The New Girl
Rapper L.A.’s First Year On The Rap Scene Has Been A Whirlwind NATELEGE WHALEY
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arkness has set in on a Friday evening in December in Brooklyn, New York. Rapper L.A. is sitting in the bright lobby area of the Sheraton hotel at 228 Duffield street, with her video crew (close friends) who have documented her journey thus far on her website UCanCallMeLA.com. Dressed in a leopard print top, she applies fuchsia lipstick as she gets ready for the camera. It’s 7 p.m. and L.A. has had a long day but her bubbly words and giggles cover any sign of stress she has balancing her rising hip hop career, and her nine to five in the “real world” as an investment banker at (she won’t say). In anyone’s mind that doesn’t add up. But L.A. is used to not following the format. “I was supposed to be a lawyer. That’s what my mother would have said,” she says. The courtroom is a stage for an attorney in a sense, but the Brooklyn-native has chosen hip-hop as the venue for her talents. Only taking rap seriously a year ago, L.A. has created a brand that’s landed her gigs that would make any unsigned rapper jealous: being hand-picked to open for Big Sean at NYU, an MTV Sucka Free Freestyle, being featured in the “That’s Rocawear” campaign, and also opening the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival this past summer, headlined by Q-Tip. All a result of going off path a little. In summer 2010, L.A. was approached to do a cypher called “We Got Bars.” The response brought L.A. more attention, and people in her circle encouraged her to take things a step further. That’s when she conceived The Presentation, her own version of one of her favorite albums, The College Dropout. She also filmed a mini-movie, (imagine a hip-hop Glee) for the project in which she acts, dances, and dons the
brown bear mascot. Her follow-up project L.A. Riots, released in September, takes a turn to a darker and edgier L.A., who comes intentionally to shred each beat to pieces with her emotional lyrics. She’s a lady in the rap game but she believes the label “femcee” is an attempt to limit her. “Don’t put me in a box!,” she says. But spend any time with L.A. and it’s apparent, no packaging could hold her. L.A. (who happens to be a former VIBE intern) sits down with VIBE and tells us about her come up, dating another rapper, her thoughts on Nicki Minaj, and what her dream rap collaboration would be. Read on to get off track with L.A. Ambitious One: What is a normal day for L.A. like? L.A.: I’m an investment banker in the morning. I work at “omits name.” By the evening time, I’m back to this career of mine of being an official hip-hop rapper, along side with a million other things that I do, that we’ll probably talk about later. Did you have any idea you would be rapping right now? L.A.: No idea at all. I was supposed to be a lawyer that’s what my mother would have said. I started getting really interested in performance and art and in college and in high school I was doing poetry. I graduated from Wesleyan University and majored in African American studies and performance arts and psychology and that was like my main thing. I was like I’m geared to black art, nobody can tell me anything. That’s what I wanted to do.
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