Meet: Princess Nokia
“Who dat? Who dat?”
Allow us to reintroduce the one and only Nuerorican queen, Princess Nokia! The Harlem native songwriter and rapper popped on the underground scene as early as 2010, gaining more traction as of 2017. She’s not one to miss as the Afro-Indigenous artist has peaked headlines amongst the Latinx and queer communities as an ultimate supporter, outwardly speaking to her bisexual and gender non-conforming identity and Taino ancestry in her personal life and her artistry.
She’s not shy when defending herself or others against bigotry and racism, establishing that she has zero-tolerance for it. “I be damned if I let some drunk bigot call a group of young teenage boys racist names and allow him to get away with it”, she commented in a 2017 tweet referring to an instance on an NYC subway in which she threw hot soup on racist young men harassing subway goers, including Nokia. Sis doesn’t just talk on her soapbox- she takes action and has follow-ups! A similar attitude can be found in her music.
The wave of hip-hop remains a slope of ever-evolving sub-genres and Princess Nokia significantly contributes to the canon in highlighting traditional and pre-colonial practices of West African and Puerto Rican spiritism. Practicing the faith of Santeria, Princess Nokia effortlessly blends her Afro-Latin Brujeria into a handful of her songs, becoming her own alchemist when taking her painful experiences and personal losses into grace and appreciation. Having lost her mother to AIDS as a child and surviving most of her adolescence in the NYC foster care system, Princess Nokia grew to understand the importance of practicing something sacred with herself and her lineage.
Santeria arose during the Transatlantic Slave Trade with heavily established roots in Cuba and spreading to other Caribbean islands like Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. With a basis in traditional West African Yoruba gods, goddesses, and the practice of communicating with spirits and ancestors, Santeria combined Roman Catholicism as a guise for practicing enslaved peoples to protect their works from White- European colonizers. For instance, The Virgin Mary holds similarities to the Yoruba water spirit, mother of all Yoruba orishas(deities), Yemaya. It is this religion that Princess Nokia carries at the heart of her style.
Hit singles like Bruja, S.H.I.T., and YAYA, acknowledge Yoruba deities such as Yeyama, Oshun, and Oya. In this age of resistance to and abandonment of conservative Westernized, colonial and white religions and ideals, Princess Nokia is just one of many artists leading the charge of Black and Brown folks embracing their ancestry and heritage, unapologetically! Carrying the torch for those ancestors lost to heinous acts of continued violence and inhumanity, for those ancestors who’ve made mistakes, and for those ancestors who tried and tried to heal, Princess Nokia embodies one exemplary path to revolutionary healing.
Peep Princess Nokia’s ode to NYC streets, with her latest, No Effort!
