"It kind of encompasses the next generation of hip-hop — in sound, in attitude, and shoot, you could even say in race," he says. "It's more widely accepted that white folks are rapping now. She's a female; she's got that swag, that Bay Area swag, in the way she talks."
Yet for everyone heralding Kreayshawn as a new brand of rapper, there are skeptics — even haters — saying her flow isn't up to snuff or that her sound is too out-there. Other critics have taken on her race. One writer for Clutch magazine dismissed her as the latest example of whites appropriating black culture. A local feminist blog insisted that "dismissiveness and denigration of black women animate her success." Many have speculated that the White Girl Mob must be suburban kids acting black to get famous.
Courtesy of audibletreats.com
With swag “coming out my ovaries,” the Oakland-raised Kreayshawn rode her “Gucci Gucci” video to overnight fame.
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Her supporters give little credence to these arguments. "People started hating on her when she first dropped, like 'Look at this white girl, stealing our culture and making wack songs,'" D Sharp recounts. "But if you really listen to 'Gucci Gucci,' that shit kinda dope. The beat and her delivery on that shit? I mean, it's a dope record."
Perhaps the biggest controversy isn't of her own making. Wherever Kreayshawn goes, she gets asked about White Girl Mob member V-Nasty's habit of using the word "nigga" in everyday speech — often by people who think Kreayshawn uses it, too. In one recent interview, Philadelphia radio personality Tazz Daddy hammered her:
Tazz Daddy: A lot of people are very upset with your free use of the word "nigga."
Kreayshawn: I don't say that. That's V-Nasty.
Tazz Daddy: ... Do you talk to her about it?
Kreayshawn: Well, when we're in Oakland ... before everyone was staring at us, it was like, 'Yeah, I don't care if she says it, that's Vanessa.' But now that everyone's freaking out about it, thinking I'm saying it ... Now I'm like, 'Vanessa, come on, please.' ... She doesn't get it. Now I'm onstage and I gotta answer this question, and it's V-Nasty's fault.
Tazz Daddy: Pretty much! Because the black people's like, 'Tazz, we're going to kick your ass if you don't ask her. I don't listen to her music, man, but ... ask her!'"
Kreayshawn: Is someone going to sock me in the face right now? 'Cause I'm feeling a little intimidated.
Tazz Daddy: Why, 'cause I'm all big, you all little, I'm all black, you all white — you feel intimidated?
The word upsets people in Oakland, too. Davey D, a prominent Oakland hip-hop journalist, doesn't even like it when black people use the word. "So I'm certainly not going to give them a pass to do it," he says. "If you stand in front of me, I'm certainly going to say something to you."
The question with Kreayshawn, then, seems to be: Will people eventually accept who she is — especially those outside of the Bay Area?
She has already won acceptance from the likes of Snoop Dogg, who collaborated with her on a song, and Drake, who called in to flirt while she was on a radio show. Yet Kreayshawn's swag-filled ovaries are an unusual product of a unique place — the diverse streets of San Francisco and Oakland. And the last hot rap movement to come from those streets went cold very quickly.
The Mercedes sedan glides into the drab intersection of 45th and Market streets in Oakland, its arrival heralded by a strip of metallic lavender along the bottom and a gleaming sea of gold above. The huge fuselage rolls up next to a curb and out of the driver's side rises a tall, thick figure wearing a blazing red T-shirt, a Young and Reckless baseball cap pointed mostly backward, and impossibly baggy jeans fastened somewhere just above the knees. Around his neck hangs a long golden chain with a diamond-encrusted medallion at the end. "Mistah F.A.B.," it reads.
On his home turf, this Oakland rapper seems to know all and be known by all. He tells the neighborhood kids hanging around to put the bottle of champagne they're drinking in a paper bag. He discusses plans for a block party with passersby. He encourages a 13-year-old to get through school and keep his grades up.
A few years ago, F.A.B. was one of the figureheads of a Bay Area rap movement called hyphy, which seemed poised to be the next big thing. With a likeable goofiness, hyphy advocated "going dumb." It employed a lexicon of alien local slang, and made famous the practice of putting a moving car in neutral and getting out to dance on the hood. (F.A.B.'s biggest hit was about this move, called "ghost-riding the whip.") But hyphy didn't blow up nationwide — at least not the way F.A.B., his peers, and the execs who signed them to major-label deals expected. The movement simply didn't find a large enough appeal.
After things fizzled out, Mistah F.A.B. retained his local stardom and, crucially, his freedom to release music independently. His life experience has arguably made his music more interesting. This year he released a song called "Blame Me" — a biting, sarcastic missive to fans and critics who blamed him and other Bay Area rappers like E40 and Keak Da Sneak for hyphy's failure to go national. "The Bay died, they blamed me," F.A.B. raps. "I got banned, criticized, and ridiculed. Media scapegoat, humiliated like a fool."
