to vvsmygwen. I was scrolling TikTok and came across her song “Saysum.” Checking the comments, I saw many comparing her to Playboi Carti and Bktherula. For me, her response, “If Gwen was Gwen,” encapsulates her artistic messaging. Vvsmygwen is an emerging artist within the Nigerian Alté scene. Alté (short for alternative) is a budding youth-led subculture, founded on the emphasis of experimentation, individuality, and artistic autonomy. As a genre, Alté serves as a fusion of Afrobeats, Hip Hop, R&B, and Indie. Vvsmygwen is cementing her place within this wave, making the clear assertion that she is filling a space only she can occupy.

On first listen, I appreciated the rawness of this track. Sonically, I was taken back to the early Soundcloud era where distorted and unclean mixing brought character to the track. For a lack of better words, vvsmygwen was in her bag when she made this song, made apparent by her delivery and flow.

Getting into the lyrics, my main critique is that that there isn’t much revolutionary content. Her opening lines for example, “My nigga keep playing with me/I think I need a spare one.” Like many male artists, she is glamourizing having many partners, and at the same time she is also leaning into ego-ic rap, emphasizing that she’s not the one to be played with and her ability to get a new man if needed. She goes onto to play into the typical braggadocio schemes, “I hope no broke bitch said none…I’m killing, these niggas need medkits.” The next couple bars I find funny because she says, “I ain’t even need to flex/I ain’t even need to flex it,” then proceeds to flex and talk about how she is counting checks. I want to emphasize that it is okay that vvsmygwen’s lyrics aren’t essential profound. It’s provocative…it gets the people going.

To this point, I would argue that vvsmygwen is doing exactly what she set out to do upon entering this alternative space. She is making a name for herself. She is expressing herself authentically and unapologetically, asserting her position in a space women have been made to feel that they do not belong. She can talk about chasing the bag and having an abundance of dudes trying to get at her because that’s her truth. And at the end of the day, she is just her being her, reinforcing the messaging behind her hook “hakunamatata.” She has no worries, no doubts in herself. She is exactly who she thinks she is. Vvsmygwen just recently dropped another project entitled, “Hannah Montana,” leaning further into that rockstar persona. I personally am excited to see her growth as an artist as well as the trajectory of the Naija Alté scene.